Flag of India

How to read it

The Constituent Assembly adopted the flag on 22 July 1947, on a resolution moved by Jawaharlal Nehru: a horizontal tricolour of deep saffron, white and dark green in equal proportion, with a navy blue wheel in the centre of the white band, drawn from the wheel on the abacus of the Sarnath Lion Capital of Asoka, its diameter about the width of the white band. The rules today are in the Flag Code of India, 2002, in force from 26 January 2002: three equal bands of India saffron (Kesari), white and India green, the Ashoka Chakra in navy blue with 24 equally spaced spokes, visible from both sides, and a length-to-height ratio of 3:2. The Code’s rules give the colours no meaning; its introduction quotes Radhakrishnan’s speech to the Assembly for that.

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Why a wheel and not a spinning wheel

Before 1947 the white band carried Gandhi’s charkha, the spinning wheel. Nehru told the Assembly that the symbol should be the same on both sides of a flag, and the charkha was not: the wheel had to be towards the pole, so from the back the spindle and wheel came out the wrong way round. So the Assembly kept only the wheel, and chose the wheel on the capital of Asoka’s column, which Nehru called a symbol of India’s ancient culture. Radhakrishnan said it is the wheel of the law, the wheel of dharma, and that it stands for motion: “there is death in stagnation. There is life in movement.”

What the Flag Code fixes

The Code sets nine standard sizes, from 6,300 × 4,200 mm (about 20 ft 8 in × 13 ft 9 in) down to 150 × 100 mm (about 6 × 4 in) for table flags; the 225 × 150 mm size is for cars. The flag is not to be flown with the saffron band at the bottom. Since an amendment of 30 December 2021 it may be made of polyester or by machine as well as from hand-spun khadi, and since 20 July 2022 a flag on a private house may fly day and night. It is flown at half-mast only when the Government of India orders it.

Telling it from the Irish flag

Ireland’s flag is also green, white and orange, with no wheel. The Irish government describes it as twice as long as it is high, with the green next to the flagstaff, where India’s flag is 3:2 with saffron at the top and the blue wheel in the middle.