India: Information Guide & Resources Directory

 

Welcome to our India website. We have gathered information on the general facts about India's culture, religion and lifestyle. We have also provided visual guides to show you some examples of the given information. Below is an example of the type of facts we have provided. Read further to learn more about the fascinating country India.

 

 

The Flag of India

There are certain moments in the cultural and political life of a nation when the national flag comes into notibility. Every Indian is aware that the Prime Minister unfurls the national tricolor from the ramparts of the Red Fort every Independance Day on August 15, and indeed, the observance of January 26th as Republic Day goes back to December 31, 1929, when Jawaharlal Nehru hoisted the flag of the Indian National Congress, gave a call for Purna Swaraj, and asked people to observe January 26th as Independance Day.

Along with the national anthem, the national flag is a large expression of India. It is supremely and specialy iconic of the nation-state. It is understood that the honor and integrity of the nation captured byt the flag, and as the history of every country shows, the national flag is uniquely capable of enlisting the aid of citizens, giving rise to sentiments of nationalism, and evoking the supreme sacrifice of death. In every respect, the national flag commands allegiance.

Most Indians, in the past, were forbidden under the pain of punishment to fly the national flag from the premises of their residential or office building. The present flag is the flag Mahatma Gandhi lent his hand in design. Congress adopted it in 1921. Two years after the massacre at Jallianwala Bagh, Gandhi observed that the red in the flag represented Hindus, the green stood for Muslims, and the white represented other faiths. The spinning wheel in the middle of the flag pointed to the oppressed condition of every Indian, just as it evoked the possibility of rejuvenating every Indian household. Gandhi didn't think the matter of the national flag was trifling. A famous quote from Gandhi was, "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."

Gandhi's flag, as it was known to English officials, was with some modifications formally adopted by the Congress in 1931 as the National Flag, and this flag in turn became the basis, with the substitution of the wheel on the capital of Asoka's Sarnath Pillar for the charkha, for the National Flag chosen by the Constituent Assembly in July 1947. Between 1921 and 1947, a war of attrition developed between Indian nationalists and government officials over the right to fly the Gandhi or Congress flag. Indian nationalists found that hoisting the flag invariably attrackted the wrath, and often the vengeance, of British officials, and usually the flag was ordered to be brought down.

All too often the national flag in most countries has not been the pivot around which sentiments not merely of nationalism but of jingoism, hatred, and racial exclusivism have been fostered. One can only hope that the Indians will prevail upon themselves to display a more judicious and restrained attitude towards the flag. There may also well be a time, in the very near future, when the Indian parliament and judiciary will have to deliberate in an altogether different manner on the status of the flag. Is the burning of the National Flag protected under the Constitution as an expression of free speech, or must such an act invariably be constituted as an offense punishable under law? In the cultural and political semiotics of nationhood, the National Flag is bound to occupy an increasingly important place.

 

 

 

To read more about India, click here.

 

Community members have submitted the below.
We encourage you to visit the below and benefit from the information: