The Republic of India

The National Flag of India

 तिरंगा, Tirangā

During British rule of India, there was no one flag that covered all of India until 1858, when the British introduced a new ensign was created to represent India as part of the British Empire. The British government in India introduced a blue ensign, similar in use to other dominions in the British Empire, such as Canada and Australia. In the fly, the new design featured the star of India. 

In 1905, the Partition of Bengal within the British Empire along religious lines saw the introduction of a new flag that aimed to represent all the religious castes in India. The Swadeshi movement brought in a tricolour flag of orange, yellow and green.

In the top band, there where 8 lotus flowers, representing the 8 provinces in India. In the green, a star and cresent, representing Hindu, and Islam. and the Bande Materam slogan in Hindi in the central yellow band.

Following the peace treaty between Britain and Ireland in the 1920's, the discussions over a flag for India grew louder. In 1921, Ghandi proposed using the Shakra, or spinning wheel at the centre of a bicolour banner of red and green. The red represented India's Hindu's and the green stood for Muslims. The flag was not ready to be presented to the Indian National Congress, which helped Ghandi. He realised that the flag did not represent all the religions, and brought in a third white stripe to stand for all the other religions. Unfortunately, this did not appease many, and the Sikh's wanted black to represent their religion.

Eventually Ghandi decided that in order to represent India, he needed to take religion out of the flag. In 1929, he decided red stood for sacrifice, green for hope, and white for purity. 

Later, in 1931, a new tricolour was instituted by the independence movement. The Swaraj flag used colours that did not have strong links to any religious groups, the new tricolour featured a modified version of the spinning wheel at the centre of the flag. The new colours where orange, white and green. The spinning wheel was in blue.

In June 1947, just before gaining independence from Britain, India adopted a modified Swaraj flag as its national flag. It was decided to replace the spinning wheel with the Chakra. Two reasons for this, one states that the Chakra represents dharma, and law. However, another reason is that the spinning wheel was impossible to mirror on both sides of the flag. The Chakra at least, is symmetrical!

The Chakra itself comes from Lion Capital of Ashoka, a statue dating back to ancient times. 

The flags colours have deep meaning for India. The orange stands for renunciation. That the leaders of India have to renounce material needs, and focus on the task of governing India. The white represents the light that lights the path of truth, and green shows India's links to the land. The Chakra represents the law, and its shape as a wheel represents motion. Because in stillness, there is stagnation.

In keeping with Ghandi's push for India to become self-sufficiant in cloth-making, Indian flags have to be made either out of khadi-silk, or khadi-cloth. Khadi is a locally made, hand woven cloth in India. Flag making is strictly controlled in India, thanks to the Bureau of Indian Standards.