Who Designed the Indian Flag?
An interesting fact about the design of the Indian flag was recently brought to our attention by Clara. Uncle Badruddin Tyabji's book "Memoirs of an Egoist” gives a detailed account of the design and approval process. The historian Trevor Royle's book “The Last Days of the Raj” and the Indian Express newspaper of 2 July 2013 (as well as other sources) state that a sample of the proposed Indian tricolor was prepared by Surayya Tyabji and approved by the Constituent Assembly in July, 1947 (see story below).
Surayya Tyabji was the Aunty Surayya whom we knew quite well in Delhi when we lived there, Bader Chacha's wife and the mother of cousins Hindal, Laila, Adil & Khalid. Surayya was the wife of Badruddin Tyabji who had been a member of the Indian Constituent Assembly and a diplomat with ambassadorial positions in Belgium, Indonesia, Iran, Germany and Japan, and subsequent senior positions in the Indian government.
The color of the top band of the Indian flag is saffron, which indicates strength and courage. The white middle band indicates peace and truth, with the Dharma Chakra in the center. The bottom band in green represents fertility, growth and auspiciousness of the land. The Chakra shows life in movement and death in stagnation.
"A flag is a necessity for all nations. Millions have died for it. It is no doubt a kind of idolatry which would be a sin to destroy. For, a flag represents an Ideal. The unfurling of the Union Jack evokes in the English breast sentiments whose strength it is difficult to measure. The Stars and Stripes mean a world to the Americans. The Star and the Crescent will call forth the best bravery in Islam.
"It will be necessary for us Indians - Muslims, Christians Jews, Parsis, and all others to whom India is their home - to recognize a common flag to live and to die for." - .
Surayya Tyabji and the Indian national flag
Hyderabadi Muslim woman, not Pingali, designed the Tricolour, Indian national flag: The Express News Service, Hyderabad, 2 July 2013
Our national flag was designed by a Hyderabadi Muslim woman by the name of Suraiya Tayyabji and not by Pingali Venkaiah as is widely believed, according to Voice of Telangana president Capt. L Panduranga Reddy.
At a press conference here on Monday, Panduranga Reddy said the popular belief was that in 1921 the All India Congress Committee meeting was held at Bezawada (Vijayawada) wherein Pingali Venkaiah, a Congress volunteer designed a tri-coloured flag and presented it to Mahatma Gandhi.
Gandhi was reportedly impressed by the design and passed it on to the working committee. In deference to the wishes of Gandhi, the Congress adopted the flag and subsequently it went on to become the national flag. But the truth is that the national flag was designed by a Hyderabadi Muslim woman, Suraiya Tayyabji.
In order to substantiate his claims Capt. Panduranga Reddy said that the AICC authorized historian Bhogaraju Pattabhi Seetaramaiah on the issue of national flag, who has written that the issue of national flag was for the first time discussed in the annual conference of the Indian National Congress held at Calcutta in 1923.
However, the Home Rule League movement which was started by Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Annie Beasant in 1916, had already designed a flag and propagated it as the national flag.
After the merger of Home Rule League in Congress, a sub-committee was appointed to finalize the national flag, but the committee never met and the Congress included a charkha in the Home Rule League flag and adopted it as the national flag. It was in 1931, that the original red colour in the Home Rule League flag was replaced with the ochre colour and that the charkha was replaced by Ashoka’s Dharma Chakra.
However, Seetaramaiah did not make any mention of Pingali Venkaiah’s name, not even once in his book.
Moreover, the resolutions adopted during 1921 All India Congress Committee meeting held at Bezawada makes no mention of the meet adopting a resolution on the acceptance of the national flag design prepared by Pingali Venkaiah, he claimed.
Even in the book published on the freedom struggle by noted historian Tarachand “Freedom Struggle of India” published in 1957, there was no mention of Pingali Venkaiah having designed the national flag.
“Moreover, the book published on the occasion of centenary year of Congress party in 1985 has no mention of Pingali Venkaiah designing the national flag,” he said. It was Prof. Sarojini Regani of Osmania University, who in her hagiography, “Highlights of the Freedom Movement in Andhra Pradesh” published by the state government in 1972 had written about Pingali Venkaiah designing the national flag. However, she does not cite any primary source to substantiate her assertion.
The sample prepared by Suraiya Tayyabji was approved on July 17, 1947, he claimed, and added that English historian Trevor Royle in his book “The Last Days of the Raj” has written that the national flag was actually designed by Badruddin Tayabji’s wife Surayya Tayabji.