What do the colours of the India flag mean?

Saffron: courage and sacrifice. White: peace and truth. Green: faith, fertility and the land. Blue: the colour of the Ashoka Chakra, for the sky and the ocean.

How do you tell the India flag from the Niger one?

Niger is orange, white and green with a plain orange disc, not a blue wheel, and its bands are separated by proportions closer to square at 6:7.

When was the India flag adopted?

The current design dates from 1947, and its official ratio is 2:3.

The flag of India

Three equal horizontal bands of saffron, white and green, with a navy blue 24-spoke wheel centred on the white band.

Ratio 2:3 · current design adopted 1947

India

Field and colours only. Not shown: the navy Ashoka Chakra, a 24-spoke wheel, centred on the white band.

The Constituent Assembly adopted the flag on 22 July 1947, three weeks before independence, replacing the Congress spinning wheel with Ashoka's chakra so the flag would belong to the state rather than a party. The Flag Code of India required the cloth to be hand-spun and hand-woven khadi until 2021, when machine-made polyester was permitted — a change that remains contentious among khadi weavers in Karnataka, who held the sole manufacturing licence. Vice-President Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan explained the chakra as motion: "India should no longer resist change, it must move and go forward." Until a 2002 court case brought by Naveen Jindal, private citizens could not fly the flag on ordinary days at all.

Flags it gets confused with

India

Field and colours only. Not shown: the navy Ashoka Chakra, a 24-spoke wheel, centred on the white band.

Ireland

Drawn at each flag’s own official ratio, which is itself the difference in some of these pairs.

Flag	How to tell them apart
Niger	Niger is orange, white and green with a plain orange disc, not a blue wheel, and its bands are separated by proportions closer to square at 6:7.
Ireland	Ireland is vertical, has no wheel, and its green sits at the hoist with orange at the fly.

What the colours mean

Flag laws usually specify a Pantone chip, a CMYK mix or just a colour name. Converting any of those to sRGB is lossy, which is why published hex values disagree.

The symbols on it

What	What it stands for
Ashoka Chakra	The wheel of dharma from the Lion Capital of Ashoka, at Sarnath; its 24 spokes stand for ceaseless motion

Ratio: 2:3
Current design adopted: 1947
Colours: saffron, white, green, blue

Common questions

What does the flag of India look like?: Three equal horizontal bands of saffron, white and green, with a navy blue 24-spoke wheel centred on the white band.
What do the colours of the India flag mean?: Saffron: courage and sacrifice. White: peace and truth. Green: faith, fertility and the land. Blue: the colour of the Ashoka Chakra, for the sky and the ocean.
How do you tell the India flag from the Niger one?: Niger is orange, white and green with a plain orange disc, not a blue wheel, and its bands are separated by proportions closer to square at 6:7.
When was the India flag adopted?: The current design dates from 1947, and its official ratio is 2:3.

India Capital, area, population and currency
The flag of Ireland Routinely mistaken for this one
Every flag with saffron in it

Sources

Official vendor product documentation — At One Place

How these figures are compiled and checked