History· Prelims · GS-I
Pingali Venkayya: The Man Who Drew India's National Flag
Pingali Venkayya designed the first version of India's national flag: a soldier in the Boer War, a geologist and linguist from Andhra Pradesh, he drew the red-and-green design at Bezwada in 1921 that became the tricolour adopted on 22 July 1947.
Pingali Venkayya: The Man Who Drew India's National Flag
Pingali Venkayya (2 August 1876, 4 July 1963) was a freedom fighter, teacher, author, agriculturist and linguist from Bhatlapenumarru near Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh, remembered for designing the initial version of the Indian national flag. At 19 he joined the British Indian Army and served in South Africa during the Second Boer War (1899-1902), where he first met Gandhi. He was a polyglot who studied geology, wrote a book on geology in Telugu called Thalli Raayi, and researched mica between 1924 and 1944.
The flag's evolution is the story to remember. Venkayya's 1916 booklet studied the flags of other nations and proposed about 30 designs for India. At the All India Congress Committee session in Bezwada, now Vijayawada, on 31 March and 1 April 1921, Gandhi asked him to design a flag, and within three hours he presented a khadi design of two bands, red for Hindus and green for Muslims. Gandhi added a white band for the other communities and the charkha, the spinning wheel of self-reliance, across it.
From the Swaraj Flag to the Tricolour
At the Karachi session in March 1931 the Congress changed the red band to saffron and reordered the bands as saffron on top, white in the middle and green below, keeping the charkha at the centre. On 23 June 1947 the Constituent Assembly set up a committee headed by Dr Rajendra Prasad to select a flag for independent India; on 14 July 1947 it recommended the Congress flag with modifications, replacing the charkha with the chakra, a 24-spoke wheel in navy blue taken from the Lion Capital of Ashoka. Jawaharlal Nehru proposed the flag on 22 July 1947 and the Assembly adopted it unanimously, in deep saffron, white and dark green in equal ratios.
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Mains Practice question
Pingali Venkayya died in poverty in 1963, sixteen years after the flag he designed was first raised, and was honoured with a postage stamp only in 2009. Discuss what his life says about how independent India remembers the lesser-known makers of its national symbols.