Independence celebrations didn’t interest Gandhi. The National Flag’s design did

Mahatma Gandhi did not celebrate the end of British rule on August 15, 1947, as many other people did. He plunged himself in peace efforts after being deeply upset by the pre-Partition communal violence and was in Calcutta on the evening of August 14, 1947. Both hoopla and passion were lacking for Harijan, the English weekly produced by Pyarelal, Gandhi's secretary and close adviser.

The editions of Harijan published on August 17, 24, and 31 served as a legitimate repository for Gandhi's writings, ideas, and speeches but were devoid of any articles celebrating the country's independence or written in an overly triumphal tone. With the exception of one subject-discussions regarding the National Flag-the weekly continued to cover Gandhi's post-prayer remarks and other pieces that had nothing whatsoever to do with the Independence.

The Flag's Legacies in Congress

In the Dandi March, Satish Kalelkar, the son of Kaka Kalelkar who returned from Oxford, had followed Gandhi. He advocated for red, white, and green stripes on the national flag in a column published in Harijan. He recalled that the original Congress flag had a charkha in the center and horizontal stripes of white, green, and red in that order. Given that orange might be "anything from yellow, saffron, pink, to the bhagwa of the sadhu's kafni," Kalelkar defended his preference for red over orange.

The other justification for choosing red was to remember the employees who had a "partiality toward the color." If white, the color of purity, were to be used instead of keeping saffron for the desh-sevikas (women who served the country), as some people claimed, Kalelkar asked, "would not Indian womanhood be better suited by white?" He thought that a wheel should take the place of the charkha (spinning wheel), both for aesthetic reasons and because it represents a crucial discovery. The wheel also represented farmers, the American Revolution, industry, the Emperor Ashoka-adopted Buddhist notion of the dharma-chakra, and religion as the "balance-wheel" that supports society.

Gandhi stated in a postscript to Satish Kalelkar's writing that "the three strips were to represent all the communities and the charkha was the symbol of non-violence" and claimed to be "the originator of the first design" of the Indian flag. Harijan, July 6, 1947, p. 221. Later that month, in response to the rumor that the Union Jack would take up a corner of the National Flag after 15 August 1947, he received an angry letter. As long as India remained a Dominion, Gandhi saw no harm in it. At the Congress Working Committee, he "heard with sorrow that the Union Jack was not going to occupy a place on the Flag." Even more, he urged them not to celebrate the omission.

In the following issue of Harijan, Gandhi penned an editorial titled The National Flag. The Congress flag becoming the National Flag infuriated several people. Gandhi refuted the charge in his letter, stating that the Congress "never represented a party, but...represented all parties and all Indians." (Page 260 of Harijan, August 3, 1947) He recalled that in 1921, the nation acting through the Congress accepted the National Flag by its very name. Gandhi warned that "the improved condition of the Flag has value only if it answers the significance attached to the Original," citing an article he authored in 1921. The spinning wheel was said to be Gandhi's toy and an elderly woman's comfort, which was an argument against the traditional flag with a charkha.We want lions to be mounted on Ashoka's disc.We've had enough of timidity. In the modern day, we are sick of wearing khadi. Gandhi firmly stated, "I would refuse to salute the flag that bears the foregoing interpretation, however artistic it may appear," in his letter.

Another group saw the flag's wheel as an enhanced, artistic representation of the spinning wheel. Gandhi wasn't opposed to it. If any further but non-inconsistent interpretations are added to this essential meaning, the additions will undoubtedly be harmless, the author said. Gandhi was willing to embrace it as "the necessity of obeying the ever-moving Wheel of the Divine Law of Love" because of the wheel's connection to Ashoka's ultimate abandonment of pomp and power. Gandhi said he had no problem as long as people preserved charkha and khadi in their hearts when they expressed their regret over the absence of charkha in the new Flag.

Nehru's ideas

Jawaharlal Nehru was portrayed giving Gandhi his charkha back with the caption, "Bapuji, here is your spinning wheel," by the Gujarati cartoonist "Chakor."

Nehru did not find these interpretations amusing. He explicitly stated, "It must not be imagined that we have given up the charkha or what it symbolized because the whole charkha is not there now. The Constituent Assembly's resolution made it quite clear that the wheel in the middle stood in for the charkha.

He disregarded recommendations that the wheel should have been larger and cover some of the saffron and green stripes, saying that the charkha gave the flag a certain kind of conceptual elegance. He claimed that the suggestion "exhibited a lack of appreciation for the artistry of the entire design." He acknowledged the relationship between the wheel and Ashoka and then stated that the flag represents India's working class. It is both contemporary and transports us to the rich cultural traditions of ancient India. As a result, it demonstrates both the enduring nature of Indian culture and the country's current vibrancy.

Professor Radha Kumud Mookerji commented on the wheel's significance, the Dhamma-chakra, as the Gandhian principle of "Ram Rajya," or "right against might." As a "successor of Lord Vishnu's Sudarshan Chakra, the Cosmic Circle, within which is comprehended all that is, animate or inanimate," he also described it. The truth is, as Gandhi already said, it's all in the heart.