In April of the celebratory 75th year of India’s independence, the Centre amended the Flag Code of India and allowed the import and manufacturing of machine-made national flags — made from polyester.
This was meant to celebrate the Tricolour and make it more accessible. But it missed the point: the khadi flag was crucial in its symbolism and to Gandhi’s wish to ensure work for India’s spinners and weavers. In its design, the Tiranga, our national flag, was intended as a metaphor for India and its diverse communities, linked together by the sacred wheel of the Ashoka Chakra.
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Equally important to the creators of the flag was its base material. Khadi was the fabric of our freedom movement; the spinning of thread on the charkha, and the play of warp and weft on the loom, wove together the themes of Swadeshi, our traditional hand crafts, and employment for rural communities, especially women.
For Gandhi and successive post-Independence generations, the flag embodied our identity, our ideals, our hopes and vision for the future. As per the Flag Code of India published in June 1947: “The National Flag of India shall be made of hand-spun and hand-woven wool/cotton/silk khadi bunting.” Over the years, production of these flags gave work to thousands of spinners and weavers and to khadi units all over India.
Both khadi and Swadeshi have taken quite a hit, and globalised brands invade every mall. | Photo Credit: Illustration: Sasha Ashok
All sold out
As we hoisted our flags at Dastkar and my home this August 15, it was in unison with most of India: every juggi, institution, office and dwelling flew a flag. However it was difficult to find cotton flags, let alone khadi ones. The Khadi Gramudyogs had sold out long ago, an apathetic salesman told us.
The Indian flag market was already flooded with synthetic flags sold all over the country, from street corners to sports stadiums. Most were from China, robbing already straitened rural spinners, weavers and tailors of much-needed earning. Now this has been made legal and official.
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Of course we want people to wave flags: they carry an important message. However, there are things more important than price. And national identity and employment are surely two of them? Cheap is not necessarily better. That said, there are many ways to produce cheaper flags. Setting up more production units, investing in and streamlining production, making paper flags (unlike polyester and plastic, they are biodegradable), training homebound women to stitch flags, and removing that absurd ban on anyone except Khadi and Village Industries Commission (KVIC) marketing khadi are some of them. Importing synthetic polyester flags is certainly not the answer. What happened to Atmanirbhar Bharat and Make in India? And what about our pride in Swadeshi?
Charkha vs Ashoka Chakra
My favourite Indian flag is the one seen stencilled on the flushed cheeks of excited youngsters at test matches. The second best, and most appropriate, is the original khadi one, imbued with history and meaning.
My parents were part of the making of that first official national flag. My mother stitched the mock-up on her trusty Singer machine, and identified the exact colours by painting careful swatches (no Pantone Color Systems then!). In the midst of all that was going on — planning a new nation, the anguish of Partition, the thousand decisions that needed to be made — our leaders and the Flag Committee set up in the Constituent Assembly took a keen interest in every detail. Gandhi was sad that his beloved charkha was going to be replaced by the Ashoka Chakra, but understood that the Congress party flag could not be the flag of the nation. He did, however, have his way in changing the colour of the chakra from the black my mother had painted into a deep blue.
The thrill that the Tricolour gives me as it flies free has nothing to do with this personal connection. For my generation, it exemplifies everything that India should be. Let its integral elements remain. Let it remind us of what it meant and should mean.
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Both khadi and Swadeshi have taken quite a hit, and globalised brands invade every mall; the lure of ‘made in forrun’ is irresistible to a nation economically liberalised just a few decades ago. Especially since khadi and village industries are sold so boringly and badly, by a creaking ancient organisation that refuses to move forward, and still thinks discounts on Gandhi’s birthday are a brilliant marketing ploy!
No one is trying to turn back the clock and force khadi on everyone or coerce them to use only items made in India. Nor does everyone have to wear handloom saris. Today’s generations are fortunate in having the best of the East and West, Swadeshi and videshi: a tie-dyed khadi kurti looks as good paired with Levi’s jeans as a Benetton T-shirt.
Khadi’s cool factor
We need to take khadi and Swadeshi out of the hands of the KVIC, to rebel against the ridiculous prohibition of anyone else using the word ‘khadi’ to market it (Fabindia and others were slapped with lawsuits for doing so). We must try to make words that Gen-Z finds so archaic and dreary into exciting brand names in their own right. Sell the fact that khadi is tactile and wonderful to wear in our long summers: literally and metaphorically ‘cool’. We need to promote and upgrade the amazing things that Indian hands can make, and realise that their sale brings wealth to the economy and each of us, rather than dismissing them as products made by ‘poor people’ and therefore less trendy.
Meanwhile, let us all loudly protest the legitimised intrusion of polyester in our flags. Gandhi would be aghast at this desecration of his beloved fabric of freedom and the Tiranga. Sadly, his name is just lip service these days, and his ideas, highly practical as well as idealistic, are relegated to our municipal dustbins where his spectacles, painted above exhortations to be clean, remain his only remembrance.
The writer is a designer, author, and chairperson-founder member of Dastkar, Society for Crafts & Craftspeople.
Published - September 30, 2022 08:00 am IST
