The Tricolour unfurling over the ramparts of the Red Fort on 15 August is one of the most enduring images in the Indian republic's calendar — and on India's Independence Day, Union Parliamentary Affairs and Minority Affairs Minister Kiren Rijiju marked the moment with a tribute to the occasion and to Prime Minister Narendra Modi's flag hoisting at the historic monument.

Rijiju wrote, 'लाल किले की प्राचीर पर लहराता तिरंगा और हर भारतीय के दिल में उमड़ता राष्ट्रगौरव, इससे सुंदर दृश्य क्या हो सकता है!' — 'The Tricolour flying atop the ramparts of the Red Fort and the surge of national pride in every Indian's heart — what sight could be more beautiful!' He added that PM Modi saluted the Tricolour 'with pride and honour,' closing with the refrain: 'India First, the Tricolour supreme.'

A Tradition Stretching Back to 1947

The Prime Minister's flag hoisting at the Red Fort in Delhi is not ceremony for ceremony's sake — it is a constitutional and emotional anchor of the republic. The tradition began with Jawaharlal Nehru in 1947 and has continued unbroken through every government since. Each year, the ramparts of the Mughal-era fort become the backdrop for the nation's most-watched address, connecting millions of Indians to a single moment of collective identity.

Prime Minister Modi, who has led the Independence Day address from the Red Fort since 2014, has consistently used the occasion to outline government priorities alongside the patriotic observance. The fort's symbolic weight — as both a seat of Mughal power and the site where India's founding leaders first claimed the republic — gives the annual ceremony a gravity that no other venue could replicate.

Senior BJP Leadership Amplifies the National Moment

Rijiju's post fits a well-established pattern: senior ministers of the ruling party use Independence Day to publicly foreground national symbols and the Prime Minister's central role in the commemoration. For Rijiju, a veteran BJP leader from Arunachal Pradesh who holds two Union portfolios, the message is also a statement of political identity — 'Bharat Pratham, Tiranga Sarvopari' (India First, Tricolour supreme) doubles as both patriotic sentiment and party positioning.

The post was accompanied by a video, amplifying the visual spectacle of the flag hoisting to Rijiju's social media following on a day when national attention is trained squarely on New Delhi.

On a day when the Tricolour flies from every government building across the subcontinent, the image of it catching the wind above the Red Fort remains the one frame that stops the country cold — and India's political leadership knows exactly how to make it count.