Pingali Venkayya - An UnderAppreciated Genius Who Gave India Its Identity

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In, 2021 before the Indian Independence day celebrations PM Narendra Modi has launched the unique campaign, titled “ Har Ghar Tiranga". Every year, the har ghar tiranga campaign has been a resounding success, with patriotic Indians unfurling the tricolor, the biggest symbol of national pride atop their homes or offices and even digitally, where every year, the tiranga is used as a display picture by crores of Indians.

However, despite celebrating the tiranga so much and cherishing the ideals of Tiranga, in our day to day lives, today, our country India has forgotten about the man behind the tiranga and the extraordinary life he led during the times of revolution. This article would like to cover the extraordinary life filled with achievements and despairs of a less celebrated and under-rated freedom fighter, who died in absolute poverty and despite his contributions to the Indian freedom struggle, still struggles for recognition & where his entire legacy today has been restricted to GK and UPSC digests.

The legend in this article is none-other than the designer of the Indian flag “tiranga”, Shri. Pingali Venkayya garu. Pingali Venkayya, was born in a small village called Bhatlapennumarru in today’s Krishna district of Andhra Pradesh on 2 August 1876. He was born to a Telugu Brahmin family of Hanumantha Rayudu and Venkata Rathnam. He spent his childhood in multiple districts of Andhra Pradesh like Machilipatnam, Krishna and Yarlagadda.He was a highly educated person who went to Colombo and completed his plague training in Madras and Bellary. He passed the Cambridge Senior Examination. He completed his diploma in geology from the Madras Presidency College as well.

However even after so much academic talent, his patriotism shone through and he joined the British Indian Army at the tender age of 19. While serving in the British Indian Army ,he recognized the need for an Indian flag as he did not like the idea of Indian Soldiers saluting the Union Jack in South Africa. After attending a meeting of AICC in 1906 he started researching possible designs for an identity of Indians. Till 1906, by the way, the Union Jack used to be hoisted in AICC meetings. During his service period with the British Indian Army he had met Mahatma Gandhi as well.

A popular story attached to his craftsmanship and love for designing flags can be seen, when, as per an Economic Times report, Mahatma Gandhi asked Venkayya to submit a flag design and he did so in 3 hours, in a Bezawada AICC meeting many years later in 1921. He even authored a book, named as, “Deshaniki Oka Jatiya Patakam” which literally translates into National Flags of India, which had 25 different designs of the Indian flag. 

His design of the Swaraj Flag, which forms the basis of the Indian tricolor today, was adopted by the AICC in 1921 and accepted by Mahatma Gandhi. The Swaraj Flag had red and green bands, to symbolize the 2 major communities - Hindus and Muslims. In 1916, his suggested flag was adopted by the INC. Further on the advice of Mahatma Gandhi and Lala Hansraj of Jalandhar, he added a white band with Charkha design on a Khadi, which in those days symbolized self - reliance. In 1931, the flag committee added a 24 spoke chakra in the middle and that gave us the identity of today’s Indian tricolor. 

This was adopted by the country and hoisted on August 15,1947. Even after independence, he served as an advisor for the mining department in the government of India.

Another lesser known fact of his life is that he was a polyglot and in 1913 as per a report in Dhristi IAS, he gave a speech in Japanese in Bapatla and was called as Japanese Venkayya for the same. He was fluent in languages like Sanskrit, Urdu, Hindi and Japanese among others. He in fact studied Sri Lankan economics and researched on Camobidan Cotton.

Another factor, showing off his intellectual ability was that he authored a book on Geology named as “Thalli Raayi” on geology. He was also nicknamed as “Diamond Venkayya” because of his expertise on Diamond Mining. 

He also conducted academic research on Cambodian Cotton which was also driven out of a sense of patriotism, as Indian youth were not adopting Khadi at a wide scale during those days because of it being heavy, he in fact imported Cambodian cotton seeds and developed it. He even returned to Machilipatnam and taught subjects like soil fertility, PE, NCC and military training. He was also a passionate researcher in agriculture and he was made an honorary member of the Royal Agricultural

Society of England. In fact, Sahitya Akademi award winner Dr. Venna Vallabha Rao who penned a book, “Jathiya Pataka Rupasilpi Pingali Venkayya” and called him a scientist without a degree.

However, after independence, he lived in abject poverty. His son Chalapathy Rao died of severe illness and Pingali Venkayya could not get any treatment for him. Venkayya lived in a small house in  Vijayawada which was given to him as an appreciation token for serving in British Indian Army and not for designing the Indian tricolor.

