Flags are not just a piece of cloth with multiple designs but instead, it is an emotion that binds together the people of a particular nation irrespective of their religion, caste, race, or language.
For, we Indians our Flag is probably the most important thing that matters to us and none of us can ever dream of doing something which will disrespect the flag. The History of our Flag is as diverse as the people of this Holy Land. Let us go through this vast journey to know, How our National Flag evolved through time and, How we got our beloved “Tiranga”.
Calcutta Flag or The Lotus Flag (1906)
It was Horizontal Tricolor of Dark Blue, Yellow, and Red. The upper strip of Blue consisted of 8 Stars with an unequal number of points in each of the stars. We probably don’t know what these unequal number of points represents. This was basically the result of the carelessness of the designer.
The flag had ‘Vande Matram’ inscribed on the Yellow strip in the Devanagri script. The Red strip consisted of ‘The Sun’ and ‘The Crescent Moon and a Star’ at the left and right corners of the strip respectively.
However, the same year another design of this flag came which replaced the 8 uneven Stars on the top-most Blue strip with 8 Lotuses. This change in the design is attributed to Sachindra Prasad Bose and Sukumar Mitra. The ‘Calcutta Flag’ or ‘The Lotus Flag’ was first hoisted on the 7th of August 1906 at an Anti-Partition Rally in Parsi Bagan Square, Kolkata.
Berlin Committee Flag (1907)
The Berlin Committee Flag
The alternate Design
It was again a horizontal tricolor flag but this time the colors changed. This time it included Orange, Yellow, and Green.
The Orange strip consisted of 8 lotuses, the Yellow strip again had the ‘Vande Matram’ inscribed on it in the Devanagri script. The last strip was also unchanged if we compare it with the ‘Calcutta Flag’; expect of the color that was replaced with the color Green.
This flag was designed by Madam Bhikaji Cama, Veer Savarkar, and Shyami Krishna Verma. It was first unfurled by Madam Cama on the 22nd of August 1907 and thus became the first Indin flag to be hoisted at any foreign land.
The Berlin Committee Flag also came with a variation in which the 8 Lotus design on the upper Orange strip was changed with 1 Lotus+7 Star that represented the ‘Saptarishi’.
Home Rule Movement Flag (1916)
The Home Rule Flag
This flag is the most different looking flag in the History of India. It consisted of 9 stripes of alternate Red and Dark Green band. It had the ‘Union Jack’ at the top left corner and a ‘Crescent Moon and a Star’ at the top right corner. It had the ‘Saptarishi’ constellation represented through 7 Stars in the middle.
The 1921 Tricolor
The first Flag to have the Spinning Wheel in the middle.
During the 1921 session of All India Congress Committee which met at Bezwada (now Vijayawada) an Andhra youth prepared a flag and took it to Gandhiji. It was made up of two colors: Red and Green which represented the two major communities of the Nation i.e. Hindus and Muslims.
Mahatma Gandhi suggested the addition of a white stripe to represent the remaining communities of India and the Spinning Wheel to symbolize the progress of the Nation.
The Tricolor of 1931
The prototype of the Modern Triranga.
It initially came with 2 colors Red and Green and thus was communally interpreted as the Red was the major color of Hinduism and the Green was the major color of the Muslims. This enraged the people of the other religious communities as they didn’t get any representation on the National Flag.
This forced the designers to come up with a new design which was horizontal tricolor comprising of Saffron which represented both Hindu and Muslims; White which was for the other religious communities of this Nation and the Green which represented other things. The ‘Symbol of Charakha’ was placed in the middle which symbolized the ‘Swadeshi Movement”.
The Tiranga (1947)
The Tiranga
Before the Official announcement of India’s Independence a committee that was headed by Dr. Rajendra Prasad was formed to discuss the National Flag of India. The committee approved the 1931 flag with little modifications based on the design of ‘Pingali Venkayya’. The Saffron color came to denote courage and selflessness. The white stripe in the middle is the representative of honesty, purity, and peace and the Green stripe on the bottom represents faith, fertility, and prosperity. The Charkha in the middle was replaced by the ‘Ashok Chakra’ which is the symbol of Dharma.
This flag was officially adopted on the 22nd of July to be the National Flag of the great Nation of India.
Source : wikipedia
JYOTIRADITYA GOSWAMI
Thankyou for the article. I never actually had it in mind to overlook such a beautiful journey of our national flag.
Interesting……
Learnt a lot of new things.
Thankz and keep teaching History. 😀
Thanks a lot.
Ur welcome & Thank-you for reading.