114. History of Indian Flag


Indian flag history started from the 20th century to pre-independence period. Irish disciple of Swami Vivekananda made the first national flag in 1904. Her name was sister Nivedita and then after the flag came to be known as sister Nivedita's flag. This flag was designed using colors yellow and red. Yellow color signified symbol of success and red color shows freedom struggle. Bengali word "Bonde Matoram" was written on it. The flag contained figure of 'Vajra', weapon for god 'Indra' and a white lotus in the center. The Vajra signified strength and lotus shows depicts purity.


In 1906, another Indian flag was designed after Sister Nivedita's flag. It was designed using three colors: blue, yellow and red. This flag blue strip had 8 stars of slightly various shapes, red strip had 2 symbols. The first one symbol was the sun and second symbol was the star. The yellow strip color had 'Vande Mataram' written on Devnagiri script.
Again in 1906 only another version of this flag came into existence that contained orange, yellow and green colors.


This flag was known as 'Lotus flag' or Calcutta flag'. This flag signified the Indian unity and capacity of freedom struggle. In 22 August 1907, Shyamji Krishna Varma, Madam Bhikaji Cama and Veer Savarkar had designed a new flag. This flag was called as Madam Bhikaji Cama flag. This flag was similar to flag in 1906 with the exemption colors and the flower closest to hoist. In 1907, the flag was hosted in foreign country Germany first time. Thus this flag was also referred as Berlin Committee flag.


This flag was made up of three colors green followed by golden saffron and the red color at the bottom. It had "Vande Mataram" written on it. In 1916, the new flag was designed by Lokamanya Tilak and Dr. Annie Besant's. Congress session hosted this flag in Calcutta. Colors used for this flag are white, green, blue and red. Each color was used in striped manner. The five red and four green strips represents Singh and Nair, the white strip color signified seven stars of Saptarishi.