He cultivated vegetables for a living, which again shows what kind of poverty the flag enthusiast was living in. Later on, the family members of Pingali Venkayya said that they faced severe fiscal problems & no one was there to ever help them. The worse fact is that, when he died, very few people and as per his sympathisers only 5-8 people attended his funeral. Many people may wonder why Venkayya did not use all his knowledge in a plethora of subjects for his own financial wellbeing, it was because he was an absolute selfless patriot and never wanted any help even when offered by people.

The sadder fact was that he had a wish, to see the tricolor being unfurled at the Red Fort, which remained unfulfilled. He passed away in 1963 and a point to note is that, despite India celebrating 16 Independence and 13 Republic Days in the country, he was never invited to see the parade, as per a report in the New Indian Express.

Though, in recent times there have been efforts in order to celebrate him, like the launching of postage stamps in 2002,2009 and 2022. The Har Ghar Tiranga movement, actually motivated the people to write a few articles on the great man in all leading newspapers like the New Indian Express, Economic Times etc. but the fact that, he is not even a Bharat Ratna holder or even the holder of any Padma award, which has been awarded many a times to controversial personalities in the country, shows the kind of apathy that our country’s administration has shown towards him. Though, there have been calls by leaders like M. Venkaiah Naidu, Jagan Mohan Reddy, N Chandrababu Naidu to give him a Bharat Ratna, these have been irregular and not pursued by passion.

His legacy was remembered for the first time only in 1985 by TDPs founding father, NT Rama Rao, when he installed a statue of his in Tank Bund in Hyderabad and a hall was constructed for him using donations in Vijayawada. Compare this to the life of say, flag designers of other countries or even to the

authors of our beautiful Jana Gana Mana(national anthem) Rabindranath Tagore or the legendary Vande Mataram(national song) Bankim Chandra Chattophadyay, it can be clearly seen that the country and even Telugu states to an extent, have not celebrated the legacy of Pingali Venkayya.

However, this is new India which should be celebrating merit as its identity. The first step can be to, probably, name any 1 national institution or state instiution related to mining on the name of this legend so that people don't forget the memory of the person. This can be followed, by at least naming a road or a stadium or a mining college, in each BJP and NDA governed state on Pingali Venkayya, as the flag that he designed was for the country and not for any particular state.This will also bring political benefit to the BJP whose ideological fountainhead, the RSS has been accused of disrespecting the tricolor from time to time by its ideological rivals. Given, AP TDP Minister Nara Lokesh has also given a call for Nation First, celebrating the legacy of Pingali Venkayya can be a true tribute to NT Rama Rao who first thought of celebrating his legacy.

The BJP and Sangh Parivar celebrating his legacy would automatically lead to more discussions in the public spectrum about Pingali Venkayya, which he deserves for the genius he was. This would also push the Congress and the other regional, sub-regional parties in Southern India to push forward the demand of recognising this genius that was Diamond Venkayya.

Since he also comes from the Telugu states, recognising his legacy will also give a foothold to the BJP in Telangana which lacks national telugu icons to connect with the masses which are accepting of various political ideologies. Given, the cultures of Maharashtra & Telugu states have been complimentary over decades, a mining college in Maharashtra maybe the Ballarpur Institute of Technology can be named after Pingali Venkayya.

Additional steps to commemorate his legacy can be to name the new upcoming Warangal Airport after his name. This would also give political benefit to the Congress in the Warangal region. Furthermore, small steps like calling his family members to the Republic Day, naming his home district after him can be done to give this legend the rightful place that he deserves in public memory and steps like spending some money on the preservation of his memory by the state and national governments can be done to make sure that his memory is preserved in India for a long time to come. Furthermore, teaching about his life to students in AP & Telangana board schools can be the least that can be done by the state governments to celebrate the Telangana culture.

It is time that we collectively as a society start celebrating our lesser known freedom fighters, so that the respect for our motherland is instilled in the minds of our younger generations today. To conclude, celebrating the legacy of Pingali Venkayya would not only bring political benefits to various political parties, but it would also mean recognising the life and times of a man who deserves much more laurels for giving an identity to 1.5 billion Indians residing in India & the world.

Finally, celebrating Diamond Venkayya's legacy would also give inspiration to India's Gen Z and Gen Alpha, over the basic fact that, if you work hard with a clean intention towards anything in your life, the civil society will recognise it one day even after your martyrdom.

Future Of Tamil Nadu Politics - Detailed Analysis

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The last 1 month in the politics of Tamil Nadu has turned exceptionally on its head. From TVK founder Joseph Vijay Chandrashekhar's 108 seat win in the recently concluded assembly elections to the endless trips to governor house over forming the government with the allies of DMK and the subsequent oath taking ceremony to the ADMK split which saw the resignation of 4 MLAs and to the dramatic resignation of once Hindutva nationalist to now Tamizh development leader K. Annamalai, the future of TN politics has fallen into a place which is filled with absolute uncertainity.

