Those were the days: How Madras reacted to India’s Independence

It was August 15, 1947. A day many had waited for almost 90 years since the great Sepoy mutiny. The British were leaving at last. However, the time had indeed softened the mutual resentment of the ruler and the ruled. It was the time of parting. And they didn’t want any acrimony. Newspapers even printed congratulatory messages from King George VI. In an advertisement in the English dailies, Lady Colleen Nye, the Governor’s wife urged citizens to proudly wear the national flag.

The Chief Justice of Madras administered the oath to HE Sir Archibald Edward Nye, the Governor of Madras, at Fort St. George. On August 15, many newspapers brought out bulky supplements with their cover pages in the colours of the flag; It was a Friday night, but the city was illuminated by a sea of lamps. Public landmarks like Ripon building and Central and Egmore stations were lit up with coloured bulbs. In Madras harbour, the sirens of docked ships pierced the air at midnight.

The tricolour festoons and banners reading ‘Long live India’ were plastered across walls and roads. The tricolour fluttered atop almost every building in the city, government or private. “It is difficult to see even a single person without wearing a national flag,” reported the papers. Public meetings were held in People’s Park, George Town, High Court and Beach. And for the first time in centuries, the police were not watching the crowd with a jaundiced eye, though prohibitory orders were in force in the city ‘to be enforced for bandobast’.

Several processions were organised. The one organised by Congress had elephants and camels and led by a much-jailed leader Kamaraj. People, independently, took out parades displaying photos of Gandhi, Nehru and Bose. Crowds were seen around the community radio sets in parks which spelled out the independence formalities in Delhi. Vande Matharam was the most frequently played song from gramophone records and amplifiers. Food and payasam were distributed to the hungry and needy by business communities throughout the clock.

Though freedom dawned at 12 midnight, the flag at Fort St. George was hoisted only on the morning of August 15, 1947, at 5.05 am. The union jack was lowered in the Fort and amid cheers; the national flag with the chakra was hoisted. 

The flag was made of silk and measured eight feet by 12 feet and went fluttering atop the 150-foot high flagstaff (hailed as the tallest flag-post in India and over 300 years old). In all probability, the flag was woven at the Karnataka Khadi Gramodyoga Samyuktha Sangha in Hubli. The flag is still exhibited in the Fort Museum.

Horsemen in glistening jackets and gold sashes stood amid the large crowds that streamed along the beachfront to Fort. St George, to gaze at the Indian flag fluttering over the first Fort of the British East India Company.

Later in the day, Governor of Madras Presidency, Archibald Nye hoisted the national flag at the nearby Island Grounds to the sound of trumpets blaring and the Premier of Madras, Omandur Ramaswami Reddiyar, unfurled the tricolour at Ripon Buildings. The biggest crowd was in the Old Congress House Grounds in Royapettah where the Congress flag was removed and the national flag hoisted. 

Chennai always celebrated with music. The music lined up for the eve of Independence included concerts by Ariyakudi Ramanuja Iyengar at Gokhale Hall and Ms. Subbulakshmi who performed on AIR that evening at 8. There was cheer on many fronts. Jail doors opened for many convicts who had been granted a pardon. However, the predominantly Muslim areas of Madras were nerv-ous and their celebrations muted for news of partition violence was constantly creeping in.

The other predominant group led by DK President EV Ramaswami Naicker announced that Dravidians should ob-serve August 15, 1947, as a day of mourning, because, from that day, Dravidians would be ruled by northerners and Aryans who dominated the Congress Party.

But Dravidar Naadu had been eclipsed on the political skies. Jinnah who had supported it earlier had jettisoned the idea halfway. EVR’s lieutenant, Anna differed and wrote: “We may consider August 15th as a day of hope that achieving independent Dravidar Nadu may not take sixty years but just six years.”

The very aspect that Madras had not been touched by the gory of partition or irritants like princely rulers, who re-fused to fasten their futures to that of the union, enhanced the celebrations. India had commenced a long march as a free nation and Madras, the city responsible for the empire, marched with it.