74th Independence Day 2020: Who designed the Indian National Flag?

New Delhi, Aug 14: The Independence Day of India is celebrated religiously throughout the country every year. India will celebrate its 74th Independence Day on 15th of August, 2020. The year 2020 marks the 74th Independence Day which will be celebrated amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic in the country.

The National Flag of India is a symbol of the country's sovereign state, its history and culture. The Flag is a horizontal rectangular tricolour of India saffron, white and India green; with the Ashoka Chakra, a 24-spoke wheel, in navy blue at its centre.

The Flag was adopted in its present form during a meeting of the Constituent Assembly held on 22 July 1947, and it became the official flag of the Dominion of India on 15 August 1947. The flag was subsequently retained as that of the Republic of India.

In India, the term "tricolour" almost always refers to the Indian national flag. The flag is based on the Swaraj flag, a flag of the Indian National Congress designed by Pingali Venkayya.

Born on 2 August, 1878 at Bhatlapenumarru, near Machilipatnam in Andhra Pradesh, Venkayya was educated at Cambridge and grew up to become a polymath - with interests in geology, agriculture, education and languages.

Venkayya, reportedly first met Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa during the second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902), when he was posted there as part of the British Indian Army. After returning to India, he dedicated himself to the creation of a national flag for the country. In 1916, Venkayya submitted thirty new designs, in the form of a booklet funded by members of the High Court of Madras.

At the All India Congress Committee in Bezwada in 1921, Venkayya again met Gandhi and proposed a basic design of the flag, consisting of two red and green bands to symbolise the two major communities, Hindus and Muslims. Gandhi arguably suggested adding a white band to represent peace and the rest of the communities living in India, and a spinning wheel to symbolise the progress of the country.

Several changes continued to be made till a decade later, when in 1931 the Congress Committee met in Karachi and adopted the tricolour as our national flag. Red was replaced with saffron and the order of the colours was changed. The flag was to have no religious interpretation.

The Tricolour was altered to become the flag of Independent India. Saffron on top symbolises "strength and courage", white in the middle represents "peace and truth" and green at the bottom stands for "fertility, growth and auspiciousness of the land". The Ashok Chakra with 24 spokes replaced the spinning wheel as the emblem on the flag. It is intended "to show that there is life in movement and death in stagnation".