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Pingali Venkayya

In this Telugu name, the surname is Pingali.

Pingali Venkayya (2 August 1876/8[1][2] – 4 July 1963) was an Indian freedom fighter, known for designing the initial version of the Indian National Flag.[3] Apart from his role in the independence movement, Venkayya was a lecturer, author, geologist, educationalist, agriculturist, and a polyglot.[4][5]

Pingali Venkayya
Venkayya on a 2009 stamp of India
Born2 August 1876/8
Bhatlapenumarru, Madras Presidency, British India (now in Andhra Pradesh, India)
Died4 July 1963 (aged 84 or 86)
India
Other namesDiamond Venkayya
Patti Venkayya
Known forDesign of Indian National Flag
SpouseRukminamma

Venkayya joined the British Indian Army at age 19 and served in South Africa during the Second Boer War (1899–1902). During his service, he recognized the need for a national flag for India as Indian soldiers were required to salute the Union Jack, the British flag.[6] Inspired by his experience and later by attending the 1906 AICC session in Calcutta, he developed a vision for a flag representing Indians, opposing the practice of hoisting the British flag at Congress meetings.[2]

Venkayya presented his design for an Indian national flag to Mahatma Gandhi in 1921 during Gandhi's visit to Vijayawada.[7][8][9] The flag initially consisted of red and green stripes representing Hindus and Muslims, respectively, and, on Gandhi's suggestion, a white stripe was added to represent other communities in India.[6] This flag design was used informally at Congress meetings from 1921 and served as the foundation for the Indian national flag, which was officially adopted in its final form by the Constituent Assembly on 22 July 1947.[2][6][7]

Venkayya was an agriculturist, as well as an educationist who set up an educational institution in Machilipatnam. Despite his contributions, he died in poverty in 1963 and remained largely unrecognized in his later years.[4][6] In 2009, the Indian government issued a postage stamp in his honour, and in 2012, his name was recommended for a posthumous Bharat Ratna, though no formal response was received from the central government.[2][6]

Early life

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Pingali Venkayya was born on 2 August 1876 or 1878 at Bhatlapenumarru, near Machilipatnam, in what is now the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh.[2][5][10] His parents were Hanumantha Rayudu and Venkata Ratnam. He studied at the Hindu High School in Machilipatnam, but also spent his childhood in various places in the Krishna district like Yarlagadda and Pedakallepalli. He married Rukminamma, the daughter of the Karanam of Pamarru village.[11]

At the age of 19, he enrolled in the British Indian Army and was deployed to South Africa during the Second Boer War (1899–1902), where he met Gandhi for the first time.[2] It was during the war when the soldiers had to salute the Union Jack, the national flag of Britain, that Venkayya realised the need for having a flag for Indians.[6][11]

Career

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Venkayya earned a diploma in Geology from the Madras Presidency College. From 1911–1944, he worked as a lecturer at the Andhra National College in Machilipatnam. From 1924 to 1944, he researched mica in Nellore. He also authored a book titled 'Thalli Raayi' on geology.[12]

Venkayya was also popularly nicknamed 'Diamond Venkayya', as he was an expert in diamond mining. He was also called 'Patti Venkayya' (Cotton Venkayya), because he dedicated most of his time to researching staple varieties of cotton and did a detailed study on a variety called Cambodia Cotton.[5][13] He was a polyglot who was proficient in many languages including Japanese and Urdu.[5][6] He delivered a full-length speech in Japanese at a school in Bapatla in 1913. From then, he also came to be referred to as 'Japan Venkayya'.[13][14]

Design of National Flag

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Gandhi's Flag, designed by Venkayya, was introduced at the Congress meeting in 1921[15]

When Venkayya attended the All India Congress Committee (AICC) session in 1906 in Calcutta under the leadership of Dadabhai Naoroji, he was inspired to design a flag for the Indian National Congress as he opposed the idea of hoisting the British flag at Congress meetings.[2] Venkayya worked on potential designs that could be used as flags for the newly coined Swaraj movement to signify independence. There were over 25 drafts of the flags with different significance and relations with Indian culture, heritage and history. In 1916, he published a book titled Bharatha Desaniki Oka Jatiya Patakam (transl. A National Flag for India) with 30 potential designs for a flag.[12][14] From 1918 to 1921, he proposed various ideas to the Congress leadership while also working at the Andhra National College in Machilipatnam.[1][2][6]

