Indian flag History

1906

image by Vincent Morley, 21 August 1997

From the cover of the August 1997 issue of 'History Today'. This flag is fully visible. It is a horizontal tricolour of dark blue. yellow and red. The upper (blue) stripe bears eight stars with varying numbers of points (this may reflect the carelessness of the artist but see under '1907' below). From the hoist to the fly the stars have 6, 7, 7, 7, 6, 7, 7 and 9 points. The yellow stripe has an inscription (वन्दे मातरम् black or dark blue) in Devanagari script. The red stripe has a white sun in the hoist and a white star and crescent in the fly.

This would probably be the 'Calcutta flag' (Singh), or 'Lotus flag' (Nair). According to both Nair and Singh the colours are green over yellow over red and the stars are actually half open lotuses (eight in all). The inscription is blue and reads in transliteration 'Vande Mataram' (Nair: 'Bande Mataram'). As Vincent notes, the red stripe has a white sun in the hoist and a white star and crescent in the fly. The lotuses are also white. The flag was first used at an anti-partition rally in Calcutta 7 August 1906

The first national flag in India is said to have been hoisted on August 7, 1906, in the Parsee Bagan Square (Green Park) in Calcutta. The flag was composed of horizontal strips of red, yellow and green. The red strip at the top had eight white lotuses embossed on it in a row. On the yellow strip the words Vande Mataram were inscribed in deep blue in Devanagari characters. The green strip had a white sun on the left and a white crescent and star on the right.

image by Jaume Ollé
Source: Gandhi National Museum, photo by Nozomi Kariyasu
Labelled in the display as 1904

This is perhaps not the same flag as in the the one described as the First National Flag, 1906, in the booklet "Our Flag". In the booklet, the upper band is green and the centre of each white lotus flower is a dot of the same size as the surrounding petals. The lower band is red.
David Prothero, 27 January 2001

1906	1907

The brown panel in the 1906 version seems to be a printing error for yellow. From Our National Flag by K.V.Singh.

Our National Flag by K.V.Singh notes "... had three broad bands. The top one was green, sacred to the Muslims, the middle was a golden saffron, the sacred colour of both the Buddhists and the Sikhs, and the bottom band was red, sacred to the Hindus. There were eight lotuses in a line representing the eight Provinces of British-India. On the middle golden band, Vande Mataram was inscribed in Devnagari script. However it was wrongly spelt. From the photograph it appears that the lotuses were embroidered. May be, Madame Cama herself did the embroidery. On the bottom red stripe, there was the sun towards the fly and a crescent towards the hoist of the flag."

1907

his could be the flag of Madam B R Cama, called the Saptarshi flag by Nair. This flag was hoisted in Stuttgart at the International Socialist Congress 22 August 1907. The colours, according to Singh, were green over saffron over red. Again, eight white lotuses are set on the green stripe. Singh points out that the inscription 'Vande Mataram' is wrongly spelt in Devanagari script. He also notes that some illustrations show a crescent and a star, but that this is wrong. Nair claims the colour order was red, saffron, green, that the top stripe had a lotus and seven stars, and that the bottom stripe had a sun and moon with star.
Jan Oskar Engene, 23 August 1997

image by Jaume Ollé
Source: Gandhi National Museum, photo by Nozomi Kariyasu

The booklet "Our Flag" mentions that this flag, hoisted at the International Socialist Conference in 1907, is displayed in the library of Mahratha and Kesai in Pune. In the booklet, the upper band is green with the eight white lotus flowers in profile. The word "वन्दे मातरम्" (Vandemataram) in the middle yellow stripe is inscribed in white and spelt differently. The penultimate symbol is omitted and the final symbol is different. The lower band is red. The sun is in the fly corner, the crescent moon, with no star, is in the hoist corner.

1916

image by Jan Oskar Engene, 26 August 1997

From the cover of the August 1997 issue of 'History Today'. Half of the flag in the lower fly is obscured. There are nine horizontal red and blue stripes with a small union jack (three stripes high) in the canton. Two white stars are visible in the lower hoist and there are probably more stars in the part of the flag which is not visible. A significant difference between the image shown here and the 'History Today' illustration is that the star and crescent in the upper fly is missing from the latter. Is this, perhaps, a reflection of the communal tensions which existed in 1947? On the other hand, a star and crescent are shown in the 1906 flag, so it may be just another indication of the artist's lack of familiarity with the older flags.
Vincent Morley, 21, 26 August 1997

This one is probably the flag of Dr. Annie Besant's and Lokamanya Tilak, associated with the Home Rule Movement of 1917 and hoisted during the Congress session in Calcutta. The stripes are red and green according to both Nair and Singh (five red, four green), while the Union Jack is in red and blue only. A crescent and a star, both in white, are set in top fly. The white stars number seven in all and are arranged as in the Saptarishi configuration.
Jan Oskar Engene, 23 August 1997

