Flag of India

Tricolour with Ashoka Chakra

Adopted on 22 July 1947, weeks before independence, it replaced the spinning wheel with the 24-spoke navy Ashoka Chakra. The wheel is taken from the Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath.

Swaraj flag (1931)

Adopted by the Indian National Congress at its 1931 Karachi session, this tricolour put saffron on top and a navy spinning wheel (charkha) at the centre, dropping the earlier reading of the colors as communal.

Swaraj flag (1921)

Designed by Pingali Venkayya and presented to Gandhi, it carried red and green bands with a charkha. Gandhi added the white band so that all of India's religious communities would be represented.

Star of India (British Raj)

A red ensign with the Union Jack and the "Star of India" emblem, used unofficially for British India. The Union Jack itself remained the official flag of the Raj.

Princely state of the Raj era:

1936–1952

Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir

The princely state of Jammu and Kashmir was ruled by the Hindu Dogra dynasty over a Muslim-majority population under British paramountcy. Its disputed accession to India in 1947 triggered the first India-Pakistan war and a conflict that continues today. The state kept its own flag under special autonomy until that status was revoked in 2019.

Sikh Empire

Ranjit Singh forged a powerful Sikh Empire across Punjab and the northwest (1799–1849), flying the saffron Nishan Sahib of the Khalsa. The last major Indian power to fall to the British, it was annexed only after two hard-fought Anglo-Sikh Wars — the same conquest that delivered the Koh-i-Noor diamond to the British crown.

Maratha Empire

Founded by Chhatrapati Shivaji in 1674, the Maratha Empire grew to dominate most of the subcontinent in the 18th century, flying the saffron Bhagwa Dhwaj. It was the principal Indian power the British East India Company had to defeat — in three Anglo-Maratha Wars — to win control of India.

Mughal Empire

For over three centuries the Mughal Empire ruled much of India — the age of the Taj Mahal, of emperors Akbar and Aurangzeb — under the green Alam bearing a lion and rising sun. Its slow decline left the vacuum that regional powers and the British filled; the last emperor was deposed after the 1857 rebellion, formally ending Mughal rule.

Kingdom of Mysore

The Kingdom of Mysore, and especially the rule of Hyder Ali and his son Tipu Sultan, mounted the fiercest southern Indian resistance to the British. Tipu — the "Tiger of Mysore" — flew flags rich with tiger-stripe (bubri) motifs and even deployed some of the world's first iron-cased war rockets against the Company before his death in 1799.

Travancore

A princely state in Kerala famed for high literacy and the gold-laden Padmanabhaswamy Temple, joined to India at independence.

Hyderabad State

The largest and richest of British India's princely states, ruled by the Nizam, forcibly integrated into India in 1948.

Sultanate of Golconda

A Deccan sultanate whose mines produced the world's most famous diamonds (the Koh-i-Noor and Hope) before Aurangzeb annexed it.

Kingdom of Cochin

A princely state on the Kerala coast, an early partner of the Portuguese and Dutch in the spice trade.

Garhwal Kingdom

An ancient Himalayan kingdom in Uttarakhand, home to the sources of the Ganges, that acceded to India at independence.

Kingdom of Sikkim

A Himalayan Buddhist kingdom ruled by the Namgyal dynasty for over 300 years, which became the 22nd state of India in 1975.

Sikh Empire

The triangular saffron Nishan Sahib of Ranjit Singh's Punjab empire, which united the Sikh misls and held the Khyber Pass against Afghan invasion.

Hyderabad State

The yellow 'Asafia' flag of the fabulously wealthy Nizams, the largest princely state of British India, annexed by India in 1948.

Princely State of Jammu and Kashmir

A red field with a mountain range and a hand (panja) symbol, flown by the Dogra maharajas whose 1947 accession sparked the still-unresolved Kashmir dispute.

Princely State of Travancore

A red field with a white conch shell, the sankha of Vishnu and the dynastic emblem of the south Indian kingdom famed for its temples and backwaters.

Maratha Empire

The saffron swallow-tailed 'Bhagwa Dhwaj' of Shivaji's empire, which at its peak ruled most of the Indian subcontinent before the British.

Azad Hind (Free India)

Subhas Chandra Bose's Japanese-allied Provisional Government of Free India flew a saffron-white-green tricolor with a springing tiger.

Delhi Sultanate

The series of Muslim dynasties that ruled much of medieval India from Delhi, repelling the Mongols, before the Mughals supplanted them.

Princely State of Baroda

One of the wealthiest princely states of British India, ruled by the Maratha Gaekwad dynasty and famed for a pearl carpet and the gem-studded Star of the South diamond.

Princely State of Gwalior

The Scindia dynasty's powerful Maratha state in central India, whose flag bears a sun flanked by cobras; its great hilltop fort guarded the route to the Deccan.

Princely State of Indore

The Holkar dynasty's Maratha state, founded by the remarkable queen-regent Ahilyabai Holkar, who built temples and rest-houses across India.

Kingdom of Mysore

Ruled by the Wadiyar dynasty, the south Indian kingdom flew a flag bearing the mythical Gandaberunda, a two-headed eagle still used as the state emblem of Karnataka.

Kingdom of Cochin

An ancient kingdom on India's Malabar coast, an early ally of the Portuguese and Dutch, whose spice ports made it one of the wealthiest of the southern Indian states.

Kingdom of Sikkim

The Himalayan kingdom of the Namgyal dynasty flew a flag bearing a Buddhist gankyil and prayer wheel, until a 1975 referendum made it India's 22nd state.

Mughal Empire

One of history's great empires, ruling most of the Indian subcontinent at its height; its green 'Alam' banner bore a lion and rising sun. Builders of the Taj Mahal, the Mughals were finally deposed by the British after the 1857 rebellion.