Do you know that before 22 July 1947, India did not have any national flag of its own. From today, 2 thousand 300 years ago, the authority of the Maurya Empire was almost all over India. But even at that time there was no national flag of India. In the 17th century, the Mughal Empire had also established its influence over most of India. Although even at that time there was no national flag of India.
Princely states had their own flags
Before independence, there were more than 562 princely states in India and all these princely states also had different flags. The flag of British India was influenced by the Union Jack during the slavery era. Which had nothing to do with the culture and history of India. This flag was a symbol of slavery of India, not of India. Although the story of how the national flag of India came into existence is also quite interesting. In the 20th century, as India’s freedom movement against the British became stronger, such people felt the need for a national flag, which could keep the whole country united.
In the year 1905, when the British partitioned United Bengal on the basis of religion, there was strong opposition to it. The revolutionaries decided that they would design a national flag in protest against this partition and it would be hoisted in Calcutta. Under this strategy, in the year 1906, Shachindra Prasad Bose and Sukumar Mitra designed a flag.
The first flag was hoisted in Calcutta
This flag was then hoisted in the Green Park of Calcutta. At that time the British wanted to divide Hindus and Muslims under their divide, rule policy. Therefore, this flag was designed in such a way that it could unite Hindus and Muslims and there would be communal harmony between them. In this flag, lotus flowers were inscribed on green color. Vande Mataram was written in the middle and the moon and the sun were shown on red colour.
A year later, in the year 1907, freedom fighter Bhikaji Cama hoisted a similar flag in Berlin, Germany. However, instead of green, saffron color was given at the top and Vande Mataram was written in the middle. After 10 years of this, in the year 1917, a flag was also designed by Lokmanya Tilak and Annie Besant. This is about the time when the Home Rule Movement was at its peak. Under this, these revolutionaries were not demanding complete independence from the British, but they wanted the British to give Indian citizens the right to rule in their system. Therefore, the flag that was designed during this movement, the Union Jack was also placed in it.
However, Pingali Venkaiah had a great contribution in designing the tricolor which is the pride of India today. He was a freedom fighter and was born on 2 August 1876 in Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh.
Pingali Venkaiah designed the tricolor
From the year 1916 to the year 1921, Pingali Venkaiah studied the national flags of 30 countries in depth and in the year 1921 at the Congress convention, he presented his own design of the national flag. There was mainly red and green color in that design. In which the red color represented the Hindu and the green color represented the Muslim community. Keeping in mind the rest of the communities, Mahatma Gandhi talked about putting a white stripe in that design. Mahatma Gandhi had advised to include the spinning wheel in the middle of the flag because he considered the spinning wheel as a symbol of revolution against the British rule. He said that the spinning wheel would inspire the people of India to become self-dependent and this would also strengthen the freedom movement.
In August 1931, the Congress in its annual convention passed a resolution to adopt the tricolor as the national flag. However, then the saffron color was included in this flag by removing the red color. Saffron color is considered a symbol of courage, sacrifice and sacrifice. That is, now in this flag, there were strips of saffron, white and green and there was a spinning wheel in the middle. On 22 July 1947, the Constituent Assembly adopted the tricolor as the national flag. But the Ashoka Chakra was included in this flag instead of the spinning wheel. This was a blue wheel, also known as Ashoka’s Dharma Chakra.
Ashoka Chakra is a symbol of India’s vast borders
Why was the Dharma Chakra included in the tricolor? There is a reason for this too. The Dharma Chakra was used by Emperor Ashoka of the Maurya Empire. This Dharma Chakra symbolizes the vast borders of Emperor Ashoka’s India. At that time the whole of India was tied in the thread of a system of governance and under the rule of Emperor Ashoka, the whole of Pakistan and today’s Bangladesh were also present. However, many people also ask the question that why the spinning wheel was removed in the tricolor.
So there were two big reasons for this. The first reason was that due to the spinning wheel on the tricolor, it looked upside down from behind. The second reason was that the spinning wheel showed the self-reliance of the villages of India. Whereas Nehru wanted to establish big industries in the country. That is why he believed that there should be an Ashoka Chakra on it. At that time H.V. Kamat also wanted a modification in this flag. He said that there should be a swastika symbol inside the Ashoka Chakra. However, when he saw the Ashoka Chakra inscribed on the tricolor, he felt that it would not be right to place the swastika symbol on it.
Nehru hoisted the tricolor for the first time
Therefore, he himself withdrew this amendment. On 16 August 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru hoisted the tricolor at the Red Fort. This tricolor was procured from Meerut, about 70 km from Delhi. In 1947, the Khadi Department of Meerut was informed that the tricolor to be hoisted on the first Independence Day would be prepared in Meerut. For this the tricolor designed by freedom fighter Pingali Venkaiah was sent from Delhi to Meerut.
There was a special reason for getting the tricolor ready in Meerut. And that is that India’s first freedom struggle took place in 1857. And it was started by the Indian soldiers of the British Army from Meerut.
Translated from Zee News Hindi DNA