By the time our third flag went up in 1917, our political struggle had taken a definite turn. Dr. Annie Besant and Lokmanya Tilak hoisted it during the Home [R]ule movement. This flag had five red and four green horizontal strips arranged alternately, with seven stars in the [S]aptarishi configuration super-imposed on them. In the left-hand top corner (the pole end) was the Union Jack. There was also a white crescent and star in one corner. This indicated the aspirations of the time. The inclusion of the Union Jack symbolised the goal of Dominion Status.
From the Congress Party website in May 2004, located by Željko Heimer, 20 May 2004 (click here for continuation of this history).

image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 4 April 2006

[Ed. note: an alternative arrangement of stars]

The presence of the Union Jack, however, made the flag generally unacceptable. The polit[i]cal compromise that it implied was not popular. The call for new leadership brought Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi to the fore in 1921 and, through him, the first tricolour. During the session of the All India Congress Committee which met at Bezwada (now Vijayawath) about this time, an Andhra youth prepared a flag and took it to Gandhiji. It was made up of two colours—red and green—representing the two major communities. Gandhiji suggested the addition of a white strip to represent the remaining communities of India and the charkha to symbolise progress. Thus was the tricolour born, but it had not yet been officially accepted by the All India Congress Committee. Gandhiji’s approval, however, made it sufficiently popular to be hoisted on all Congress occasions.
From the Congress Party website in May 2004, located by Željko Heimer, 20 May 2004 (click here for continuation of this history)

1921

image by Vincent Morley, 23 August 1997

From the cover of the August 1997 issue of 'History Today'. One quarter of the flag in the lower fly is obscured but I think that it is unlikely to contain any additional features. The flag is a horizontal tricolour of white, dark blue and red with a large black spinning wheel in the centre.
Vincent Morley, 21 August 1997

According to Nair and Singh this was the flag approved by Gandhi in 1921. However, the colours are white, green and red, with the charka in dark blue set all over close to the hoist. This flag was not formally adopted by the Indian National Congress, but nevertheless widely used.
Jan Oskar Engene, 23 August 1997

1931a

image by Vincent Morley, 23 August 1997

From the cover of the August 1997 issue of 'History Today'. Again, a quarter of the flag in the lower fly is obscured but I think it is probably blank. The flag is orange with a black or dark blue spinning wheel in the canton.
Vincent Morley, 21 August 1997

Singh says a flag of saffron with a reddish brown charka in the canton was recommended by the flag committee but not adopted by the Indian National Congress. Instead 1931b was adopted.
Jan Oskar Engene, 23 August 1997

In 1931, when the A.I.C.C. met at Karachi, a resolution was passed stressing the need for a flag which would be officially acceptable to the Congress. There was already considerable controversy over the significance of the colours in the flag. Communal troubles had set in. The two major communities were at the parting of the ways and the stress was on communal interpretation. Meanwhile a committee of seven was appointed to elicit opinion on the choice of a flag. It suggested a plain saffron flag with a charkha in reddish brown in the extreme left-hand corner. The A.I.C.C. did not accept the suggestion. "The year 1931 was a landmark in the history of the flag. A resolution was passed adopting a tricolor flag as our national flag.
From the Congress Party website in May 2004, located by Željko Heimer, 20 May 2004

image by Klaus-Michael Schneider, 15 April 2006

This image shows the flag described by the unknown Hindi-author at Anand Bhawan
Klaus-Michael Schneider, 14 April 2006

1931b

image by Dylan Crawfoot, 17 April 1999

From the cover of the August 1997 issue of 'History Today'. This is the only flag of the Indian National Congress of which I was previously aware: it shows a horizontal tricolour of orange, white and green with a dark blue spinning wheel on the central stripe.
Vincent Morley, 21 August 1997 Indian National Congress adopted this flag 6 August 1931 (Singh). It was first hoisted 31 August 1931, a date declared as Flag Day

Flag of August 15, 1947

On 15 August 1947 the dominions of India and Pakistan were established. India adopted the familiar horizontal tricolor of orange, white, and green with a blue Ashoka Chakra at the center. The tricolor had been used, unofficially, since the early 1920s as the flag of the Indian National Congress, with the colors representing Hinduism (orange), Islam (green), and a hoped-for unity and peace (white). More unofficially, the flag was patterned on the other example of struggle against British imperialism, Ireland. Most often, a blue spinning wheel was shown in the center, derived from Gandhi's call for economic self-sufficiency through hand-spinning. It was this flag that was first hoisted as the "official" Indian flag in Berlin on 3 December 1941.

The spoked Ashoka Chakra (the "wheel of the law" of the 3rd-century BC Mauryan Emperor Ashoka) replaced the Gandhian spinning wheel to add historical "depth" and separate the national flag from the INC party flag