Flag of India

An overview

Known across India simply as the Tiranga ("three colors"), the national flag of India was adopted by the Constituent Assembly on 22 July 1947. It became the flag of the newly independent Dominion of India on 15 August 1947 and was kept when the country became a republic on 26 January 1950.

The design is a modified version of the Swaraj flag of the Indian National Congress. Its three equal horizontal bands are saffron at the top, white in the middle, and green at the bottom. The one major change made in 1947 was at the center: the charkha, or spinning wheel, of the freedom-movement flag was replaced by the navy blue Ashoka Chakra, the ancient "wheel of the law."

The flag's use is governed by the Flag Code of India, 2002, and its manufacture by the Bureau of Indian Standards. For decades the official cloth flag has been hand-spun from khadi — the homespun fabric Mahatma Gandhi made a symbol of self-reliance.

The Ashoka Chakra

At the heart of the white band sits the Ashoka Chakra, a navy blue wheel with 24 evenly spaced spokes. It is a depiction of the Dharma Chakra, the "wheel of law," and is taken from the Lion Capital of Ashoka — a sculpture commissioned by the emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE and set atop a pillar at Sarnath. That same Lion Capital is today India's State Emblem.

The wheel signifies motion and progress. As Radhakrishnan put it, it shows that "there is life in movement and death in stagnation." The number 24 is popularly tied to ideas such as the 24 hours of the day or a set of virtues, but no single meaning is fixed in law.

Official color specification

The colors are defined by Bureau of Indian Standards specification IS 1 using the 1931 CIE color space (under illuminant C); the navy blue is set by IS 1803. The closest standard values are below. Note that the official cloth shades are deeper than the familiar bright web colors (often quoted as #FF9933 saffron, #138808 green, and #000080 navy), which are screen approximations rather than the standard.

Symbolism and meaning

The tricolor reads at two levels. In the familiar telling — the one taught across India — saffron stands for courage and sacrifice, white for peace and truth, and green for faith and the fertility of the land, with the navy blue Ashoka Chakra for the wheel of dharma. None of it is communal: the Constituent Assembly wanted a flag acceptable to every community, and the colors were deliberately given meanings free of religious association.

The fullest explanation came on the day of adoption itself. Presenting the flag to the Constituent Assembly on 22 July 1947, the philosopher Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan — later India’s first Vice President and second President — read the bands as a code of conduct: saffron for renunciation and disinterestedness, asking leaders to set aside material gain and dedicate themselves to their work; white for the light of truth that should guide the nation’s conduct; and green for India’s bond with the soil and the plant life on which all other life depends. The chakra, he said, is the wheel of the law of dharma — and a reminder that a nation stays alive by moving forward.

The courage–peace–faith readings are the ones commonly taught; the renunciation–truth–soil explanation is from Dr. S. Radhakrishnan’s address to the Constituent Assembly, 22 July 1947. The Flag Code and BIS standard prescribe the flag’s form and colors — the meanings live in convention and in that founding address.

Construction and the nine official sizes

The flag is rectangular with a length-to-height ratio of 3:2 — its width is one and a half times its height. The three bands are exactly equal, the chakra is centered in the white band, and its 24 spokes are evenly spaced. The Bureau of Indian Standards permits the flag in only nine specified sizes, each with a matching chakra diameter.

How the flag evolved

The tricolor was not designed in a single stroke. It grew out of four decades of the freedom movement — a series of banners that each carried the idea a little further. The timeline below traces that evolution flag by flag, from the colonial Star of India to the tricolor flown today.

1. 1880–1947

   Star of India

   

   Under the Raj, India’s official flag was a Blue Ensign bearing the Union Flag and the Star of India, whose motto was “Heaven’s Light Our Guide.”

2. 1906

   Calcutta flag

   

   The “Vande Mataram” flag of the Swadeshi movement had three bands of green, yellow, and red bearing eight lotuses, a sun, and a crescent.

3. 1907

   Berlin Committee flag

   

   Madame Bhikaji Cama unfurled a related tricolor at Stuttgart, Germany — among the first Indian flags raised abroad.

4. 1917

   Home Rule flag

   

   Tilak and Besant’s Home Rule flag had a Union Jack canton, five red and four green stripes, a crescent, and the seven stars of the Saptarishi.

5. 1921

   The first tricolor

   

   In April 1921, writing in Young India, Gandhi proposed a flag bearing the charkha (suggested by Lala Hansraj) and commissioned Venkayya to set it on red and green for Hindus and Muslims; he soon added white for all other communities.

6. 1931

   Swaraj flag

   

   The Indian National Congress formally adopted the saffron-white-green Swaraj flag with the charkha; its colors were now read as secular rather than communal.

7. 1947

   National flag

   

   A committee under Rajendra Prasad replaced the charkha with the navy blue Ashoka Chakra; the Constituent Assembly adopted the flag on 22 July, and it flew at independence on 15 August.

Who designed the National Flag of India?

India honors Pingali Venkayya, who designed the Swaraj flag the national flag is based on, as the creator of the tricolor. The 1947 redesign that introduced the Ashoka Chakra is often credited to Surayya Tyabji, though the record is not fully settled. When Jawaharlal Nehru presented the flag to the Constituent Assembly, he offered two versions — one in khadi-silk, one in khadi-cotton — and the resolution passed unanimously.

How the flag is made

Until 2021, the law required the national flag to be made only of khadi — hand-spun, hand-woven cloth. The right to make the official khadi flag has long belonged to the Karnataka Khadi Gramodyoga Samyukta Sangha (KKGSS) at Bengeri, near Hubballi in Karnataka. Founded in 1957 and certified by the Bureau of Indian Standards in 2004, it is the sole maker of the khadi tricolor and supplies the flag that flies over the Red Fort. Around 1,200 workers, most of them women, spin, weave, and stitch the flag across its units, which produce only the nine approved sizes under regular BIS inspection.

To meet demand during the 2022 "Har Ghar Tiranga" campaign — part of the Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav marking 75 years of independence — the Flag Code was amended on 30 December 2021 to also permit machine-made flags of cotton, polyester, wool, or silk. A further amendment on 20 July 2022 allowed the flag to be flown day and night at homes, where earlier it could be hoisted only between sunrise and sunset.

The Flag Code and how to treat the flag

Display of the flag is governed by the Flag Code of India, 2002, together with the Emblems and Names (Prevention of Improper Use) Act, 1950, and the Prevention of Insults to National Honour Act, 1971. For years private citizens could fly the flag only on a few national days; after a Supreme Court case brought by Naveen Jindal, the 2002 code (in force from 26 January 2002) opened everyday display to the public.