Pingali Venkayya Biography 
Pingali Venkayya was a freedom fighter and contributed to the independence of the country.. He is the unsung hero of our country who designed Indian National Flag with Tricolor. He was born on 2 August, 1876. Venkayya joined the British Indian Army at the age of 19 and took part in the Anglo-Boer war in Africa. It was during the war that Venkayya met Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi and formed an association which would last for more than 50 years.
After doing his primary education at Challapalli and Hindu High School in Machilipatnam, he went to Colombo for senior Studies. He learnt Japanese and was also fond of Urdu and History. Venkayya met Mahatma Gandhi during the Anglo-Boer war in Africa. Other than knowing multiple languages, Pingali had a doctorate in Geology and had also established an institute in Machilipatinam.
On 31 March, 1921 at the Kakinada conference of the Indian National Congress, Venkayya conceived the idea of a national flag.MK Gandhi added the white stripe to Venkayya's saffron and green flag while Arya Samaj movement founder Lala Hansraj contributed the Dharm Chakra ( wheel of law). He painted the national flag with colours of sacrifice (saffron), Peace (White) and harmony (green). He came up with the design and colours of the National Flag depicting sacrifice, peace and harmony after an extensive research on flags of 30 other countries for five years. After India achieved Independence on August 15, 1947, the Pingali-designed National flag was adopted by the Constituent Assembly of India on July 22, 1947.
Diamond Venkayya and Cotton Venkayya were the other two names given to Pingali for his expertise in diamond mining and a keen interest in cotton research respectively. In the year 2009, a postage stamp was issued to commemorate him.
Published: N/A
Updated: August 15, 2017
