Pingali Venkayya (Telugu: పింగళి వెంకయ్య) (August 2, 1876 - July 4, 1963) was the designer of the Indian national flag.[1] He was born in Bhatlapenumarru, near Masulipatnam or the present day Machilipatnam of Andhra Pradesh, India to Hanumantharayudu and Venkataratnamma. After high school at Machlipatnam, he went to Colombo to complete his Senior Cambridge. On returning to India, he worked as a railway guard, then as a government employee at Bellary, and later moved to Lahore to join the Anglo-Vedic college to study Urdu and Japanese.[2]
He was an accomplished person on many fronts. He was immensely knowledgeable in geology and obtained a doctorate in it. He was an authority on diamond mining in Andhra Pradesh and was popularly known as 'Diamond Venkayya'. He also specialised in agriculture and spent most of his fortune in experimenting with ginger plantations in Kurnool district in Andhra Pradesh. He served in the British Indian army during the Anglo-Boer wars in South Africa. It was there he came in contact with Mahatma Gandhi and was influenced by his ideology.[3]
During the National conference of Indian National congress at Kakinada (as he was staying in a small village called Jandrapet near chirala, prakasam dist.), he suggested that we should have a flag of our own. Gandhi liked this idea and said it would be good if he could come up with a design. During the National conference at vijayawada, he proposed the Tricolour with a charkha at the middle. Gandhi liked the flag and this was later adopted as the National flag of India with the Ashok Chakra at the centre.
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