Pingali Venkayya, an Unhonoured Personality in India !!

Pingali Venkayya (Telugu: పింగళి వెంకయ్య) (August 2, 1876 - July 4, 1963) was the designer of the Indian national flag. He was born in Bhatlapenumarru, near Masulipatnam or the present day Machilipatnam of Andhra Pradesh, India to Hanumantharayudu and Venkataratnamma. After high school at Machlipatnam, he went to Colombo to complete his Senior Cambridge. On returning to India, he worked as a railway guard, then as a government employee at Bellary, and later moved to Lahore to join the Anglo-Vedic college to study Urdu and Japanese.



He was an accomplished person on many fronts. He was immensely knowledgeable in geology and obtained a doctorate in it. He was an authority on diamond mining in Andhra Pradesh and was popularly known as 'Diamond Venkayya'. He also specialised in agriculture and spent most of his fortune in experimenting with ginger plantations in Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh. He served in the British Indian army during the Anglo-Boer wars in South Africa. It was there he came in contact with Mahatma Gandhi and was influenced by his ideology.

The years 1921-31 constitute a heroic chapter in not only Pingali Venkayya's life but also in the history of the freedom struggle of Andhra. The AICC met at a historic two day session at Bezwada (March 31 and April 1, 1921). It was at this session that this frail middle aged gentleman, Pingali, approached Gandhi with the flag he designed for India. Pingali?s flag was made of two colours, red and green representing the two major communities of the country. Thus the Indian flag was born but it was not officially accepted by any resolution of the All India Congress Committee. Gandhi?s approval made it popular and it was hoisted at all Congress sessions. Hansraj of Jallandar suggested the representation of the charkha, symbolising progress and the common man. Gandhi amended, insisting on the addition of a white strip to represent the remaining minority communities of India.


Artical on Pingali Venkayya (Telugu Version)



Interpreting the colours chosen for the national flag, Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan explained the saffron colour denoted renunciation or disinterestedness of political leaders towards material gains in life. The white depicted enlightenment, lighting the path of truth to guide our conduct. The green symbolised our relation to the soil, to the plant life here on which all other life depends. The Ashoka wheel in the centre of the white strip represented the law of dharma.


Speaking philosophically, he remarked that the national flag ought to control the principles of all those who worked under it. The wheel denoted motion and? India should no more resist change as there was death in stagnation?. Pingali Venkayya, the illustrious visionary, the designer of the national flag died, unhonoured on July 4, 1963, in conditions of poverty. It was only a few years ago that his daughter began to receive pension from the government. There is not even a memorial in his hometown Machilipatnam to the man who brought such glory to Andhra. Even the original house has been razed to the ground.