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.