AS a child in the 1940s, the sight of the the flag of the Indian National Congress (we were told that was our national flag) would give us goose pimples, set the body tingling with excitement and evoke a curious feeling of identification and belonging. The story of its metamorphosis into our actual National Flag on August 15, 1947, is long and interesting.

As part of our cultural and political history, flags served as rallying markers or symbols of royal authority centuries before the Christian era; flags made an entry in Europe around 12 A.D. Our present flag is the outcome of the constant endeavour of secular national leaders since the beginning of the twentieth century to have a banner that would unite various communities of the country enough to inspire them to work together for national goals. Interestingly, the Indian National Congress was neither the original designer nor the first to hoist the Tricolour.

The Tricolour was first unfurled by a group of young revolutionaries in Calcutta on August 7, 1906, as one of the acts of anger and defiance against Curzon’s partition of Bengal in 1905. The flag bore three horizontal stripes of green, yellow and red. The green stripe had eight white lotuses on it, the yellow bore the inscription Vande Mataram in Devnagari script in deep blue, and the white stripe had the sun on the left and a white crescent and a star on the right. In no time this flag was seen all over, even abroad. The New York’s Gaelic American, brought out by the Irish of the country, printed this Tricolour in its issue of October 27, 1906, as the ‘National Flag of India’. Copies of the issue were sent by the British Consul-General in New York, to the Secretary of State for India, John Morley, in London, who passed these on to Lord Minto, the Viceroy in India.

Similarly, in 1907, Madame Bhikhaji Rustam Cama surprised a large gathering of activists and intellectuals at the International Socialist Congress in session at Stuttgart (Germany), when she unfurled what was received as the Indian flag; both the flag and the exiled revolutionaries from the country received a standing ovation from the congress. It was the same flag as the one publicised by the Gaelic American, except that Vande Mataram in the centre of the yellow stripe had been shortened to Matar and inscribed in white instead of the earlier deep blue; the sun on the red stripe had been moved towards the free side, and the crescent was placed towards the pole and there was no star. This modified flag, now preserved in the library of Maratha and Kesri in Pune, was smuggled into India by Indulal Yagnik, a socialist leader from Gujarat. No modification in this flag was made for the next 10 years.

Annie Besant, the leader of the Home Rule League, wanted drastic changes in the composition and complexion of the flag. She suggested two, instead of three, colours in the flag, with nine stripes in all — five in red, four in green, alternately arranged horizontally, with seven stars in Saptrishi configuration superimposed on them; its top left hand corner was to have the Union Jack, and a white crescent and star was to occupy the top right hand corner. Adopted by the Home Rule League, this modified flag was hoisted at the League’s sessions and campaign. Inclusion of the Union Jack on the flag was, apparently, based on Besant’s campaign for making India a dominion like Australia and others in the British empire. This, however, was not acceptable to other political leaders in the country who preferred the Tricolour.

The December 1917 Congress session at Calcutta, under Besant’s presidentship, formally considered the question of the National Flag. A committee was constituted to recommend a design, but it never met, and the Congress carried on with the Tricolour till further modifications were made in it later. Significantly, the need of a flag was widely felt and forcefully articulated, perhaps for the first time in the nationalist struggle.

In Young India of April 13, 1921, Gandhi held forth: "A flag is a necessity for all nations. Millions have died for it. It is no doubt a kind of idolatry, which it would be a sin to destroy. For a flag represents an ideal. It will be necessary for us Indians — Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Jews, Parsis, and all others to whom India is their home — to recognise a common flag to live and to die for." "Mr P. Venkayya," continued Gandhi, "of the National College, Masulipatam has for some years placed before the public a suggestive booklet describing the flags of the other nations and offering designs for a national flag. But whilst I have always admired the persistent zeal with which Mr Venkayya has prosecuted the cause of a national flag at every session of the Congress for the past four years, he has never been able to enthuse me and in his designs I saw nothing to stir the nation to its depths. It was reserved for a Punjabi to make a suggestion that at once arrested attention. It was Lala Hansraj of Jullundur (actually the Lala came from Bajwara across the choe from Hoshiarpur) who, in discussing the possibilities of the spinning wheel, suggested that it should find a place on our swaraj flag. I could not help admiring the originality of the suggestion."

During the 1921 AICC session at Vijaywada, Gandhi asked Venkayya to give him "a design containing a spinning wheel on red (Hindu colour) and green (Muslim colour) background." The Mahatma later said, "His enthusiastic spirit enabled me to possess a flag in three hours. It was just a little late for presentation to the AICC. I am glad it was so. On mature consideration, I saw that the background should represent other religions also. Hindu-Muslim unity is not an exclusive term, it is an inclusive term, symbolic of the unity of all faiths domiciled in India. If Hindus and Muslims can tolerate each other, they are together bound to tolerate all other faiths. The unity is not a menace to other faiths represented in India or to the world. So, I suggest that the background should be white and green and red. The white portion is intended to represent all other faiths. The weakest numerically occupy the first place, the Islamic colour comes next, the Hindu colour, red, comes last, the idea being that the strongest should act as a shield to the weakest. The white colour, moreover, represents purity and peace. Our national flag must mean that or nothing. And to represent the equality of the least of us with the best, an equal part is assigned to all the three colours in the design."

