Man behind Tricolour remains forgotten on draft centenary

HYDERABAD: Freedom fighter Pingali Venkayya, whose draft flag design led to the birth of the Indian National Flag, remains unsung even in the centenary year of the first-ever official flag design.
It was on March 31, 1921 that Venkayya had submitted the design of the flag for Congress at the AICC session in Bezwada (Vijayawada). Mahatma Gandhi had attended the session and on his request Venkayya had come up with the design.

The draft underwent a few changes before it was adopted as the Congress flag, and in 1947, just ahead of the Independence, the Gandhi Charkha was replaced by Ashoka Chakra.
Venkayya’ s birthday on August 2 passed off without any major celebrations. Tweets by a couple of politicians marked the so-called celebrations and paying of tributes to the great freedom fighter, who was a polymath. Freedom fighters demand that the Union government honour Venkayya with Bharat Ratna. In fact, the Andhra Pradesh government had passed a resolution seeking the highest civilian award to Venkayya. However, the Centre is sitting on the resolution.
Archival data reveals AICC and CWC session at Vijayawada was a turning point in the freedom movement. The resolutions adopted at the two-day session held on March 31 and April 1, 1921, apart from the flag design gave the much needed impetus to the freedom struggle.
The idea of a flag for freedom struggle had been haunting Venkayya from 1916, six years before he came up with the draft design at the AICC session. In fact, Venkayya had penned a book, A National Flag for India’. With help of his colleague-lecturer Evanki Venkata Sastry, a drawing master at National College, Machilipatnam, Venkayya presented the draft design.
APCC president, S Sailajanath: “Though it was handed over to Mahatma at the AICC session in Vijayawada, the design was indeed the precursor of our Tricolour,” he said.
G Narayana Rao, president of Andhra Arts Academy, regretted that except for the Indian Railways, which arranged a statue of Venkayya at Vijayawada Railway Station, there had been no celebrations on the centenary of the Tricolour’s first design.