While stationed in Bucharest, I watched as the big tricolor in our front courtyard bowed down from its flag pole in anything less than a strong wind. On the other hand, Cuban, Libyan and Nigerian flags are flown in the premises of the residences of those ambassadors in our neighborhoods—fluffed gleefully by even the mildest of Zafar. My father told me the reason: According to our flag code, the tricolor was to be made from Khadi.
To make them durable, as he pointed out, the fabric of khadi had to be such that the larger versions were much heavier than other countries’ flags of silk or nylon or polyester. So it took a lot of wind power to fly our flags. Exposure to extreme temperatures also put pressure on the seam. And the worst part is that once it got wet, it not only became completely limp, it dried out irregularly, distorting its rectangular shape.
Even at that time it was clear to me that Khadi for all its qualities and association with our freedom struggle was unsuitable for the flag. Or parachute. The hand-woven and hand-woven yarn, which Gandhi brilliantly embodied as a symbol of our Indianness—unlike machine-made British millcloths (it doesn’t matter that Indian mills also made the cloth) has always been special. Will be Khadi may have helped destroy an empire, but it is not omnipotent.
Twenty years ago, I went to see what was the most adorable display of khadi since Mahatma Gandhi reintroduced India to hand-spun and hand-woven cotton in 1918 and started the revolution. Gandhi explicitly called it khadi from khadi, alluding to its thick, homely appeal. Nearly a century later, Martand Singh, a descendant of the royal house of Kapurthala, showed how even rustic khadi could be gosmar-thin and miraculously soft.
In an exhibition at the Swiss Ambassador’s house, ‘Mapu’ (as the late textile patron and revivalist friends were known) showed the immense luxury potential of the cloth, which Bapu ingeniously linked to the independence movement and the common Indian. The late prince made it easy to understand why ancient Indian textiles once captivated the world. All fabric at that time was khadi, after all: hand-woven and hand-woven. And India was the best.
In addition to needles and thimble of various materials—from terracotta to bone—there is ample evidence to testify to the emerging textile culture in ancient India in the form of spindles, spindles of charkhas, shuttles for looms. The earliest pieces of cloth found in excavations were coarse, but they became finer over the centuries. Ancient Indians have also left accounts of the tools used to produce cloth and the guilds that built and traded.
The 2nd century CE Greek Arians never came to India, but were so influenced by earlier accounts such as Megasthenes that he reported in his Historia Indica, “India has woolly tufted trees. The natives made of its linen garments, wearing tunics.” The shin, a sheet around the shoulders, and a turban around the head. The muslin made by him of this material was fine, and whiter than any other.” In other words Khadi.
Given its unique heritage, ancient and recent, it was not surprising that in the first wave of independence, it was decided that the Indian flag—a symbol of independent India—be made only of khadi cotton, silk or wool. needed. But neither Bapu and Nehru at that time nor Mapu in 2002 could demonstrate that Khadi had the tensile strength required for flags or parachutes. Or even properties that would make it stand out to the vagaries of the elements.
Today, thanks to changes in the flag code, all Indians can fly the tricolor any day, all day (and night); At the time of independence it was made a monopoly of the government. It is also time to end Khadi’s monopoly on flags as its place in our history and hearts does not depend on being the sole material for the tricolour. My father used to say that polyester will strengthen our flag, not weaken us or India.
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