The Springing Tiger: Azad Hind’s Tricolour

Tipu’s tiger on freedom’s bands

Picture 74 bends the flag into a heart and puts the wheel where the beat goes. The INA once put a tiger there instead — and meant every claw of it.

The Indian National Army marched under a tricolour of its own reading: saffron, white and green, but with a springing tiger at the centre — the leap of Tipu Sultan’s emblem recast as the sign of armed freedom. The Azad Hind banner of 1943 never became the national flag, but it fixed something the Chakra later inherited: the centre of the tricolour is where India states its intent.