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Indian National Congress, India

by André Coutanche and Eugene Ipavec, 19 May 2009

Indian National Congress flag
Variant flag

Indian National Congress flag

The Indian National Congress flag (seen on television) was simply the Indian national flag with the party's symbol instead of the wheel. Their symbol is a right hand, and was seen at: http://www.indiavotes.com/parties/INC.shtml (link now lost). On the flag the hand was drawn in the same size, style, and colour as the wheel would normally be, i.e. dark blue lines, and with white instead of the 'skin' colour.
Kjell Roll Elgsaas, 22 February 1998

The Indian elections have resulted in some useful television coverage from a vexillological point of view. The news programme on BBC4 called "The World" has had extensive reporting from India, including good shots of the flag. I made this one using the national flag image and the hand symbol from the Congress Party's website. I have made the colours on this image darker than on the front page because all the representations I have seen of the flag, on television and on the web, seem to justify this. This then leads to an inconsistency because the national flag is based on the flag of the Congress and they ought to be the same. However, it is safe to say that, in practice, there are significant variations in the colours of real flags and the image above represents a flag which is actually used.
André Coutanche, 20 May 2004

I don't know when it was first used, but I can confirm that the flag of the Congress Party does still have the spinning wheel in the center, as of the late 1990s. I received a small example from a visitor to New Delhi at that time when I believe they were being waved in support of Congress candidate Sonya Gandhi.
Steve Kramer, 2 April 2003

There is no doubt from the television coverage that the hand is the current symbol and is actually used, but the website of the Congress Party does show a small logo which has a flag with the spinning wheel, though the hand is dominant on its site. Perhaps the hand has replaced the earlier spinning wheel, or perhaps the spinning wheel remains the de jure symbol and the hand is used de facto.
André Coutanche, 20 May 2004

The "Constitution and Rules of the Indian National Congress" seems to support André's hypothesis - with a Charkah (spinning wheel):
"Article II - A Party Flag The flag of the Indian National Congress shall consist of three horizontal colours: saffron, white and green with a picture of a Charkah in Blue in the Centre. It shall be made of certified Khadi."
http://www.aicc.org.in/Constitution%20FINAL%2012.6.08.pdf - Document last amended on 17 November 2007, available on the party's website.
The use of "certified Khadi" (cotton cloth) recalls Gandhi's call for the use of local clothes and home spinning of "khadi".
Ivan Sache, 17 July 2008

My understanding was that a charkha a spinning wheel, as opposed to the chakrah (simply "wheel") on the national flag.
Joe McMillan, 18 July 2008

Variant flag

image located by Dave Fowler, 1 November 2021

This variation on the flag shows the hand coloured to match the saffron-white-green stripes in the background.
Dave Fowler, 1 November 2021