Impression

‘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.’

Overtures

Nations are historically formed and so are the markers associated with them. Memories, narratives, maps, symbols, icons, museums and memorials are few such markers. The relationship between a nation and these markers seem to be so complete that we either ignore the complexities of this dynamics or take them for granted. We quite frequently assume individual memories, fragments of intimate experience or symbols circulating in every day life as bearing the prefix ‘national’. By such acts of conflation and through these relationships the nation marks its presence in the everyday life of its inhabitants. Disseminated through modern technologies, like print these markers, create solidarities and perpetuate ties to provide the shape of a community look ‘larger than primordial villages of face-to-face contact’ and nation turns into an ‘imagined community’, to borrow the phrase from Benedict Anderson. However, these memories, narratives, maps and symbols also come before us as sites of intense conflict. History informs us that these markers are both pious and contested, shared yet fractured, adored and aspired but also deeply debated and resisted. Historical processes which have shaped the colours and contours of these markers then leave us wondering about the innocent prefix, i.e. national. The narratives which inform us about these sites and symbols also call for a close scrutiny of the completeness and assumed equation between the nation and its markers. This is one such study.

In India, the process of nation making coincided with the resistance against the colonial regime and witnessed a wide range of political, social and cultural movements. Through symbolic practices these movements and ideologies have expressed their ideals and principles of new or envisioned order in colonial as well as post colonial milieus. Indian national flag is a crucial component of this symbolic assemblage.

This book is a study of the national flag of India, delineating history and ways of seeing this symbol. An attempt has been made to understand the politics that go into making of such ways of seeing the tricolour flag as, probably, the most revered among the symbols, icons and markers associated with nation and nationalism in twentieth century India.