This Independence Day

It is a rainy day in Barabanki, but everyone seems busier than usual at the Gandhi Gram Udyog which sits nestled in a grove of neem and banana trees. A stream of a familiar green colour is flowing in the drain that runs outside the various departments in the Udyog. Following the trail, one reaches a dark room, heavy with the acrid smell of dye. Two men, Brajesh and Sunderlal are busy at their table dyeing yards of khaadi with the familiar green colour. “We make over five thousand national flags a year,” says Sunderlal matter of factly, while wiping the sweat off his brow with his angocha, gingerly avoiding the dye on his hands from leaving a stain on his face. The rest of his and Brajesh’s bodies are a riot of colours from the dyeing process. They, alongwith over two hundred others have worked at the Udyog in Barabanki since 1980.

Peeping into the dark room is Dudhnath, “He is our chief designer” Chaggu ji, a head of one of the many departments at the Udyog and one’s guide says. Dressed in a plain khaadi kurta and
pajama, the diminutive and shy Dudhnath shows us his designs. “I was trained in Bombay”, he smiles. The intricately designed traditional motifs are spaced out on tracing paper. Spreading his charts out on a glass table with two tube lights under it he looks at Chaggu ji for approval. “It is his duty to see that the proportions of the charkha in the center of the flag are perfect”, says the friendly Chaggu. Folding his hands before a picture of Goddess Saraswati, Dudhnath gets back to work, reminding the supervisor that one of the tubelights is fused.

Back in the dark dyeing room, Sunderlal and Brajesh continue explaining their role in the making of the Tiranga. “We press the white cloth in this wooden frame and let the ink soak in, one has to be extremely careful”says Brajesh, demonstrating on a piece of white khaadi. Sunderlal who continues dyeing the khaadi adds, “The flags cannot have a defect, it’s easier to dye and print motifs on bedcovers and saris”! Brajesh nods his head, he says that nothing can pass the watchful eye of Mataprasad Sharma ji, who checks all the flags.

Mataprasad ji is busy overseeing the washing and drying of khaadi in the next department. Extremely proud of his “big machines”, which “fall sick every two years” he points out at a large roller being manually turned by two other men, “We use a binder for making the cotton stronger and after dipping it in the binder we roll it into thaans”.

Mataprasad ji is one of the most enthusiastic workers at the Udyog, he lives with his family on the campus and insists that nobody celebrates Independence Day the way the workers here do. “We have three special days every year, one is Independence Day, the other Gandhi Jayanti and the last Republic Day. This year we will march five kilometers with the national flag and sing vande mataram! Then we will collect under the national flag and mantri ji will deliver a speech, after which everyone will get mithai” his face lights up while relating the details of their plan. A day in the life of these workers begins as early as 5:00 a.m., after an hour of mandatory shramdaan, in which they weed the gardens or clean the departments they proceed for the 9:00 a.m. assembly. “After singing vande matram together, we sit at our charkhas for an hour”, smiles Chaggu guiding one to the next department.

“This here is an important department! And that is Ramkripal, he has been working here for seven years” Chaggu points at a harried young man with spots of green paint all over him. “I mix the colours here,” Ramkripal says while picking up blue cans of dry paint powder. “First, I put the powder in this can and then slowly add kerosene, the fixer, glycerin and finally urea. Then I switch on the highpowered machine!” he says in an officious tone, everyone else in the room looks at him with respect as he demonstrates the entire procedure, concentrating on the compositions “The most important thing is, you must add the kerosene slowly, otherwise everything will go wrong!” two young students from a nearby high school observe him carefully as he turns his “highpowered machine” in the can, churning out a consistent paste of white colour.

Guiding one back to the center head office, Chaggu ji continues “We start making the national flags two months in advance before Independence Day and Republic Day. The stitching is done by local women, khaadi is made in the surrounding villages and everything else is done here”, he concludes with a smile.

When one asks Mataprasad ji who is walking alongside us, which teaching of the Mahatama’s he finds most significant personally and especially on the eve of Independence Day, he says “I like Gandhi ji’s charkha. While I work on it for an hour every morning, it teaches me two things one is to control my anger and frustration whenever the yarn breaks and the second to never give up, because each time the thread breaks you have to attach it and start spinning all over again.” He believes that these are the two qualities that helped Mahatma Gandhi win us independence.

But to Ramkripal Independence Day isn’t just another day, “All these colours I make go into making our flag every year. I feel the spirit of freedom while mixing the colours here for the flag that waves in Lucknow.” Mataprasad ji, Ramkripal, Suderlal and Brajesh may have never seen the Vidhan Sabha but it is from their labour that the Tiranga we salute flutters…in freedom.