This article tries to make a brave and bold prediction as to how the future of the state politics may look like in the wake of recent happenings.

Election Results Analysis Introduction -

AI generated infographic on Wikipedia source

The first political tsunami in Tamil Nadu came in the form of the surprise election victory of TVK chief Joseph Vijay's victory in the state election. In this particular election, TVK ended up winning 108 seats on its own sans an alliance which is a stupendous achievement on its own, as he ended up breaking a 60 year political duopoly between ADMK & DMK. With that achievement, he became the first CM from neither parties to take oath as a CM. Despite hailing from a heavily multi party electoral system, this was the only fourth party which had its own CM take oath, which speaks volumes about the state politics & the kind of formidable electoral machinery which Vijay was up against this time.

Tamil Nadu in this election also saw the highest voter turnout in its own history where the overall voter turnout was roughly around 84% (though some experts credit this to the SIR exercise conducted by the Election Commission of India). This statistic also proves that the younger folks, turned up in huge numbers to vote for their representative, which is a major source of good hope for the country, where voter apathy was a major issue back in 2024.

In this backdrop, Vijay taking oath as a CM after multiple attempts banking on the support of IUML, Congress, Left Parties & VCK(who all contested the elections with DMK) showed how fluid the alliance dynamics in Tamil Nadu can become. Furthermore, the rapid talks of a possible post poll alliance between ADMK & DMK coming together, sent political shockwaves amongst political observers cutting across party & ideological lines.

The electoral results & the deeper analysis associated with it, also showcased how closely contested this election was. The standalone vote shares of TVK, DMK & ADMK, was 1.7 crore, 1.1 crore and 1 crore respectively. To put this into context, the fourth front party, NTK led by Mr. Seeman also polled close to 2 million votes in this election. This means, that the election was determined by fine margins, organisational capabilities of political parties & the micro management in every seat. The fact that the party campaigns of the all 3 parties revolved majorly around the welfare driven politics of the state, meant that, voters had very little to chose from in the beggining. Though, the TVK was contesting its debut election, but them winning 108 seats in the debut election meant that they had the political base ready via its fan clubs (Vijay Makkal Iyyakkam) and some influential acquistions like that of now ministers like - Aadhava Arjuna, KA Sengottaiyan, JCD Prabhakar and N .Anand amongst others. Additionally, Vijay's Instagram presence made TN elections as the first elections contested on the Meta owned social media platform.

AI Generated infographic on the 3 manifestos by DMK, ADMK & TVK

Election Results Analysis For The 3 Major Parties -

The then ruling DMK won just 59 seats (down by 74 seats) with party supremo, MK Stalin losing in Kolathur seat to his one time aide VS Babu, came as the biggest political surprise in the state. Furthermore, the fiesty exchanges between Udayanidhi Stalin & the new CM Jospeh Vijay Chandrashekar over various issues has generated a lot of political debate post the elections, which is quite unusual in a state like Tamil Nadu. DMKs performance specially in the assembly constituencies of the 3 Chennai Lok Sabha seats (which has its sitting MPs) is of particular concern for the party. The party led alliace managed to win just 2 out of 21 seats in this region, the capital city has long been considered as the impregnable fortress of DMK since its Justice Party days. The more humiliating factor was that, DMK in 2024 Lok Sabha election led in all 21 Vidhan Sabha constituencies here. The other dravidian major, ADMK led NDA alliance was relegated to third place in all of these places. If Tiruvarur, is also to be counted in the Chennai region, here also, 6/7 Vidhan Sabha seats were won by TVK. TVK chief Vijay's nomination from North Chennai's Perambur, actually disturbed the whole DMK core voter, who moved over to TVK and expressed their frustration on the EVM. What experts called as the Vijay "wave" hit the Chennai region first, which was the biggest surprise in the whole election. Even in areas like Kanchipuram, Cuddalore, Vellore, Kallakurichi & Villupuram, saw TVK win a very good number of seats. Most of TVK MLAs hail from these seats, which are majorly urban or semi - urban in region. The fact, that former DCM Udayanidhi Stalin himself saw his vote share plumett by 25% votes show that TVK gained from the anti incumbency existent against DMK & the frustrated NDA voters who in Chennai did not view NDA as a credible power to win the election. To DMKs credit, the only region, where they managed to perform well was in the Kauvery Delta region where they won 13/18 seats, while TVK won only 2 seats here. The median votes in Cauvery Delta Region was only around 10,700 votes which shows that the election was very competitive here, between the 3 forces, the best example was in Vedaranyam Vidhan Sabha where the ADMK MLA won by 36% votes, while DMK finished second with 31% votes and TVK won 24% votes here. 

