FLAG STATUES IN INDIA
To adorn a city by means of that oldest form of plastic art – Sculpture – is an old and time-honoured usages. It was more common in ancient Egypt and ancient Greece than anywhere else, and it originated in ancient India and other lands also independently….. Sculpture and statuary as decoration of a town came to be adopted as a universal practice in the West through the example of the Greeks and the peoples of Italy. ………The different countries of Europe began to vie with one another in this matter, and Italy and Germany, France and Spain, and England produced some of great sculptures whose works adorning the various towns and galleries of Europe form the pride of modern European art…….
The English, after they
became established in India as masters of the land, in Bengal and elsewhere,
introduced, along with other things of European culture, the practice of
erecting statues of eminent persons as a
most graceful form of town-decoration. ……..The statues which were set up in India at the
instance of the ruling English naturally were of Britishers eminent in the
history of the establishment of English power and prestige in the country……. .
So wrote National Professor Dr Suniti
Kumar Chatterji in an article titled ‘Calcutta Sculpture’ in November,
1925.
After India gained independence
in 1947, many a statues have been erected at street-corners and public places all over
India immortalizing our freedom fighters and national heroes. Most of these statues have been erected in places connected with the person celebrated, or, where an event that
took place glorifying the whole nation. Several of these Statues - both in relief and
round forms – have commemorated ‘Flag Events’ and ‘Flag Personalities’.
Pingali Venkayya (1876–1963), hailing from Masulipatam (Machilipatnam),
founded the Indian National Flag Mission and relentlessly pursued his goal to
give shape to a distinctive national flag to be accepted by all.
In 1916 Venkayya came up with a booklet
titled ‘A National Flag for India’ in which he put forth about twenty-four
designs for the Indian flag.None of the flags designed by Venkayya could satisfy the then leaders who mattered.
In
April 1921, prior to the Bezwada
(now, Vijayawada) Congress, Mahatma Gandhi asked Venkayya to prepare a design
which should contain a Charkha
(spinning wheel) on a red (Hindu colour) and green (Muslim colour) background. The Charkha was placed on the
flag apropos of the suggestion made by Lala
Hansraj of Jullundur(Jalandhar).
Later, on maturer consideration of
Mahatma Gandhi, a white band,
representing the other religions, was added on top of the colour green.
The
Tirupur Kumaran Memorial at Tirupur, Tamil Nadu.
The Martyr's Memorial is a life-size statue of seven brave young men who sacrificed their lives in the Quit India movement (11 August 1942), to hoist the National Flag on the Secretariat building, Patna, Bihar. The foundation stone of Martyr's Memorial was laid on August 15, 1947, by the governor of Bihar Jairam Das Daulatram. The sculptor Deviprasad Roychoudhry built the bronze statue of the seven students with the National Flag. These statues were cast in Italy and later placed here. The seven students, whose names are engraved on the Martyrs’ Memorial in Patna were:
Umakant
Prasad Sinha – Ram Mohan Roy Seminary,
class IX
Ramanand
Singh – Ram Mohan Roy Seminary,
class IX
Satish
Prasad Jha – Patna Collegiate
School, class X
Jalpati
Kumar – Bihar National
College, 2nd year
Devipada
Choudhry – Miller High
English School, class IX
Rajendra
Singh – Patna High English
School, Matriculation class
Ramgovind Singh – Punpun High English School, Matriculation
class
India Post is yet to come out with a stamp on Kanaklata Barua, the real heroine of Assam
On
20 September 1942, Kanaklata Barua, at Gohpur in Assam, a young girl then led a procession of
unarmed villagers waving Purna
Swaraj flags to the nearby police station. As soon as Kanaklata unfurled the flag at the
police station she and her companion Mukunda
Kakati were gunned down by the Police. On the same day at Dhekiajuli
police station eleven villagers were gunned down by the Police while trying to
hoist the Purna Swaraj flag - three of them were teen-aged girls - Tileswari, Numali and Khahuli.
Matangini Hazra statue, Kolkata
A statue now stands at the spot where she was killed in Tamluk, East Medinipur.
And a Memorial Pillar adjacent to Matangini Statue at Tamluk
Matangini leading the procession, statue at Nandkumar, East Medinipur.
A statue now stands at the spot where she was killed in Tamluk, East Medinipur.
Matangini Hazra was known as ‘Gandhi-buri’ (literally
an old female version of Gandhi). At the age of seventy-three
she joined the Quit India movement, as an active volunteer. On 29 September1942, while she was
leading a procession at Tamluk in Midnapore, with the Purna Swaraj flag in her hands, a shower of bullets from the police
felled her. While dying, she had held the flag high and had collapsed only when
she had passed the flag onto the next marcher; the flag had remained unsullied.
Note: The FDCs and Special Covers depicted above were all post marked at the birth/event place
