‘A Flag to Live and Die For’ by Navtej Sarna chronicles the untold story of the Tricolour

What ties the Indian flag with a lane in Kolkata? ‘A Flag to Live and Die For — A Short History of India’s Tricolour’ by Navtej Sarna has the answer. It was on Parsi Bagan lane — where the Indian Psychoanalytical Society still runs out of India’s tangible link with the famous Dr Freud — on August 7, 1906 that the first national flag was unfurled. It was a protest to mark a year of the separation of Bengal. The flag was designed by Sachindra Prasad Bose and his friend Sukumar Mitra.

It was inspired by the flag of the French Revolution and had stripes of red, yellow and green with eight half-opened lotuses representing the eight provinces of British India and a sun and a crescent moon “to represent Hindus and Muslims respectively”, writes Sarna. It had ‘Vande Mataram’ inscribed in Devanagari.

Filled with little-known details, Sarna has stitched the story of the flag. The book is slim, a size zero, but it carries heft. He takes readers through the journey of how the flag came to be designed, its adoption and the charkha to chakra evolution. Eloquent, engaging and a storyteller, Sarna keeps you hooked. From the first flag that was unfurled — known as the Calcutta flag or the Vande Mataram flag — to the men and women behind it, the book brings alive the stories woven into warp and weft of the tricolour.

Pingali Venkayya, the man on a mission to make India a flag, is the “true hero”, writes Sarna. A character, he fought in the Boer War, worked as a plague inspector and a railway guard, and witnessed the Calcutta flag being hoisted by Dadabhai Naoroji in 1906. He became obsessed with the idea of a distinctive national flag for India and had printed a book with no less than 24 designs. He had an array of symbols, including the peacock, a bow and arrow and a thunderbolt. Despite his enthusiasm — and his persistence — neither the Congress nor Mahatma Gandhi were deeply impressed with the design. “Whilst I have always admired the persistent zeal with which Mr Venkayya has prosecuted the cause of the national flag at every session of the Congress for the past four years, he was never able to enthuse me; and in his designs, I saw nothing to stir the nation to its depth,” wrote Gandhi in ‘Young India’ on April 13, 1921.

Pingali, also known as Diamond Venkayya — as he also worked in a diamond mine — struck gold finally at the Congress Working Committee Session in Vijayawada in 1921. What moved Gandhi was the suggestion of Lala Hansraj from Jalandhar that the spinning wheel be incorporated in the flag. It was a time when the freedom movement had gathered steam. The Gandhi cap had become a symbol of protest as had the charkha, writes Sarna, and it was in keeping with trend that the need for a flag was felt; especially in the post WW-I world where “there was a clear change in how India was being perceived in the world”.

The flag that came into being then was “a spinning-wheel on a red (Hindu colour) and green (Muslim colour) background”, wrote Gandhi in ‘Young India’. So enthusiastic was Venkayya that he brought it in three hours. Gandhi added a white strip to represent all the other religions. “If Hindus and Muslims can tolerate each other, they are together bound to tolerate all the other faiths,” wrote Gandhi. The idea, as Sarna writes, was not to be divisive but unite.

In revisiting the story of the creation of the flag, Sarna offers a powerful reminder that while the fractures existed — “It is always burning” as Billy Joel sang — there was also repair and togetherness. Sikhs too wanted to be represented, and demanded a colour. Ultimately, the symbolism of the three colours chose — saffron, white and green — were chosen for what the colours represented in Indian culture. Nehru, writes Sarna, clarified that the design had no “‘communal significance’” but was “beautiful, because the symbol of a nation must be beautiful to look at”.

The flag was a collective effort, with different people playing a role. Whether it was Edde Drapers and Tailors in Connaught Place who stitched the first flag that was unfurled or Dr NS Hardikar, who joined the freedom movement upon his return from America and has been largely responsible for the rituals around the flag. It was Hardikar who codified the formal ceremony around the flag in the 1920s, ensuring that the flag became a symbol of India’s resistance.

Thoroughly researched, Sarna’s book unearths details — delicious nuggets about people who have been reduced to footnotes in history — that makes ‘A Flag to Live and Die For’ a compelling read. Not only does he rescue characters like Vijjayan and Hardikar from oblivion, he also adds another satyagraha to India’s struggle for freedom.

The Nagpur Flag Satyagraha was sparked with the desire to raise the Swaraj flag on municipal buildings in March 1923. A delegation led by C Rajgopalchari with Dr Rajendra Prasad, Seth Jamnalal Bajaj and Devadas Gandhi reached Jabalpur to raise funds and enrol volunteers. The desire to unfurl the flag was met with great resistance by the British. This became a rallying point for a satyagraha to “protect the honour” of the national flag leading to arrests. What began at Jabalpur then spread to Nagpur — where it continued for five months — and planted the idea of a flag firmly in the hearts and minds of Indians.

For inspiration or just for stories that should ring in your ears when you see the flag atop a pole, grab a copy.

— The writer is a literary critic