India
Archived — This article has been archived. The information may be outdated.
Children's story traces how the Tricolour took shape
The Hindu··14 Aug
A children's story published on August 14 follows a child, Taran, through Bapu Museum in Vijayawada. A mural shows Pingali Venkayya handing a flag to Mahatma Gandhi in 1921. The design used red and green with a charkha. The later national flag changed red to saffron, added white, and replaced the charkha with the Ashoka Chakra.
Prism
What It Means For You
- If you are taking a child to Vijayawada this Independence week, Bapu Museum has a Pingali Venkayya mural showing the 1921 flag being presented to Gandhi.
- Students who know only the present Tricolour can see that the 1921 design was red and green with a charkha, before saffron, white and the Ashoka Chakra.
- Readers marking Venkayya's 150th birth anniversary on August 2 can place that date beside the July 22, 1947 Constituent Assembly adoption of today's flag.
What's Happening
- On August 14 The Hindu's children's page published a museum walkthrough of how India's flag evolved from Venkayya's 1921 design.
- The story locates the handover to Gandhi at Vijayawada during the Non-Cooperation movement, inside what is now Bapu Museum.
- It records later changes: saffron in place of red, a white band, and the Ashoka Chakra in place of the charkha.
Who Pingali Venkayya Was Beyond The Flag
- Venkayya served in the British Indian Army during the Boer War, later worked in agriculture, geology and education, and was a polyglot.
- His 1916 booklet A National Flag for India collected two dozen designs before Gandhi commissioned the Bezwada version.
- The Government of India's Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav archive describes him as the designer of the national tricolour on which the 1947 flag was based.
all-newsuplifting