DMK analysis infographic

Additionally, the further weakening of the ADMK with yet another supressed revolt, the cross voting during the trust vote despite a whip, the pleas of MLAs to ADMK general secretary Edapaddi Palanisamy to take them into the party, the reconciliation between SP Velumani & EPS & now the latest round of resignations in the party, proved a trend that has emerged in the past few years, where ADMK has politically stagnated in Tamil Nadu, where the party has failed to outrightly win a single major election (2019 Lok Sabha, 2021 Vidhan Sabha, 2024 Lok Sabha & 2026 Vidhan Sabha election) since the death of its charismatic leader & former CM Puratchi Thailivi "Amma" Jayalalithaa. Furthermore, the desertion of the AIADMKs rank and file to TVK has also put the party in a specific spot of bother, with leaders like Udumulai Radhakrishnan, Margatham Kumaravel, MC Sampath and Kadambur Raju, politicians who are influential in their own local backyards. The complete wipeout of the DMK in Kongu Nadu (districts of Coimbatore, Erode, Namakkal, Salem, Karur & Nilgiris) is the area where the alliance failed to win a single seat, despite winning all the Lok Sabha seats. This proved that DMK somehow lacked the organisational pull in these areas which the now depleted party of ADMK still holds in this region as they have leaders like Edapaddi Palanisami who recorded the highest victory margin in the state in Edapaddi Vidhan Sabha segment. The fight here was between ADMK & TVK, with DMK being majorly absent from the contest here. TVKs lead in this region by winning 17/29 core Kongu Nadu region seats, showed that TVK chipped into both DMK & ADMKs vote share in this region. ADMK led alliance, also won a substantial number of seats in North Central Tamil Nadu, which proves that the PMK - ADMK - BJP vote transfer here actually had some positive returns. ADMKs performance undoubtedly dipped by around 19 seats from the last election, however, despite a wave election the fact that they still managed to win a substantial number of seats enough to influence government formation & presidential election, proves that the party still has the cadre on the ground. This election was probably one of those where ADMK found itself struggling for relevance as the TVK was attacking DMK and ignoring them throughout the campaign.

AIADMK

The other 2 regions where the election remained exceptionally competitive was in the areas of Central Tamil Nadu & South Tamil Nadu. Vijay contested from Trichy East in the central region against Irigo Irudyaraj whom he defeated comfortably, in Trichy region, TVK ended up winning 6/9 seats which was a major blow to DMK here. Again, TVKs victory in this region can be anchored to the Vijay wave which impacted this district majorly, as he was contesting from here. However, in this region, it was the DMK which won 21 seats, TVK won 12 seats and ADMK won around 6 seats in this belt, which is also called as the agricultural heartland of Tamil Nadu. In the 2 agricultural heartlands of Tamil Nadu namely, the Kongu Nadu & Central Tamil Nadu region, it was the Dravidian majors especially the ADMK led NDA alliance which gave a tough fight to the TVK, which made this election even more interesting as the craze of TVK is more of an urban phenomenon than a rural one. 

Southern Tamil Nadu which includes the districts of (Madurai, Dindigul, Theni, Sivaganga, Ramnad, Virudhunagar, Thootukudi, Tirunelveli, Tenkasi & Kanyakumari) probably produced electorally the most difficult region to understand. This region has been infamous for the various caste related issues that has threatened law & order. Here the primary force surprisingly was the DMK which won 47/59 MLAs here, the second force here remained the ADMK, which proved that alliance building still works in Tamil Nadu, even in the face of star popularity that Vijay enjoyed. South TN had an average winning margin of just 9300 votes which was the lowest in the whole state.This was the place where that 1 vote victory in Tirupattur. Here, DMKs decent performance can be attributed to the induction of former CM OPS who holds political sway in this region.

To conclude, the TN election from the perspective of the 3 parties was an incredibly closely contested elections which hinged on margins & micro management over the major socio - economic issues of the state.

