This year on 15 August 2024, we are going to celebrate our 78th Independence Day. For the grand celebration of this day, we are writing this article to honour and celebrate our beloved Indian flag: Tiranga. Today we will discuss how our country got its flag. We will discuss the various key events that led to the making of the Tiranga, and what and how many changes happened while designing its final form.
India saw many versions of flags in the last century. There were 6 flags recognised as the flags of India, and many others were also designed to which were not that popular. In the following sections, we will take a look at some of these notable designs in chronological order.
Sister Nivedita’s Flag/ Symbolizing Freedom Struggle:
Around the year 1904-1906, Sister Nivedita, an Irish descent disciple of Swami Vivekananda, designed the first flag of India. As the desire to have an independent country was on the rise, Sister Nivedita designed the first flag.
As the people of our country were struggling to get freedom from British rule, Sister Nivedita’s flag created hope in the hearts of people to fight for change.
This flag was coloured beautifully in red and yellow. The phrase “Vande Mataram” is also written on this flag in Bengali. This flag also had a figure of “vajra” in the middle. Vajra is a divine weapon of Indra, the God of rain, thunderstorms and lightning. That is why, this flag is also called the Vajra flag.
Red in this flag symbolizes the struggle for freedom, yellow symbolizes victory, and vajra symbolizes power and strength.
Calcutta Flag:
After Sister Nivedita’s flag, another flag was also designed in 1906. This flag introduced the concept of the tricolour flag for the first time. The Calcutta flag is comprised of three colours in horizontal stripes. The top stripe was of blue colour, middle stripe of yellow and the bottom stripe was of red colour.
The top blue stripe had eight stars on it, the middle yellow stripe had “Vande Mataram” written on it in Devanagari, and the bottom red stripe comprised of the figure of the sun on the left, and moon and a start on the right.
The Lotus flag/ Symbolizing Unity and Brotherhood:
The first flag that was recognized and popularised on a large scale was the Lotus flag. It was considered the first unofficial national flag of the country. Designed by Sachindra Prasad Bose and Sukumar Mitra, this flag was similar to the Calcutta flag, but it had some variations.
The top stripe was of green colour and had eight half-bloom lotuses on it. The middle stripe was of yellow colour and had the words “Vande Mataram” written on it in Devanagari. And the bottom stripe was of red colour, having an image of a crescent moon on the left and a sun on the right.
It was first hoisted on 7 August 1906 at the anti-partition rally on the Parsee Began Square in Kolkata. This flag was hoisted by Surendranath Banerjee to represent the unity and brotherhood during the Swadeshi and Boycott struggle.
Berlin Committee Flag: Indian Flag
The second flag that was unofficially recognized as the national flag of India was unfurled on 22 August 1907. This was the first time an Indian flag was unfurled on the foreign soil.
This flag was first unfurled by Madam Cama at Stuttgart, Germany at the International Socialist Conference. It is also called the “Berlin Committee Flag”. This flag was believed to be designed by Madam Cama, Vinayaka Damodar Savarkar, and Shymaji Krishna Varma.
This flag featured three coloured stripes. The first stripe is of saffron colour having eight stars on it. The middle strip was of yellow colour and “Vande Mataram” was written on it. The bottom strip was of green colour having the figure of a sun on the left and moon on the right.
This was the first version of the Indian national flag to include the colour saffron.
Home Rule Movement Flag:
When Bal Gangadhar Tilak formed Home rule league to demand dominion status, a new flag was formed. This third version of the national flag was hoisted by Dr. Annie Besant and Lokmanya Tilak in 1917.
This flag was the first to have Union Jack in it. Union Jack was placed on the top left corner of the flag. This flag was very different from the previous ones, as it has nine stripes in it, five in colour red and four in colour green. It also featured seven stars, symbolizing the Saptrishi constellation. And finally, it had an image of a crescent moon and a start in the top right corner.
Tricolour Flag by Pingali Venkayya: Indian Flag
In 1921, an agriculturist, geologist, author and freedom fighter, Pingali Venkayya, proposed a flag design to Mahatma Gandhi. This flag was made of three colours, white on the top, green in the middle and red on the bottom. This flag was the fourth version of the national flag and symbolized all religious communities living in harmony with each other. And had an image of a spinning wheel (charkha) across all the colours, representing progress and growth.
Tricolour flag: Adopting Pingali Venkayya’s flag with some modifications: Indian Flag
In the year 1931, the tricolour flag was adopted by the Indian National Congress. This was the fifth version of the national flag. It has three colours, top saffron, middle white and bottom green. It also had Mahatma Gandhi’s spinning wheel in the middle. The most important thing about the flag is that it symbolises no community.
6th official flag: Tiranga: Official Indian Flag
And finally, the sixth and last version of the national flag is our beloved and honourable Tiranga. Tiranga was formally adopted as the National flag of free India by the Constituent Assembly in 1947. It was similar to the fifth version of the flag with one change, that now on the place of charkha, the symbol of Dharma and truth was: The Ashok Chakra was placed.The colours in Tiranga do not represent any religion but deep and nationalistic values that touch the heart of every Indian. Saffron symbolizes courage, white purity and peace, green symbolizes growth, and the Ashok chakra one’s dharma.
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