The flag suggested by Gandhi continued to be used by the Congress till 1931, though it was not officially adopted by the Congress.

In preparation for the declaration of Poorna Swaraj, the Hindustani Sewa Dal at Calcutta decided in mid-1929 that the National Flag be hoisted throughout the country at 8 o’clock in the morning on the last Sunday of every month. This monthly unfurling became very popular; many buildings, including municipalities, observed this ceremony with great solemnity. Indeed, the last Sunday of the month actually came to be known as the ‘Flag-Hoisting Day’.

At mid-night of the last day of the same year (December 31, 1929), in Lahore, the president of the Congress session, Jawaharlal Nehru, hoisting the flag, declared: "It is our ‘flag of complete independence’. He exhorted the people of India to keep in mind, "now that this flag is unfurled, it must not be lowered as long as a single Indian lives in India."

A few years later, the question of the flag arose again. This time the Sikhs demanded incorporation into it a colour acceptable to them; the matter had been moved at the Lahore Congress too. At the Karachi session in 1931, the Congress Working Committee instituted a National Flag Committee to examine the objection taken by some that the colours of the flag had been conceived on communal basis; the committee was to report by July that year.

Nehru wrote to Pattabhi Sitaramayya (April 12, 1931) that in ordinary circumstances he was not in favour of making any further alterations in the flag which had already become very popular. "The people of the villages, especially," he pointed out, "have identified it with our struggle for freedom and any change will confuse them. Given the CWC decision in the wake of debate over the connotation attached to the colours, it becomes necessary to modify it in the national interest. The National Flag Committee appointed by the CWC needs to make it very clear that no colour represents or will represent a community." However, he said, he would not suggest any drastic changes. The placement of the colours should be aesthetically attractive, Nehru pointed out. white at the top is not very attractive as it does not show"; he therefore preferred putting it in the middle. That the existing flag was identical to the Bulgarian flag made the change very desirable. Nehru suggested also that red be replaced by a shade of saffron as it was an old Indian colour associated with sacrifice and since "this colour has been adopted by the women of India and it would be graceful and deserving tribute to the women to adopt this colour in the flag." Saffron, he felt, should be at the top. He, however, wanted to retain both red and green as he considered them beautiful colours. Nehru’s preference for red has been ascribed to his sympathies for workers.

The National Flag Committee, however, recommended that the flag be of saffron colour with a charkha on it in blue. The CWC at the AICC meeting in Bombay on August 7 (1931) unanimously rejected this on the ground that no communal significance be attached to the flag. The CWC wanted as little change as possible in the old, existing flag. Nehru hoped that the aesthetic appeal and heraldic principles would be kept in mind. As a true democrat, he did not want any suggestion of dynasty or royalty in the design. The flag committee carefully considered the suggestions received and finally approved: "The National Flag shall be three-coloured, horizontally arranged as before, but the colours shall be saffron, white and green in the order stated from top to bottom, with spinning wheel in the centre of the white stripe, the colours standing for qualities not communities. The saffron shall represent courage and sacrifice, white peace and truth, and green shall represent faith and chivalry and the spinning wheel the hope of the masses. The proportions of the flag should be as three to two."

Nehru expressed relief at the decision, "At last the controversy over the flag issue will be forgotten." Any association with an individual or use of the flag on a person’s body was discouraged except during the Congress session. The volunteers and participants could use small flags as buttons.

Just before Independence, the issue of the flag again raised a debate. Other political parties objected that the existing flag was a Congress flag. The British Government too was not entirely indifferent on the question. On Tuesday, July 22, 1947, the Constituent Assembly meeting with Dr Rajendra Prasad in the chair took up the issue of the National Flag as the first item on its agenda. Pandit Nehru moved: "Resolved that the National Flag of India shall be horizontal tricolour of deep saffron (kesri), white and dark green in equal proportion. In the centre of the white band, there shall be a wheel in navy blue to represent the charkha. The design of the wheel shall be that of the wheel (Chakra) which appears on the base of Sarnath Lion statue of Asoka. The diameter of the wheel shall approximate to the width of the white band. The ratio of the width to the length of the flag shall ordinarily be 2:3.

The resolution was adopted after due deliberation. The ratio of the width of the flag to its length, its dimensions as well as its colour scheme remained the same as decided at the August 1931 CWC meeting. Only the charkha in the middle was replaced in adaptation by simply a wheel, which besides being Asoka’s Dharma Chakra also carries the manifold philosophical traditions inherent in the concept of the ‘wheel of life’ and thereby ascribes to it a secular perspective.

Flags were originally devised perhaps as markers of identification and distinction among groups and organisations. In our case, the Tricolour became from the very beginning a unifying factor for one and all — urban-rural, men-women, literate-illiterate, and so on. The flag and freedom are ours today, but the struggle for freedom from poverty, illiteracy, disease, exploitation, perversion and corruption has to go on, for that was the pledge enjoined on us when we adopted the flag.