The history of the Indian National Flag over the years:
1904-06:: The history of the Indian flag dates back to pre-independence era. It was during 1904-06 that the first Indian flag came into being. It was made by an Irish disciple of Swami Vivekananda. Her name was Sister Nivedita and after some time this flag came to be known as Sister Nivedita's flag. This flag was coloured red and yellow. Red signified the freedom struggle and yellow was a symbol of victory. It had the words "Bonde Matoram" in Bengali written on it. Along with it the flag contained a figure of 'Vajra', weapon of god 'Indra', and a white lotus in the middle. The 'Vajra' is a symbol of strength and lotus depicts purity.
Indian flag in 1906 1906: After Sister Nivedita's flag, another flag was designed in 1906. It was a tricolour flag with three equal strips of blue (top), yellow (middle) and red (lower). In this flag the blue strip had eight stars of slightly different shapes. The red strip had two symbols, one of sun and the other of a star and a crescent. The yellow strip had 'Vande Mataram' written on it in Devnagiri script.
In the same year another version of this flag was created. It was also tricolour but its colours were different. It had orange, yellow and green and came to be known as 'Calcutta flag' or 'Lotus flag', as it had eight half opened lotuses on it. It is believed to be designed by Sachindra Prasad Bose and Sukumar Mitra. It was unfurled on 7 August 1906 at Parsi Bagan Square, Kolkata. It was a "boycott day" against the partition of Bengal and Sir Surendranath Banerjee hoisted this flag to mark the unity of India.
Indian flag in 1907 1907:Then came the Madam Bhikaji Rustom Cama's flag. The flag was collectively designed by Madam Bhikaji Cama, Vinayak Damodar Savarkar (Veer Savarkar) and Shyamji Krishna Varma. The flag was unfurled by Madam Cama on 22 August 1907 at Stuttgrat, Germany, and attained the status of the first Indian flag to be hoisted at the foreign land. From this event onwards it was also referred to as 'Berlin Committee flag'. The flag consisted of three colours- the topmost being green followed by golden saffron in the middle and the red colour at the bottom.
1916: In 1916 Pingali Venkayya, a writer and a geophysicist designed a flag with the intention to bring the whole nation together. He met Mahatma Gandhi and sought his approval. Mahatma Gandhi suggested him to incorporate a charkha as a symbol of economic regeneration of India, in the flag. Pingali made the flag out of the hand spun yarn 'Khadi'. The flag had two colours and a 'Charkha' drawn across them but Mahatma Gandhi did not approve of it as he said that the red represents the Hindu community and the green represents the Muslims, but all the other communities of India are not represented in this flag.
Indian Flag in 1917 1917:The Home Rule League formed by Bal Gangadhar Tilak adopted a new flag in 1917, as at that time status of Dominion was being demanded for India. The flag had the union jack at the top, near the hoist. The rest of the flag contains five red and four blue strips. It had seven stars on it in the shape of 'Saptarishi' constellation which is supposed to be the sacred one for the Hindus. It also had a crescent moon and a star at the top fly end. This flag did not gain popularity among the masses.
Indian flag in 1921 1921: As Mahatma Gandhi wanted all the communities of India to be represented in the flag of the nation, a new flag was designed. This flag had three colours. At the top was white then green and at the bottom was red colour. In this flag the colour white symbolised minority communities of India, green was for the Muslims and the red one was for the Hindu and Sikh communities. The 'Charkha' was drawn across all the bands symbolising the unification of these communities. The pattern of this flag was based on the flag of Ireland, another nation which was struggling to get its independence from the rule of Britain. Although the Congress Committee did not adopted it as its official flag but it was widely used as a symbol of nationality in India's freedom struggle.
Indian flag in 19311931: Some people were not at all happy with the communal interpretation of the flag. Keeping all this in view, a new flag was designed which replaced red with ochre. This colour signified combined spirit of both the religions as saffron was the colour of Hindu yogis as well as Muslim darvesh. But the Sikh community also demanded a separate representation in the flag or the complete abandonment of religious colours. This resulted in another flag by Pingali Venkayya. This new flag had three colours. Saffron was at the top followed by white in the middle and green being the lowermost. The 'Charkha' was at the center of white colour. This flag was passed at the meeting of Congress Committee in 1931 and was adopted as the official flag of the Committee.
Indian flag in 19471947: When India got independence, a committee headed by Rajendra Prasad was formed to discuss the National Flag of India and they decided to adopt the flag of Indian National Congress, with suitable modifications, as the flag of India. As a result, the flag of 1931 was adopted as Indian flag but 'Charkha' in the middle was replaced by 'Chakra' (wheel) and hence our National Flag came into being
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