Who Designed Indian Flag?
In the context of the anti-partition movement Gandhi wanted to have a flag that represented India. He approached Venkayya to come up with a design for the National Flag.
His initial draft included two colour bands – red and green. He later added a white colour band to represent the Hindus and Muslims.
Pingali Venkaiya
Pingali Venkayya (2 August 1876 – 4 July 1963) was an Indian freedom fighter who designed the national flag of India. He was a farmer, geologist, lecturer, linguist, and an ardent patriot. He also set up educational institutes in Machilipatnam. He was fluent in several languages, including Telugu, Hindi, Urdu, Bengali, and Japanese.
He had a strong belief in Gandhian principles, which brought him face to face with Mahatma Gandhi. He gave Gandhi a publication that he had made containing various flag designs. Gandhi liked it and asked him to design a new flag for India at the Congress meeting in 1921.
Venkayya’s first flag was a horizontal tricolor of deep saffron, white, and green with a navy blue Ashoka Chakra in the middle. Each colour represented something special: saffron stood for courage and sacrifice, white for truth and peace, and green for faith and chivalry. The flag was a success and was adopted on 22 July 1947.
Surayya Tyabji
Surayya Tyabji, the wife of Badruddin Tyabji — an ICS officer who served in various committees of the Constituent Assembly — was also credited with contributing to today’s Indian national flag. According to her daughter Laila, she tweaked the design of the saffron-white-green tricolour and added the Ashok Chakra in navy blue after its initial black option was nixed by Gandhi.
She was a renowned artist who was known for her unconventional modern outlook. She was born in 1919 and grew up in Hyderabad. She was the niece of Sir Akbar Hydari and had a well-known family in her city.
She and her husband would later become members of the Constituent Assembly of India. English historian Trevor Royle credited her with the final national flag design that was presented at the Bezwada AICC session in 1921. However, Hyderabadi historian Capt L Panduranga Reddy’s research found that it was Surayya Tyabji and not Pingali Venkayya who designed the final tricolour of our nation.
Mahatma Gandhi
Mahatma Gandhi, the founder of the Indian National Congress, envisioned a flag for India that would unite its various castes and religions. Several proposals were made, but none caught on.
A low-profile Gandhian ex-soldier named Pingali Venkayya designed a flag and presented it to Gandhi at an AICC session in Bezawada (now Vijayawada). He showed a rudimentary design on khadi bunting that featured red and green to represent Hindus and Muslims in India. Gandhi approved the design, but requested that he add a white stripe to represent all other denominations and religions.
The national flag was born in 1921 with the addition of a white stripe and 24-spoked navy blue Ashoka Chakra to the existing colors of saffron and green. Since then, the tricolor has become synonymous with India’s hard-fought independence and unwavering unity. Venkayya never took the credit or cashed in on his creation, but he was proud to see it stand for such an important cause.
Ashoka Chakra
While the debate about who designed the Indian flag has been going on for long, a lot of facts are being overlooked. The fact is that the current flag was designed by Pingali Venkayya, a freedom fighter from Andhra Pradesh.
The national flag consists of a horizontal tricolor of deep saffron at the top, white in the middle and green at the bottom. The center of the white strip consists of a navy blue wheel with twenty-four spokes called Ashoka Chakra. This is a symbol of Dharma, which is an important concept in Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism.
Before the adoption of the national flag in 1947, several other proposals for a flag were made by various activists. One of the earliest was initiated by Sister Nivedita, a disciple of Swami Vivekananda. Her proposal included a thunderbolt in the centre and a caption – Vande Mataram – split around it. This flag did not get much support from the nationalist movement.