Pingali Venkayya

Subject: Modern History

Section :Personality

Context: The Prime Minister, Shri Narendra Modi has paid homage to Pingali Venkayya on his birth anniversary.

Concept:

PingaliVenkayya was born on 2nd August 1876 in Bhatlapenumarru village of Andhra Pradesh.
PingaliVenkayya was agriculturist and also an educationist who set up an educational institution in Machilipatnam.
During his stay in South Africa at the time of the Anglo Boer war,Venkaya served as a British army soldier.
Venkayya was very loyal and highly committed towards Gandhi and a firm believer of Gandhian principles.
In 1916, he published a booklet on flags. The booklet was titled ‘A National Flag for India.’ It contained twenty-four designs of flags.
In 1921, when he met Gandhi in Vijayawada, he showed him the booklet. Gandhi was pleased to see the design and acknowledged the need for a national flag, so he asked Venkayya to design a fresh one at the National Congress Meeting, held in 1921.
Initially, PingaliVenkayya-designed the flag featured saffron and green colours only ( called the swaraj flag) ; however, later, it was redesigned, and the third colour, white, was introduced along with a spinning wheel (Dharma Chakra) at the centre.
After undergoing several changes, the Tricolour was adopted as our national flag at a Congress Committee meeting in Karachi in 1931.
The Indian flag was adopted in its present form during a meeting of the Constituent Assembly held on July 22, 1947.
He died in poverty in 1963.