Central - South TN

Election results takeaway for the smaller parties -

Coming, to the election, this one was a fiercely contested election. The low margins between the 3 parties, also translated it into a wider political trend for the smaller parties. The biggest example of this can be seen in the strike rate of BJP. Now in principle, BJP had the worst strike rate at just 3% as can be inferred from infographic 1, however, the party still managed to poll 3.1% votes and was the only NDA component to see a rise in its vote share by a meagre 0.35%. Furthermore, to prove the point of margins was in the Sattur vidhan sabha seat, where current BJP Tamil Nadu president, Nainar Nagendran was contesting as the NDA candidate. In this seat (infographic attached below), Nagendran lost by a meagre margin of 6000 votes to the DMK candidate, while in this seat, VK Sasikala's party candidate also ended up polling 11,602 votes who finished fourth, in this seat, even NTK candidate polled around 9000 votes, all of which could have ended up in the NDAs kitty had the election campaign been more coherent & cohesive.

Sattur Vidhan Sabha seat

The post election scenario reinforced the overlooked factor of smaller parties. The smaller communist parties like VCK & Left, also performed decently well where they have won 2 seats each, which became crucial in forming the government. Furthermore, even in the NDA alliance, PMK(now both factions have reunited) won 4 seats, while Congress managed to win 5 seats. Now pragmatically, none of these parties (including the BJP) have the ability to win an election in the state of TN on their own due to their limitations geographically, demographically & in terms of resources that they can spend. However, in a state, where even after the emergence of a third front, if the total votes percentage between the 3 parties, remains at just 80% proves, that there is a big chunk of votes that can act as gamechangers in elections as close as this where victors were decided by an average of under 10,000 votes which is very low as per the vidhan sabha number dynamics of India.

Hence, all of these parties who may have won seats in the election namely - DMDK, AMMK, BJP, Congress, VCK, Left Front & IUML, or the parties like - KDMK, MDMK, MNM, IJK, NTK, AIPTMMK, TMC(M) and PT, who did not win any seats, their political relvance will still be crucial as the state goes on to a very different political future now. The first test would be in the Lok Sabha elections, where the BJP would be eager to form a mega alliance between itself, ADMK & DMK, as now both the dravidian majors require a national party backing after the INC has joined TVK. Furthermore, all the other subregional parties like DMDK, AMMK, KDMK who have switched alliances in the past, have more options today which can see experiments like their candidates contesting on the symbol of a bigger party in the Lok Sabha election. How well do these parties transfer their votes to the 3 dravidian majors, now, will decide their utility in the future elections as well.

Conclusion -

A snapshot

To conclude, the year 2026, bought out one of the most exciting political futures for the state of Tamil Nadu. Vijay's victory proved that the state still believes in larger than life actors to become able administrators, DMKs relevance in the Cauvery Delta region despite having a lot of silent anti incumbency bought back the trend of oscillating governments in the state, ADMKs survival post Jayalalithaa era in the face of multiple splits by Edapaddi Palanisamy, K. Annamalai's bold We The Leaders experiment, DMDKs first MLA after 10 years, BJPs stop - start journey in Tamil Nadu, Congress's unexpected victory after a crushing defeat, Left's impressive strike rates and the relative relevance of caste dominated parties even in 21st century in a state with around 85% literacy rate, proves that the state's politics is still as complicated as it was many decades ago.

The next 5 years will bring in unique challenges to all the parties. For TVK governing a state like Tamil Nadu which has a plethora of socio - economic issues will be the key for its political survival as a bad administration track record can render them irrelvant politically as its still a party that runs of Actor Vijay's face, for DMK losing their age old allies is a body blow and how do they recover from it in front of a party which ate up its core voters and is almost of the same ideology will be a major survival test especially at a time when they are overseeing a full party transfer to Mr. Udayanidhi Stalin, for ADMK how do they politically survive within NDA fold and how do they adapt to the generational shift will decide whether the most successful regional party of India can still be a relevant force in the state in the future, for Congress how do they navigate the dichotomy of having DMK as a national alliance partner while having it as a prime opposition party in the state will dictate the party's future in the state, for BJP how do they increase their vote share will decide the future of NDA, for PMK/DMDK/VCK & smaller parties how well are they able to hold over to their core vote banks in the face of increasing tripolarity will be a major test and for NTK which has failed to register any electoral victory so far since the party's first election in 2011, how quickly they accept the alliance realities of the state will shape the destiny of their political experiment with Tamil Nationalism in the future. 

This is also an interesting point in the state's political history as for the first time, there are a lot of first time MLAs and a younger generation has actually taken over the state politics in probably all the major political parties. This is also a deciding time for the state's economy as it is the first time, its being governed by a post poll alliance in its history, by a new political startup which will decide the route the state and eventually the country can go to. 

All in all, the state of Tamil Nadu is in for an entertaining run of many years, with the first test of this new political setup coming up in the municipal and panchayati raj elections followed by the lok sabha elections and eventually then the national elections.