In 1921, the AICC held its two-day crucial session in Bezawada (now Vijayawada) on March 31 and April 1.[16][17] When Gandhi asked Venkayya to submit a design for the flag at the session, he did it within three hours. Venkayya had shown Gandhi a rudimentary design of a flag on a Khadi bunting. This first flag was coloured red and green — the red representing Hindus and the green representing Muslims in the country. On Gandhi's suggestion, Venkayya added a white stripe to represent all the other denominations and religions present in the country. While the flag was not officially adopted by the AICC, which reordered the stripes and changed the red to orange in 1931, it came to be used across the country. Since 1921, Venkayya's flag has been used informally at all Congress meetings. The flag was adopted in its present form during a meeting of the Constituent Assembly on 22 July 1947, twenty days before India's Independence.[2][6][7][11][18]

Death and legacy

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Venkaiah Naidu garlanding the statue of Pingali Venkayya at AIR Station in Vijayawada

Venkayya lived humbly according to Gandhian ideologies and died in 1963. Venkayya's daughter Ghantasala Seetha Mahalakshmi passed away on 21 July 2022 at the age of 100.[19][20]

A postage stamp to commemorate Venkayya and the first flag was issued in 2009.[2] The Vijayawada station of All India Radio was named after him in 2014.[13][14] In 2012, his name was proposed for a posthumous Bharat Ratna though there has been no response from the central government on the proposal.[4][6]

In 1995, then Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh N. T. Rama Rao commissioned a statue of Venkayya – one among the 31 state icons – at Tank Bund Road in Hyderabad.[19] In January 2015, a statue of him was unveiled by the then Urban Development Minister Venkaiah Naidu, in the forelawns of the All India Radio building in Vijayawada.[5] Several statues of Venkayya have been built all over Andhra Pradesh.

References

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  1. ^ a b "Who is Pingali Venkayya? Remembering the architect of India's national flag". India Today. 2 August 2018. Retrieved 12 December 2021.
  2. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Pingali Venkayya, the man behind Tricolour, struggled to make ends meet and died penniless in 1963". The Economic Times. 3 August 2022. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  3. ^ Dasgupta, Reshmi (9 August 2022). "Who designed the National Flag: Nehru's friend or Gandhi's follower?". Firstpost. Retrieved 28 September 2022.
  4. ^ a b c Mellymaitreyi, M. L. (18 November 2012). "State recommends Bharat Ratna for Pingali Venkayya". The Hindu. Retrieved 9 April 2013.
  5. ^ a b c d e Archana, K. C. (2 August 2015). "A salute to the man who designed the Tricolour: Pingali Venkayya". India Today. Retrieved 17 August 2016.
  6. ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Pingali Venkayya — the man behind the Indian Tricolour". CNBCTV18. 5 August 2022. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  7. ^ a b c Akbar, Syed (31 March 2021). "On this day, 100 years ago, first draft design of national flag was presented". The Times of India. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  8. ^ "Andhra Chief Minister Seeks Bharat Ratna Award For Designer Of Indian Flag". NDTV.com. 13 March 2021. Retrieved 13 March 2021.
  9. ^ Chronicle, Deccan (15 August 2019). "Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi's visits to Vijayawada recalled". Deccan Chronicle. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  10. ^ "Bhatlapenumarru remembers its son who designed the national flag". The Hans India. 7 August 2022. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  11. ^ a b c Ch, Kishore (1 August 2022). "కలత చెంది.. జాతీయ పతాక రూపకల్పనకు నడుం బిగించి.. స్వరాజ్‌ పతాకాన్ని రూపొందించారు". Samayam (in Telugu). Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  12. ^ a b GVN, Appa Rao (1 August 2022). "National Flag పింగళి వెంకయ్య.. భారత ఆత్మగౌరవానికి ప్రతీకగా నిలిచిన జాతీయ జెండా రూపకర్త". Samayam (in Telugu). Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  13. ^ a b c "He died a forgotten man, but Pingali Venkayya lives forever in the Tricolour". Zee News. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  14. ^ a b c "Stamped into history: Who is Pingali Venkayya, the man who designed India's national flag?". Firstpost. 2 August 2022. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  15. ^ Roy 2006, p. 504
  16. ^ Akbar, Syed (31 March 2021). "100 years of draft design of Indian National Flag". The Times of India. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  17. ^ "Gandhi and his many imprints across Andhra Pradesh". India Today. 2 October 2019. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  18. ^ "Who designed the National Flag: Nehru's friend or Gandhi's follower?". Firstpost. 9 August 2022. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  19. ^ a b Janyala, Sreenivas (3 August 2022). "Andhra Pradesh govt observes the birth anniversary of national flag designer Pingali Venkayya". The Indian Express. Retrieved 10 August 2022.
  20. ^ "Centenarian Seetha Mahalakshmi, daughter national flag designer, passes away". Hindustan Times. 23 July 2022. Retrieved 10 August 2022.

Sources

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  • Roy, Srirupa (August 2006). "A Symbol of Freedom: The Indian Flag and the Transformations of Nationalism, 1906–". Journal of Asian Studies. 65 (3). ISSN 0021-9118. OCLC 37893507.
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