Book Reviews Sadan Jha, Reverence, Resistance and Politics of Seeing the Indian National Flag. Delhi: Cambridge University Press, 2016, 268 pp., `783, ISBN: 9781107118874. Of late, the Indian national flag has hogged the limelight for different reasons. Be it for increase in its size for display at public places, or be its alleged desecration at various instances. The Indian national flag has often become news. This shows sacred, though contested, status of national flags. Moreover, the hallowed stature of national flags is a global phenomenon. This is why US President Donald Trump had once pronounced that ‘‘[n]obody should be allowed to burn the American flag—if they do, there must be consequences—perhaps loss of citizenship or year in jail!’’ 1 Amid the surge of nationalism world over, the Cambridge University Press has published the book under review, dealing with historical accounts fraught with politics of Indian national flag. The book may help in steering clear of confusions and conflict which nationalism tends to sow in its wake. However, this is not the manifest motivation of this monograph. Composed in seven chapters, a long introduction and a short epilogue, the book tries to ‘‘to reconstruct the visual experiences pertaining to a political symbol, the Indian national flag’’ (p. xii). For this, Jha has borrowed the concept of ‘‘believing eye’’ from Mahatma Gandhi which is opposed to the ‘‘observing eye’’ most others tend to possess. Though the book has not been divided as such, one can discern two broad parts. The first part (chapter 1 to 4) goes into the genealogy of Indian national flag while excavating the larger history of visuals of political power, authority and sovereignty in India. The author starts with image of flag on Harappan seals, then chronologically passes through 1 This is what Donald Trump had tweeted on 29 November 2016 when disappointed liberals were protesting his victory by burning the American national flag. The tweet was last accessed on 23 January 2017 at https://twitter.com/realdonaldtrump/status/803567993036754944. Society and Culture in South Asia 3(2) 280–292 © 2017 South Asian University, New Delhi SAGE Publications sagepub.in/home.nav DOI: 10.1177/2393861717700037 http://scs.sagepub.com