Symbols do matter. And an army tank, with its gun-turret pointed towards Parliament House, makes a very unhappy sight. And this symbolism decidedly gets additionally rancid with Brahmos missiles stationed at Vijay Chowk. Newspapers have published photographs of the tank and missiles positioned, all as part of an exhibition being organised by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO). DRDO has rightly earned a reputation of being a vastly under-performing and grossly over-rated organisation among the pantheon of holy cows, beyond reproach and scrutiny. Still it has been allowed to display its doubtful wares at Parliament House. The members of Parliament may be our law-makers but that does not make them experts in making any knowledgeable decisions. The DRDO exhibition is a clear case of over-sale. And these photographs do convey a disquieting picture. One newspaper even felt constrained to caption its photograph: “This is not a coup!” It can only be hoped that when the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, Suchitra Mahajan, allowed the parking of a tank outside Parliament House, she was totally unaware of the distressing imagery at work. With all due respect to her office, she has been a very ordinary and a very mediocre member of a political party that had always tried to make a fetish of its respect and preference for “the soldier.” The ruling BJP may have its own political agenda in injecting a heightened degree of militarism in our public discourse, but as the Speaker of the Lok Sabha she has an institutional obligation to see to it that this temple of democracy does not get slighted, even inadvertently. We live in times when the phony politician deliberately and cynically invokes patriotism to enlist the voter’s support for his unsavoury quest for power. This is a global trend. India and its politicians are no exception. But the country needs to remember that politics of nationalism invariably leads to dangerous jingoism which in turn instigates prescriptions of tests of patriotism. Nationalism is a healthy and empowering sentiment and the soldier is always worthy of respect and a salute. But in these ugly times the democratic voices need to remain vigilant against any creeping militarism.