Quest for a National Flag for India; Part -IX; The First Swaraj Flag (1921-1931)

At Kamakura in Japan, Rash Behari Bose hoisted the Swaraj flag in celebration with the beginning of Gandhi’s Salt Satyagraha on 12 March, 1930.

Kamala Devi Chattopadhyay leads a Flag procession in January1930.

The slogan imprinted on the banner reads:

 “Up, Up with the National Flag, 
Down Down with the Union Jack”

With the rapid spread of National up-risings through Non-violence and Non-Co-operation Movements spear headed by the Congress in 1920s, stamp like labels bearing picture of Swadeshi flag, National leaders and slogans, such as, “Boycott Foreign Goods” and/or “Boycott British Goods” (in philatelic term these labels are called Cinderellas) surfaced in the Indian scene. These Indian patriotic Boycott labels were similar to the Sinn Fein lebels of the IRA Movements. The stamp like Sinn Fien labels was made by the Irish political leaders in the early 1900s, primarily to collect funds for the IRA. British Post Office declared these labels as illegal in 1905 and mails bearing Sinn Fien labels affixed on postal articles were either confiscated or returned to the senders. In similar manner, in India the Director-General of Posts and Telegraphs issued a Postal Notice which appeared in ‘Gazette of India’ on August 9, 1930 prohibiting the use of Boycott labels side by side with ordinary postage stamps on postal articles for transmission. My friend Mr. Asok Bayanwala of Ahmadabad, has built up a unique collection on Indian Boycott labels titled ‘Forbidden Mails’. There is an article written by Franklin D’Souza in the September 1930 issue of the ‘Philatelic Journal of India’, which may be considered as a good reference work for anybody desires to do further research on this subject. 

(to be continued)

 Indian Flag on Foreign Stamps

The new United Nations International Personalized Stamp Sheet (Product ID:3933558)  consists of 10 stamps in the denomination of US$ 0.98 and features:

Flags of the United Nations (Indian National flag is focused prominently) (photo taken in 1959) at United Nations Headquarters with the Secretariat Building in the background; Sculpture entitled "Single Form" by Barbara Hepworth; United Nations flag; Sculpture entitled "Sphere within a Sphere" by Italian sculptor Arnaldo Pomodoro, presented to the United Nations by Italy on 21 November 1996; and view of UN Headquarters and the Chrysler building.

(Sheet price: US$ 14.95, for more details contact UNPA at New York)

National Flags of the SAARC member countries

New Bhutanese miniature sheets issued in April 2010 to commemorate 25 years of SAARC.