Indian Flag.

August 15: The ultimate symbol of freedom is the sight of the tricolour flying free in independent Indian skies. And every year on August 15, when the flag is hoisted, it is a moment of national pride. But the standard of free India has gone through a long evolution.

For instance, the various movements for Home Rule that preceded the organised freedom struggle had their own flags -- many emblazoned with the 19th century slogan `Vande Mataram'. It was only at the 1921 Vijayawada session of the All India Congress Committee (AICC) that the present model was adopted.

Conceived by a group of students and presented to Gandhiji for approval, it had saffron and green bands to represent the Hindu and Muslim communities, and a charkha in the middle to represent progress and the swadeshi ideal.

Ever aware of the need for communal solidarity, Gandhiji suggested a white stripe in the middle for the remaining communities. With increasing disturbances plaguing the movement through the '20s and '30s, the white stripe soon came to symbolise peace between the two major religious communities. Till then the semi-official Congress flag, in 1931 a resolution of the AICC in Karachi adopted the tricolour officially to represent free India. The flag grew in popularity, and became the standard of all freedom fighters.

By 1946, as Independence was dawning and Gandhian ideals were on the wane, the charkha was replaced by the Buddhist Ashoka wheel -- a traditional, yet communally neutral symbol that harked back to the days of the great empire of Pataliputra. While Gandhiji objected to this change and the adoption of the Ashokan lion as the national symbol -- the lion to him being a violent creature -- the official symbols of free India were confirmed by the Constituent Assembly on June 22, 1947 and raised above its collonades on the stroke of midnight of August 15 -- the day a free nation was born.

Dr Rafiq Zakaria -- Islamic Scholar, former MLA & MP

From 1944, I was studying in London, and was very involved in politics as chairman of the Federation of Indian Students' Societies, and by association with V K Krishna Menon and his India League. I led a delegation to the new Labour government of Clement Attlee, to represent Indian students to Lord Pethick-Lawrence, secretary of state for India and to Foreign Secretary Ernest Bevin, to demand the grant of Independence following World War II. When the negotiations with the Viceroy Lord Wavell failed, Attlee called Nehru and Jinnah to London. I led a students' delegation to Nehru stating that under no circumstances should India be partitioned. Nehru said we will keep India united.

I first received news of the Mountbatten Plan on June 03, 1947 from the editor of the London Observer, where I was working at the time. The editor summoned me to his office and I refused to believe it. The editor said that the news `has come to us from the horse's mouth' -- meaning Mountbatten. I wrote a scathing attack on the plan and described it as `Congress's greatest blunder'. I also wrote to the Labour organ, The Tribune that Partition would be a great disaster. In less than three months I was proved right: One million Hindus and Muslims were killed, lakhs of women raped, and 10 million Hindus and Muslims were uprooted from their homes. No single person has done greater harm to Muslims than Jinnah. He has done more harm to them than any Hindu has.

When freedom came with Partition there was no rejoicing for Indian students in London. We were shocked that Pandit Nehru had let us down. There was no jubilation and though we held a meeting to celebrate, practically every speaker present said that the Partition was the result of a weak and ineffective leadership. As a Muslim I had to bear the major brunt of Jinnah and his cronies. I was painted as a traitor by other Muslim students.

Abraham Lincoln had come up against a worse situation when the South tried to separate from the North. He fought a war for four years, refused to compromise and preserved the Union. With the result that America is today the greatest world power. So too would India be. As I look back over 50 years I find little to rejoice. I don't have that feeling in my heart because we have let India down.

What are we rejoicing about? After 50 years any objective observer will say things are much worse. Both India and Pakistan spend over Rs 50 crore a year on defence; the cure to the disease has become the disease itself. Our leadership betrayed us. As Jinnah and Liaqat pressed their demands, Maulana Azad sat in a corner and allowed a tide of hatred to overwhelm the Muslims. And that is why I hope to work, in the evening of my life, for the undoing of Partition.

R V Bhasin -- Supreme Court Advocate & BJP Member

At the time of Independence I was 11 years old and was staying in Lahore. I remember the riots vividly. In March 1947 the Congress leader Khizzer Hayat Khan, the premier of Punjab, had resigned his Congress-Akali alliance ministry. Muslim Leaguers, after having announced Direct Action Day under the call of Jinnah, marched in processions beating their breasts and chanting `Khizzer Kutta, Hai, Hai' because he had entered into a coalition that discarded Khan Mamdot of the League. Lahore Muslims termed him a traitor. Two days later he was compelled to resign and his partner Master Tara Singh in the Punjab Assembly tore the Muslim League flag with his sword and the riots began.

I saw five or six Muslims taking hold of a Sikh and beheading him. Muslim mobs looted Hindu or Sikh properties wherever they could and carried away their women in tongas. Our phone was still working at the time, and we heard that riots had spread to every corner of the city. In my ancestral mohalla there were reports of burning, murder and communal attacks. My elder brothers were among the RSS workers who set up relief camps at the station and sought donations from Hindu and Sikh houses, collecting food and clothing. As our house was in the railway colony near the station, all of the women in our home with the help of our Hindu neighbours, cooked non-stop in makeshift tandoors, making roti, dal and vegetables that came mostly from our own gardens. The RSS workers came on bicycles every hour in an unending human chain. We volunteered as much as we were able because every shop was closed down and there was continuous curfew in the city.

While I watched police officers parading the roads I clearly noticed Muslim police officers targetting Hindus and Sikhs -- Sikhs in particular because of their turbans and beards which stood out. I witnessed the pants of the suspected Hindus being cut with swords to see if they had been circumcised. I was helpless but felt tremendous anger.

