The Flame Beside the Flag: Amar Jawan Jyoti

Lit in 1972, burning still

The colours behave like fire here — saffron flaring, green rising as smoke — and the Chakra holds inside the blaze. India keeps a real flame in the flag’s company, and it has its own dates.

The Amar Jawan Jyoti — the eternal flame for the immortal soldier — was lit beneath India Gate on 26 January 1972, honouring the fallen of the 1971 war and all who never returned. Fifty years on, on 21 January 2022, that flame was merged with the one burning at the National War Memorial a short walk away, where it keeps its vigil today — the fire and the flag, remembering together.