Even 75 years after the country got independence, there is a dispute related to the national flag, which does not seem to stop. This controversy comes to the fore every year on National Days. This dispute is- ‘Who designed the national flag? If you search on Wikipedia, this year’s answer will be – ‘Pingali Venkaiah.’ But like many historians, many internet users do not blindly believe this answer.
A message is being spread on Twitter and other social media platforms that ‘Smt designed the Indian National Flag. Suraiya Badruddin Tyabji, a Muslim woman from Hyderabad’. The India Today Fact Check team tried to find out the truth of the claims and counter-claims regarding the design of the national flag by examining the historical facts.
Origin Of The Indian National Flag
In 1921, Mahatma Gandhi expressed the need for a national flag in the meeting of the Indian National Congress. It was initially designed by Pingali Venkaiah of Andhra Pradesh, who was associated with the Congress. Gandhi wanted Venkaiah to include the charkha in the middle of the flag. Gandhi’s wish was for the flag to include three colours: the red representing Hindus, green representing Muslims, and white representing people of other religions. In 1931, the flag committee of Congress changed the tricolour.
Saffron was brought in instead of red, and the order of colours was also changed, as we now see in the tricolour. “Source of information – Ramachandra Guha’s article published in The Hindu on 26/9/2004 – “Truths About The Tricolour”.
On 22 July 1947, the Constituent Assembly passed a resolution regarding the national flag. In this, Jawaharlal Nehru proposed to replace the spinning wheel with the Ashoka Chakra in the national flag.
What Is The Dispute And Reality About The Tricolour Flag?
Neither the name of Pingali Venkaiah nor Suraiya Tyabji was mentioned in the Constituent Assembly’s resolution as the national flag designer. In a recent article published in ‘The Wire,’ “How the Tricolor and Lion Emblem Really Came to Be,” Suraiya Tyabji’s daughter Laila Tyabji said how her father Badruddin Tyabji, under the chairmanship of Dr Rajendra Prasad, on the instructions of Jawaharlal Nehru. A Flag Committee was formed. Badruddin ICS officer Tyabji was working in the Prime Minister’s Office.
Laila Tyabji also told how his parents gave him the idea of Ashok Chakra, and his mother prepared the visual blueprint of the flag. According to Laila Tyabji’s own words in the article – my father saw the flag for the first time – it was stitched by Edde Tailors & Drapers located in Connaught Place, Delhi, under my mother’s supervision.
When India Today Fact Check team tried to talk to Laila Tyabji in this regard, she politely refused to say anything about this regard.
Who Was Suraiya Tyabji ?
Suraiya Tyabji was a well-known artist. She belonged to a famous Muslim family in Hyderabad but was known for her non – traditional modern outlook. Home Her husband, ICS officer Badruddin Tyabji later worked abroad as a diplomat. Badruddin Tyabji’s grandfather’s name was also Badruddin Tyabji, and he was a member of Congress along with a famous lawyer.
What Do Historians Have To Say?
Did Suraiya Tyabji design the national flag? According to the Flag Foundation of India, an NGO created by Congress leader Naveen Jindal, the Constituent Assembly approved the design of Suraiya Badruddin Tyabji for the national flag. Naveen Jindal formed the Flag Foundation of India after winning a legal battle in the Supreme Court over the right of citizens to fly the national flag.
We spoke to Pandurang Reddy, a historian from Hyderabad, about this. He rejected the name of Pingali Venkaiah as the national flag designer and put forward the name of Suraiya Tyabji.
Reddy cites in this context the book The last days of the Raj” by British author Trevor Royal- “One of the ongoing contradictions with Indian history is that Badruddin Tyabji designed the national flag. Nehru’s The flag flying on the car that night was specially designed by Tyabji’s wife.
Since Reddy could not substantiate his claims with historical documents, we spoke to Syed Irfan Habib, another noted historian. Professor Habib said,” This is a controversial subject which has not been resolved yet. Since there is no solid historical document in this regard, claims and counter-claims keep coming up. Historians cannot say much in this regard, But neither can we reject the claims of Pingali Venkaiah’s family nor that of Suraiya Tyabji.
What’s The Reality About The Tricolour?
Parliamentary records revealed that Suraiya Tyabji was one of the members of the Flag Presentation Committee who presented the national flag on 14 August 1947. But even this document did not answer the question of whether Suraiya Tyabji had designed the national flag or not.
But the message being spread on social media contains all kinds of wrong information, from spellings to genealogy. Suraiya Tyabji was neither an ICS officer nor her husband, Badruddin. Tyabji was the first Chief Justice of the Bombay High Court.