Honouring the national flag: Learning from the Constituent Assembly Debates
The flag should be a symbol of freedom, and most importantly freedom from fear.
Published on: 15 August 2022, 01:45 pm
The flag should be a symbol of freedom, and most importantly freedom from fear.
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TO mark the 75th year of India's independence, the Union Government initiated the 'Har Ghar Tiranga', a campaign meant to 'encourage people to bring the Tiranga home and to hoist it'. The purpose of bringing the flag home is to build a 'personal connection to the Tiranga' and also an 'embodiment of our connection to nation building' as per the website of the 'Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav' celebrations.
Most of the website provides technical information on the flag, without venturing into the territory of what the flag symbolizes. The only gesture to the history behind the flag is a section titled, 'unsung flag martyrs', which through its pen sketches shows that there were ordinary Indians from all parts of the country who defied the British to hoist the flag and paid the price with their lives.
To take just one example, Nallavenkataraya, who was a resident of Mysore State, aged 34 attended a large public meeting in a garden at Vidhuraswatha village in Kolar, Mysore, held by the local Congressmen in defiance of the order which prohibited the hoisting of the National flag and holding of public gatherings. The gathering was first lathi-charged and then fired upon to disperse; Nallevenkataraya died in this police firing on April 25, 1938.
Other than this glimpse into the narratives of blood and tears which is part of the history of the flag, the website is surprisingly silent on what is the 'idea of India' for which blood was shed. Or put simply, what does the national flag symbolize?
The debate
The Constituent Assembly Debates on July 22, 1947 in which 24 members from Hindu, Muslim, Christian, Dalit and Adivasi backgrounds spoke on the resolution moved by Jawaharlal Nehru on the National Flag, crystalizes the meaning of the flag for all Indians. The resolution itself in Nehru's words was a 'technical resolution' with no 'glow or warmth in the words'. It read:
