India is a country which is enjoying its independence for 75 years. In these 75 years, many things have changed, many things evolved but one thing that remained the same all these years was our love for our country and its representatives.
Representatives mean all those symbols which act as the epitome of our patriotism towards the nation. One such symbol is the national flag of our country. Every year it is hoisted and unfurled on Independence day and Republic day respectively.
The national flag is not just a band of colours to give a unique identity to our country but actually a feeling of nationalism for all of us. Today we all are aware of the importance and dignity the flag holds but nobody cares about the person who was behind the idea of our national flag.
There is a long history behind the making of our national flag. Let's go through that history in little detail.
The First National Flag
It was reported that an Indian flag was designed by Sister Nivedita who was an Irish disciple of Swami Vivekananda, between 1904-1906, arguably the first national flag of India is believed to have been hoisted on August 7, 1906, in Kolkata.
It comprised three horizontal stripes of red, yellow and green, with “Vande Mataram” written in the centre. Believed to have been designed by freedom activists Sachindra Prasad Bose and Hemchandra Kanungo, the red strip on the flag had symbols of the sun and a crescent moon, and the green strip had eight half-open lotuses.
Dr Annie Besant and Lokmanya Tilak adopted a new flag in 1917 as part of the Home Rule Movement. It had five alternate red and four green horizontal stripes. It had seven stars in the saptarishi configuration. A white crescent and star occupied one top corner, and the other had Union Jack.
How Did the Present Day Flag Come into Existence?
According to Wikipedia, Pingali Venkaya was the one who was behind the design of the Tricolor, which is the present-day flag. Venkaya was a freedom fighter from Andhra Pradesh and he was a follower of Mahatma Gandhi. When he was 19, he joined British Indian Army and fought the Anglo-Boer war and that’s when he met Gandhiji for the first time.
In 1921, he presented his design of the national flag to Gandhiji. The flag he designed had two red and one green coloured band representing Hindu and Muslim communities respectively. But it was Gandhiji who suggested adding a white band in the centre to represent peace between the two major communities and this white band was also supposed to represent all other communities in the country and also a spinning wheel to represent progress.
For a decade, several changes happened and finally, in 1931, the Congress committee adopted the Tricolor as the national flag. The red was replaced by saffron and all the religious sentiments related to the flag were discarded. The spinning wheel was also replaced by Ashoka Chakra
The National Flag of Independent India
The Tricolor was officially announced as the national flag of our nation. Saffron was to symbolise “strength and courage”, white for “peace” and green for “prosperity”. The Ashoka chakra with 24 spokes in the centre was to show that “there is life in movement and death in stagnation”.
Controversy About the Creator of National Flag
Many sources believe that this final design of the flag was by Pingali Venkaya but some historians also believe in a different theory. They believe that the design of the Tricolor was by a popular artist of that time “Surayya Tyabji”.
In the records of the Constituent Assembly, not any resolution has mentioned the name of the person who was behind the design of the flag. Hence there are no valid documents which can prove who was the designer of the Tricolor.
Laila Tyabji, the daughter of Surayya Tyabji has openly mentioned that her parents were involved in the making of the national flag. She has said that her father was an ICS officer who was given the task to set up a flag committee headed by Dr. Rajendra Prasad. As her mother was a reputed artist, she supervised the making of the flag.
Historians have tried to find the person who should be given the true credit for the designing of our flag but still, they couldn’t reach any decision.
Well, neglecting the controversies, consequently, Pingali Venkaya is considered the designer of our flag but the sad thing is no textbooks have mentioned his name anywhere. Even though he fought for our freedom, he died in poverty in 1963. In 2009, his name was also proposed for the Bharat Ratna.
Written By: Nidhi Jha
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