Twenty-Six January: The Flag’s Constitutional Day

The date behind the greeting

Every January, art like this fills feeds and shopfronts: the Chakra drawn large and proud, a ribbon of saffron and green streaming past it, and the date spelled out — 26 January. The greeting card has become its own little tradition, and the flag is always its centrepiece.

The date is the Constitution’s. Adopted on 26 November 1949 — observed ever since as Constitution Day — the Constitution of India came into force on 26 January 1950, and the country became a republic under the same tricolour. At its commencement the document ran to 395 articles, 22 parts and 8 schedules; the flag flying over it has kept the same design since 1947.