History Of Indian Flag

If you are a ‘True Indian' you must know about the ‘History of Our National Flag’. India was under British rule in the 19th century. Before the independence movement of India, the rulers of different native states used multiple flags of different designs. After the Great Revolt of 1857, when India came directly under the British Empire, the subsequent British rulers of India first proposed the idea of ​​a single Indian flag.  

The Star of India, based on Western heraldic ideals, was similar to the flags of other British colonies, including Canada and Australia. The blue and red ensign flags had the Union Flag in the upper-left quadrant and a crowned "Star of India" in the southern half. To signify that the Star was an expression of "Indianness", Queen Victoria created the rank of "Knight Commander of the Order of the Star of India" in the service of the Empire to represent her Indian subjects. All native states then received flags with emblems conforming to European heraldic standards, including the right to fly the defaced Red Ensign.
 During the Second World War, the Red Ensign gained paramount importance as the representative of British India. This flag was used as the flag of India at the United Nations and the United Nations during 1945-47.
In the early 20th century, when India's independence movement from British colonial rule began to gain importance, the need for a national flag was particularly felt. In 1904 Swami Vivekananda's Irish disciple Sister Nivedita designed India's first national flag. This flag is called Sister Nivedita's flag. In the center of this red square flag was a yellow inset with a thunderbolt and a white lotus. The words "Bande Mataram" were written in Bengali on the flag. The color red was the symbol of freedom struggle, yellow was the symbol of victory and white lotus was the symbol of purity. 
 On August 7, 1906, the first tricolor flag was hoisted at a meeting against the partition of Bengal at Persibagan Square in Kolkata. This flag was hoisted by Sachindra Prasad Bose. The flag came to be known as the Calcutta flag. This flag had three horizontal stripes of orange, yellow and green colors at the top, middle and bottom respectively. Eight half-blossomed lotuses were depicted on the upper band and sun and crescent on the lower band. Sometimes the word "Bande Mataram" was written in Devanagari script. 
 On July 22, 1907, Bhikhaji Kama hoisted another tricolor flag in Stuttgart, Germany. This flag had green on the top, ocher in the middle and red color below. Green was the symbol of Islam and ocher was the symbol of Hinduism and Buddhism. The green stripe had rows of eight lotuses symbolizing the eight provinces of British India. The words "Vande Mataram" were written in Devanagari script on the middle band and the lower band had a crescent moon on the flagpole and a sun on the wing. Bhikhaji Kama, Veer Savarkar and Shyamji Krishna Varma jointly designed the flag. When World War I broke out, the Indian revolutionaries at the Berlin Committee adopted this flag. Since then it has been called the Berlin Committee Flag. This flag was actively used in Mesopotamia in World War I. In the United States, the Gadar Party flag was used as a symbol of India for some time. 
 In 1917, the Homerul movement led by Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Annie Besant gave birth to a new flag. This flag had five red and four green horizontal stripes. The rectangular Union Flag in the upper left was a symbol of the movement's desired Dominion status. In the upper flight there was a white crescent moon and stars. Seven white stars were emblazoned on the flag as a symbol of Saptarshi Mandal, sacred to Hindus. This flag, however, failed to gain universal popularity. 
 A year earlier in 1916, Pingali Venkaiah, a resident of Bhatlapenamaru village near Machalipatnam in present-day Andhra Pradesh, attempted to design a simple national flag. His efforts caught the eye of Umar Sobani and SB Bomanji. Together they undertook the Indian National Flag Mission. When Venkaiah sought Mahatma Gandhi's approval for the flag, Gandhiji advised him to add the image of Charka, "the symbol of India and all the amangalharis of the country", to the flag. The hand-wheeled Charaka was a symbol of India's economic renaissance in the way shown by Mahatma Gandhi. Venkaiah prepared a flag with the image of Charka on a red and green background. But Gandhiji thought that this flag did not reflect all the religious communities of India. 
 A new flag was designed as per Mahatma Gandhi's wishes. This tricolor flag had white on top, green in the middle and blue below; Which are symbols of minority religions, Muslims and Hindus respectively. The image of Charka was emblazoned across the three stripes. The flag, with its horizontal tricolor stripes, was similar to the national flag of Ireland. Note that the flag of Ireland is another major symbol of the anti-British Empire movement. It was raised at the Ahmedabad session of the National Congress. However, the Indian National Congress never adopted it as the official flag. Its widespread application in the freedom movement is not seen on the other hand. This communal representation of the flag caused discontent among many. In 1924, the All India Sanskrit Congress in Calcutta proposed the addition of ocher color and Vishnu's mace to the flag as a symbol of Hinduism. It was this year that it was proposed to add ochre, or girimati, to the flag, "a symbol of sacrifice common among Hindu yogis and monks and Muslim fakirs and dervishes". The Sikhs demanded that either the yellow color should be kept on the flag as their representative, or the religious symbolism should be removed from the flag.
In the context of these demands, the Congress Working Committee constituted a seven-member Flag Association on 2 April 1931 to resolve the issue. "There is objection to the three colors used in the flag; as these colors are communally identified" – a resolution was passed. But the results of these informal discussions are unpredictable. The flag carries a single color of yellowish orange and has the image of a wheel on the top bar. Although the Flag Association proposed this flag, the Congress refrained from adopting it, feeling that the whole scheme reflected communal sentiments. 
  Later in 1931 the Karachi Congress Session passed the final flag resolution. A tricolor flag painted by Pingali Venkaiah was adopted. The flag featured a horizontal ochre, white and green center circle. Ocher is a symbol of courage and sacrifice , White is a symbol of truth and peace , Green is a symbol of faith and progress and the Charka is considered a symbol of India's economic revival and the industriousness of its people. Although this flag was Gandhi's choice, it was not universally representative. Nehru didn't like it either. He asked the civil servant Badruddin Tyabji to remove the spinning wheel and think about what could be given in the middle. Badruddin tells his wife Suraiya. She started thinking deeply. The cycle of Ashokastambha at Sarnath came to her mind. She then uses this chakra in place of the wheel and actually places tolerance and interfaith harmony in the flag. Nehru liked this flag very much. But initially the color of this cycle was black. Later it was colored blue. 
At the same time, the flag used by the Azad Hind Army replaced the words "Azad Hind" and the image of a prancing tiger. It was a symbol of distrust of Subhash Chandra Bose's armed struggle against Mahatma Gandhi's non-violent movement. Subhash Chandra hoisted this flag for the first time in Manipur.
 A few days before independence, the Constituent Assembly was established to decide on the national flag of India. Constituent Assembly formed a special committee headed by Rajendra Prasad. The members of this committee were Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, Sarojini Naidu, Chakraborty Rajagopalachari, KM Munshi and BR Ambedkar. The Flag Committee was established on 23 June 1947. At this time the committee started discussing the flag. Three weeks later on 14 July 1947 they decided that the flag of the Indian National Congress should be adopted as the national flag after suitable reforms made acceptable to all parties and communities. Later proposals were also accepted that the national flag of India would have no communal significance. Instead of the Charka, the Dharmachakra from the Sarnath Pillar is adopted in the flag. This flag was hoisted for the first time in independent India on 15 August 1947. 

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