Indian National Flag

Context: Three-quarters of a century ago on this day, July 22, 1947, the Constituent Assembly of India adopted the National Flag.

• Constituent Assembly under the chairmanship of Dr Rajendra Prasad adopted the National Flag.

Design: The design of the Indian tricolour is largely attributed to Pingali Venkayya, an Indian freedom fighter.

• He proposed a basic design of the flag, consisting of two red and green bands to symbolise the two major communities, Hindus and Muslims.
• Mahatma Gandhi arguably suggested adding a white band to represent peace and the rest of the communities living in India, and a spinning wheel to symbolise the progress of the country.
• The design of the Wheel shall be that of the Wheel (Chakra) which appears on the abacus of the Sarnath Lion Capital of Asoka.

History:

1906: Arguably the first national flag of India is said to have been hoisted on 7th August 1906, in Kolkata at the Parsee Bagan Square (Green Park).

• It comprised three horizontal strips of red, yellow and green, with Vande Mataram written in the middle.
• The red strip on the flag had symbols of the sun and a crescent moon, and the green strip had eight half-open lotuses.

1907: Madame Cama and her group of exiled revolutionaries hoisted an Indian flag in Germany in 1907 — this was the first Indian flag to be hoisted in a foreign land.

1917: Dr Annie Besant and Lokmanya Tilak adopted a new flag as part of the Home Rule Movement.

• It had five alternate red and four green horizontal stripes, and seven stars in the saptarishi configuration.
• A white crescent and star occupied one top corner, and the other had Union Jack.

1931: The Congress Committee met in Karachi and adopted the tricolour (that of Pingali Venkayya) as India’s national flag.

• Red was replaced with saffron and the order of the colours was changed. The flag was to have no religious interpretation.
• Saffron on top symbolises “strength and courage”, white in the middle represents “peace and truth” and green at the bottom stands for “fertility, growth and auspiciousness of the land”.
• The Ashok Chakra with 24 spokes replaced the spinning wheel as the emblem on the flag.
• It is intended “to show that there is life in movement and death in stagnation”.
• The National Flag should be rectangular in shape with a length to width ratio of 3:2.

Source: Indian Express