The Indian Flag – Tiranga

History of Indian Flag

The Indian Flag, also referred to as ‘Tiranga’ which means tricolour, is rectangular in shape. It has three colours- saffron on the top, white in the centre and green at the bottom. There is a blue wheel called the chakra with 24 spokes in it. This wheel is in the white centre portion of the flag.

Our National Flag was born on the 22^nd of July 1947. It was hoisted on the 15^th of August 1947.

• The saffron colour stands for bravery, courage and sacrifices.
• The white in the middle stands for peace and truth.
• The green at the bottom stands for greenery and prosperity.
• The blue wheel with 24 spokes in the middle symbolises the 24 hours in the day.

The current flag was designed by Pingali Venkayya for the Indian National Congress.

Our national flag has been through a series of changes in its design ever since it was conceived.

Some of our earlier flags can be seen below.

The first flag to be hoisted was on the 7^th of August 1906 at the Parsee Bagan Square in Calcutta (Kolkota). It was a horizontal tricolour flag comprising of dark blue on the top which consisted of 8 stars of different points. It was yellow in the centre, with ‘Vande Mataram’ written on it in Devanagari script and red at the bottom with a sun, star and crescent.

The next was hoisted by Madame Bhikaji Cama in Paris. This flag was similar to the first one except that the top portion of the tricolour had one lotus and seven stars. This flag was exhibited in Berlin, Germany at the Socialist Conference.

Dr. Annie Besant and Lokmanya Tilak hoisted the third flag in the year 1917 during the home rule movement. The flag had five red and four green, alternately arranged horizontal lines. The top left corner had the Union Jack. There were the seven stars and also in the corner there was a white crescent and a star.

In the year 1921, a young man from Andhra Pradesh presented a flag to Mahatma Gandhi for his approval. This flag originally had only 2 colours, green and red symbolizing the Hindu and Muslim community. It was only after Gandhiji’s suggestion, that the white strip denoting peace and all other communities of India, and the charkha symbolizing progress were included.

Our current flag is very similar to this, the only difference being that we have replaced the charkha with the Ashoka Chakra or the Dharma Chakra as it is called. It was the Congress Party flag that became the flag of Independent India.

Get more information about The Indian National Flag, visit: https://mocomi.com/indian-national-flag/