Pingali Venkayya, the designer of Indian national tricolour, died in penury as a forgotten man

Freedom fighter Pingali Venkayya was the designer of India’s national tricolour. He was a farmer, a geologist, a lecturer at the Andhra National College in Machilipatnam, and a fluent speaker of Japanese. He was so fluent that he was famously known as 'Japan Venkayya'.

To mark the birth anniversary of Venkayya on August 2, the Central government has decided to release a special commemorative postage stamp on that day. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will release the stamp at a programme in New Delhi.

Venkayya was born on August 2, 1876, at Bhatlapenumarru, near present-day Machilipatnam town in Andhra Pradesh.


A young Venkayya was sent to South Africa to fight in the war as a British Indian Army soldier. It was in South Africa that he was struck by the sense of nationhood the Union Jack inspired among British soldiers.

Venkayya went on to design many models of the national flag. In 1921, Mahatma Gandhi approved a design at the Indian National Congress meeting in Vijayawada. The version presented by Venkayya to the Mahatma had two stripes (green and red) and the Gandhian charkha at the centre. On Gandhi's suggestion, Venkayya added a white stripe on top, and this became the original Tricolour.

Venkayya's flag was used informally at all Congress meetings since 1921, but it was not until its 1931 session that the Congress adopted the Tricolour with the colour scheme we have grown up with -- saffron, white and green -- and the charkha at the centre.

It became the standard of the Mahatma's non-violent freedom movement.

But unfortunately, Venkayya died in penury and oblivion in 1963, only to be retrieved from the footnotes of history much later. A postage stamp in his honour was released in 2009; the Vijayawada station of the All India Radio was named after him in 2014. And last year, his name was proposed for the Bharat Ratna by Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister, YS Jagan Mohan Reddy.

The Central government is organising a 'Har Ghar Tiranga' campaign to mark 75 years of Independence. Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his Mann ki Baat urged people to put the "tiranga" (national flag) as their display pictures on social media profiles between August 2 and 15.