Salai Jayaraman
Pudukkottai
The man who designed our flag.. Few of us associate the name of
Pingali Venkayya with anything else other than as being the original
designer of the national flag. But how many of us know that this
versatile genius was a prolific writer, a Japanese lecturer and a
geophysicist? Born on August 2, 1876 to Hanumantharayudu and
Venkataratnamma at Bhatlapennumaru in the Divi taluk in Krishna
district, Pingali was a precocious child. After finishing his primary
education at Challapalli and school at the Hindu High School,
Masulipatnam, he went to Colombo to complete his Senior Cambridge.
Enthused by patriotic zeal, he enlisted himself for the Boer war at
19. While in Africa he met Gandhi, and their rapport lasted for more
than half a century. On his return to India he worked as a railway
guard at Bangalore and Madras and subsequently joined the government
service as the plague officer at Bellary. His patriotic zeal,
however, did not permit him to stagnate in a permanent job, and his
quest for education took him to Lahore where he joined the Anglo-
Vedic College, and learnt Japanese and Urdu. He studied Japanese and
history under Prof Gote.
During his five years stay in the north, he became active in
politics. Pingali met many revolutionaries and planned strategies to
overthrow the colonial rule. The 1906 Congress session with Dadabhai
Naoroji witnessed Pingali emerging as an activist and a force behind
the decision making committee. Here he met the famous philanthropist,
the Raja of Munagala, and from 1906-11, he spent his time in Munagala
researching on agriculture and the crops. For his pioneering study on
the special variety of ?Cambodia cotton?, he came to be called ?Patti
Venkayya?. Even the British were taken up by his contributions in the
field of agriculture and conferred on him honorary membership of the
Royal Agricultural Society of Britain.
Finally, this man went back to his roots at Masulipatnam and focused
his energies on developing the National School (at Masulipatnam),
where he taught his students basic military training, horse riding,
history and knowledge of agriculture, soil, crops and its relation to
nature. Not content with being a theoretician, Pingali's day-to-day
activities also reflected a deep commitment to his liberal values. In
1914, he turned his agricultural land into an estate and named it
Swetchapuram.
The prismatic colours of his personality reflected an unusual ray in
the years 1916-21. After researching into 30 kinds of flags from all
over the world, Pingali conceived the design of a flag which became
the forbearer of the Indian national flag. Though all credit goes to
Pingali for having conceived the national flag in its present form,
its antecedents can be traced back to the Vande Mataram movement.
For a brief history of the origins of the Indian flag we have to go
back to August 1, 1906 to the Parsee Bagan Square (Green Park) at
Calcutta where the first national flag of India was hoisted. This
flag was composed of horizontal stripes of red, yellow and green. The
strip on the top had eight white lotuses embossed in a row. On
the yellow strip were the words Bande Mataram in deep blue
Devanagari script.
Madame Cama and her group of exiled revolutionaries hoisted the
second flag in Paris around 1907. This was similar to the first flag
except that the top strip had only one-lotus andseven stars denoting
the saptarishis. This was exhibited at a socialist conference in
Berlin. By the time the third flag went up in 1917, the political
struggle had taken a definite turn. Annie Besant and Tilak hoisted
the flag during the Home Rule Movement with an addition in the left
hand corner (the pole end), the stamp of the Union
Jack.
There was also a white crescent and star in one corner indicating the
aspirations of people of those years. The inclusion of the Union Jack
symbolised the goal for dominion status. However, the presence of the
Union Jack indicating a political compromise, made the flag
unacceptable to many. The call for new leadership brought Gandhi to
the fore in 1921 and through him the first tricolour flag.
The years 1921-31 constitute a heroic chapter in not only Pingali
Venkayya's life but also in the history of the freedom struggle of
Andhra. The AICC met at a historic two day session at Bezwada (March
31 and April 1, 1921). It was at this session that this frail middle
aged gentleman, Pingali, approached Gandhi with the flag he designed
for India. Pingali?s flag was made of two colours, red and green
representing the two major communities of the country. Thus the
Indian flag was born but it was not officially accepted by any
resolution of the All India Congress Committee. Gandhi?s approval
made it popular and it was hoisted at all Congress sessions. Hansraj
of Jallandar suggested the representation of the charkha, symbolising
progress and the common man. Gandhi amended, insisting on the
addition of a white strip to represent the remaining minority
communities of India.
A consensus could not be reached until 1931. The designing of the
colours in the flag ran into rough weather even as communal tension
broke out on the issue of its interpretation. The final resolution
was passed when the AICC met at Karachi in 1931. The flag was
interpreted as saffron for courage, white for truth and peace, and
green for faith and prosperity. The dharma chakhra which appears on
the abacus of the Sarnath at the capital of Emperor Ashoka was
adopted in the place of spindle and string as the emblem on
the national flag.
Interpreting the colours chosen for the national flag, Dr. Sarvepalli
Radhakrishnan explained the saffron colour denoted renunciation or
disinterestedness of political leaders towards material gains in
life. The white depicted enlightenment, lighting the path of truth to
guide our conduct. The green symbolised our relation to the soil, to
the plant life here on which all other life depends. The Ashoka wheel
in the centre of the white strip represented the law of dharma.
Speaking philosophically, he remarked that the national flag ought to
control the principles of all those who worked under it. The wheel
denoted motion and? India should no more resist change as there was
death in stagnation?. Pingali Venkayya, the illustrious visionary,
the designer of the national flag died, unhonoured on July 4, 1963,
in conditions of poverty. It was only a few years ago that his
daughter began to receive pension from the government. There is not
even a memorial in his hometown Machilipatnam to the man who brought
such glory to Andhra. Even the original house has been razed to the
ground.