An unprecedented scramble to meet record Tricolour demand

Abdul Gaffar Ansari’s phone has been ringing endlessly for days now. Harried and his voice hoarse, he staves off order after order. The owner of one of Delhi’s oldest flag-making units, Ansari has a battle-hardened business but since plans were announced for a campaign to encourage every household in India to put up the Tricolour this Independence Day, the 71-year-old is struggling to meet an unprecedented demand.

“Usually, in the build-up to August 15, I make around 5,000 national flags a day. But this year, I’m making over 100,000 every day. And even after that, the phone just doesn’t stop ringing,” says Ansari, who runs Bharat Handloom Cloth House in Delhi’s Sadar Bazar.

Among the recent orders he turned down was one for nine million flags.

“We have been making flags since 1954, but have never seen such a maddening demand for the Tricolour,” he says, sitting in his office. The business is now 68-years-old.

A week after Prime Minister Narendra Modi urged Indians to take part in the Har Ghar Tiranga campaign between August 13 and 15, flag makers and traders across the country, have been scrambling to meet the ceaseless demand.

The Union government wants at least 200 million households to hoist or display the national flag as part of the drive to commemorate 75 years of independence, senior culture ministry officials have said.

Manufacturers in Delhi, Mathura, Hyderabad, and Surat, which is home to some of India’s biggest textile printing mills, say they are now working overnight but are still unable to meet the demand.

Mukesh Pal, who runs Galaxy Digital Print, a facility in west Delhi’s Mayapuri, has diverted his firm’s resources to printing national flags, and put work on his other products — T-shirts, caps, and bags — on the back-burner for now.

“I’m printing over 17,000 flags a day now, as against 1,000 this time last year,” says Pal.

The galloping demand has also managed to get people several more temporary jobs in the textile space than are usually up for grabs.

Ansari gets his printed fabric from mills in Gujarat and sources out cutting and stitching work to households in areas in parts of east and north-east Delhi like Janta Colony, Shiv Vihar, Nand Nagri, Sonia Vihar, and Seelampur, where flag-making is a cottage industry.

“Earlier I employed about 40 people on a contract basis in these areas, but over 400 people are making flags for us. In all, at least 100,000 people are engaged in the flag-making process in these areas this year, up from around 30,000 usually,” says Ansari.

Zahoor Ahmad, who works in a flag-stitching unit in Sadar Bazar, says, “Earlier I earned ₹800 a day, but these days I am getting four hours of extra work and earning ₹1,200 a day. I used to work from 9am to 6pm, but now I go on till midnight.”

Some of the biggest traders in Sadar Bazar, who sold mainly rakhis between July and August have switched to selling national flags to cash in on the demand.

“A couple of weeks before Raksha Bandhan [which is to be celebrated on August 11 this year], rakhis accounted for 85% of our total business, but today comprise only 15% percent. I am selling 200,000 national flags per day, several times more than I usually sold before Independence Day,” says Anil Gupta, sitting inside his shop, which is packed to the rafters with large rolls of Tricolours.

“There was not such a high demand for national flags even in 1997, when India celebrated 50 years of Independence. It was because major celebrations happened at the government level, Har Ghar Tiranga campaign has turned it into a people’s event,” adds Gupta.

Subham Jain, another flag trader in Sadar Bazar, says while the demand has increased 10 times at our shop, he has been able to enhance his capacities only two times. “So, I am sending the orders in installments to my existing customers. There is no choice. The supply of flags from Surat is dwindling fast”.

Flag manufacturers in Surat, a major textile hub in the country with about 375 textile and printing mills — say they are trying their best, but it may not be enough.

Manoj Goyal runs one of Surat’s biggest flag manufacturing firms, which supplies to wholesale markets across the country, including Delhi’s Sadar Bazar. His manufacturing facility has been operating non-stop, pushing out 20,000 flags a day.

“I have employed over 200 people, double the usual number, who are working in three shifts,” says Goyal, “The 30x20 inch polyester flag meant to fly in houses in the most popular.”

The Centre on December 30 last year changed the Flag Code of India 2002, which governs the use, display and hoisting of the national flag in the country, to allow machine-made polyester flags to be used for the Tricolour, a change that traders said has helped ease some of the constraints on the production process.

But, some groups are more optimistic about the lofty targets for the programme.

Jitendra P Vakharia, president, of the South Gujarat Textile Processors Association, says the body has promised the Union textile ministry it will deliver 100 million flags for the drive.

“We are almost about to achieve the numbers. About 15 textile printers in Surat are making these flags. Most mills here print saris and have never produced flags on such a large scale. But we are trying our best to ensure that the tricolour campaign is a great success.”