My hatred towards Muslims had an indelible impression on my childhood. In maturity, I see that the barbarism was justified in their eyes as they felt they were fighting a jehad. They thought they were beheading infidels. I saw it then and I have seen it now -- the unshaken faith of Muslims in this gospel. To kill Hindus and Sikhs is to perform their duty in Islam.

I have now learned to make free India my home, and freedom puts conditions on a person involved in politics. I have always been a strong Hindu-minded person. I believe Hindutva is the spinal cord of India. I see Hindutva as a bond that cements the diverse religions, races and customs. I believe Hindustan is the home of the Hindus, though by being a Hindu a person does not lose his liberty to practise the religion of his choice -- Islam, Christianity or any other.

When Gandhi was shot, I did not feel the slightest bit of remorse. He fasted to force the leadership to give Pakistan an enormous amount of money which Jinnah used to wage war in Kashmir. India's freedom was won on the blood of Punjab, and was being enjoyed by Congressmen in Delhi who betrayed Gandhiji's own slogan: `Akhand Rahega Hindustan, Nahin Banega Pakistan.'

Nani Palkhiwala -- Advocate & Legal Scholar

I was 27 years old at the time. I had started my law practice in 1944, and became an advocate in 1946. At that time I was intellectually concerned with the thought of freedom, though I did not go to jail. I think I was more idealistic than realistic. I have since become thoroughly disappointed and disillusioned. In my wildest dreams I never thought this country would come to such a pass. Obviously I thought this was the beginning of a great era, but it was all just euphoria. Partition was mind-boggling. That was what made me realise how stupid human beings can be. You have no idea of the ferocity of the people here.

I am absolutely surprised to find my own countrymen such scoundrels. I knew Indian culture, I loved my country but I never expected this. This nation has tremendous potential. Even with all the shortcomings and lack of character it manages to do well. But that is because our culture is great.

I am sorry to say that the British had a certain sense of justice and fairness that Indians lack. I never thought that Indians would be so devoid of such qualities. An example is untouchability. Who are you to call your fellow man untouchable? I never realised that this was so ingrained in the Indian character. I have also never seen my profession at such a low point as it is today. It is a noble profession but we have debased it like everything else. My first recollection is of the state ministries being formed and of Indians behaving more inequitably than the British ever did.

It struck me that Indians were not fit to rule themselves. I must have been a fool not to realise it at the time; idealism had blinded me. For the youth the celebrations should ring in great disillusionment. Is this the country where you want to live for the rest of your life? I am reminded of this case of a Brahmin woman pleading in the High Court that her son was the illegitimate offspring of a low-caste husband, just so that her son could gain school admission. For her, the shame of admitting this falsehood in court was less than the shame imposed by our own government's policy. I say such harsh things only because I love this country. That is also why I feel so dejected.

M V Kamath -- Journalist

Even as late as 1946 nobody really believed that we would be free. Those were very exciting times: World War II was over, the Congress leaders had been released, Churchill was out and the new Labour Government was in. But still nobody dared to dream that we would get our Independence. When the date was fixed, it was very hard to describe the feeling of relief, excitement and anticipation.

I was present at the Secretariat building for the lowering of the Union Jack and ascent of the national flag on the night of Independence. All of us watched the hands of the clock on the Rajabai Tower until the stroke of midnight, when all the temple and church bells rang. We all stood up and were in tears. On that day, trams and buses were decorated, no one paid for a ticket, and someone stepping on a bus would suddenly sing, `Vande Mataram' and everyone would join in. I don't think anyone slept that night. There was a line in Nehru's speech, that `an era passes that comes but once in a lifetime'. Suddenly, you forgot everything from the Battle of Plassey in 1757 to the 1857 Mutiny, everything the British had done until that day. The feeling of participating in history is hard to describe.

I joined the Free Press Journal in 1946, which at that time was the lodestar of the freedom struggle. When I decided to be a reporter, I never thought of The Times of India, which was British-owned and all the reporters had to wear a jacket and tie. At Free Press we all wore khadi and sola topees.We thought we could remake the world overnight just by writing an editorial. In fact we remade nothing!

S Ramakrishnan -- Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan

I came to Bombay in early 1939 at the age of 17. The city was a beehive of political activities at the time. As most of the work then concerned khadi and swadeshi, several friends and I started a Charkha Club. Vithaldas Jayrajani had started the first khadi emporium in Bombay, and we approached him and asked whether he wanted to propagate khadi. As a charkha was expensive we began to sell them on installments and would go door-to-door.

Most South Indians in Bombay were suspicious, and we were afraid to hang a portrait of Gandhiji in our homes in Matunga. They used to say that in our community, some were more royal than the King. The fervour was confined to those actually yearning for freedom, as most of the others were concerned only with their careers Bombay was full of educated, unemployed South Indians then. I was an apprentice at Larsen & Toubro when Gandhiji gave his call to the British to Quit India. I was placed in charge of the distribution of a journal called 9 August which circulated news of the movement and recruited new members. As the press was muzzled by the government, we edited the journal at the KEM College Hostel and had a cyclostyle at Andheri which we kept moving to avoid being caught by the police. Gandhiji had been imprisoned at the Aga Khan's Palace in Poona since the movement began and it was reported that he was dying. In 1943, Minoo Masani had organised a batch of volunteers to offer satyagraha to plead for his release and I travelled with my friends to Poona. The British were afraid of an uprising should Gandhiji die and there were machine gun nests on every street corner. On the train we heard that anyone wearing khadi at Poona station would be arrested. So, we got down at the last station before Poona, Shivaji Nagar, and planned to travel by foot. As we were descending the stairs of the house, we heard someone say in Marathi, `You want swaraj?' and we were pushed us into a policeman's arms. We spent the night in jail.

I was at the Gateway of India when freedom came. It was a delirious moment. Through the city there were thunderous crowds. It was bliss to be young; I was 24.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.