Currents of Freedom: The Flag of 15 August

The current that began in 1947

Here the bands loosen into silk — saffron and green flowing like two currents of one river, the Chakra carried along where they meet. It is the festival mood of the flag: the look of bunting in a breeze on an August morning.

That mood has a birthday. The tricolour first flew over free India on 15 August 1947, the morning the Dominion of India began, and it has owned that date ever since. In 2022, the 75th year of independence, the Har Ghar Tiranga campaign renewed the romance — inviting every household in the country to raise the flag itself.