Pingali Venkayya – The Flag Man
It’s difficult to articulate just what a national flag represents. At one level, it is about identity, a sense of belonging. But it is also more. Much more. A national flag is a repository of emotions and feelings, all of which centre around a consciousness which is larger than the individual’s. Athletes wrap it around themselves after winning honour for their country. Martyrs come home wrapped in it after giving their life for the country. In both instances the flag represents the invisible thread that binds together millions.
The Indian tricolour signifies courage (saffron), honesty (white), and green (prosperity) along with the Ashoka Chakra in the centre to represent both dharma and the wheel of progress. Millions of Indians look up to the tricolour with pride and patriotism, but very less is known about the man who designed the flag: Pingal Venkayya, a freedom fighter.
Born on August 2 1878 in Bhatlapenumarru in Andhra Pradesh, Pingali was considered an authority in geology and agriculture. He is also said to have been a polyglot, and was proficient in several languages including Japanese and Urdu.
Venkayya was a Gandhian who met the Mahatma as a young soldier in the British Army during the Anglo Boer war in Africa. He was 19 when the meeting took place. In 1921, Gandhi himself acknowledged the need for a national flag and asked Venkayya to design one. Some believe that the colours as well as the spinning wheel that was originally where the Ashoka Chakra is, were the suggestions of the father of the nation. 10 years later in 1931, the flag was officially adopted by the Indian National Congress. Gandhi at the time wrote of Pingali’s hard work in his paper ‘Young India’.
Sadly, the man credited with designing the national flag that would eventually be adopted by the world’s largest democracy, died in penury in 1963. Venkayya, like a true Gandhian may not have craved honours but surely, the man who gave us the most visible symbol of the nation, deserves a little more than a postage stamp and a statue.
Today on his Birth Anniversary, he needs to have the gaps in his story plugged and his name must become a household one, for the present and future generations to remember.
