page_title: Flag of the Romani people
section_title: Early use
hierarchical_section_title: Flag of the Romani people / Early use
context_page_description: The Romani flag or flag of the Roma is the international flag of the Romani people. It was approved by the representatives of various Romani communities at the first World Romani Congress, held in Orpington in 1971. The flag consists of a background of blue and green, representing the heavens and earth, respectively; it also contains a 16-spoke red chakra, or cartwheel, in the center. The latter element stands for the itinerant tradition of the Romani people and is also an homage to the flag of India, added to the flag by scholar Weer Rajendra Rishi. This design was especially popular in Socialist Yugoslavia, which awarded it official recognition upon adoption.
  The 1971 flag replaced an interwar version, the plain blue-green bicolor, which was reportedly created by activist Gheorghe A. Lăzăreanu-Lăzurică. A tricolor version, flown by survivors of the Romani genocide, fell out of use due to allegations that it stood for communism. The definitive variant designed at Orpington gained in popularity over the subsequent decades, being especially associated with groups promoting transnational unity of the people and combating its designation as "Gypsies".
context_section_description: In the late 1960s, an "International Gypsy Committee", presided upon by Vanko Rouda, validated continued usage of the bicolor. The group also announced in 1968 that it would institute a Blue Green Literary Award, named in honor of the flag; activist Leuléa Rouda explained that these were the "colors of the Gypsy flag", "colors of liberty and hope, of sky and nature". A red-wheel variant was eventually selected as the standardized design, as recognized by the World Romani Congress (WRC) in 1971. The work in its definitive form is attributed to an Indian Romologist, Weer Rajendra Rishi. Specifications were also adopted at that meeting, basing the wheel itself on the Ashoka Chakra, as used in the flag of India. 
  The decision to include "something Indian" on the flag was generally popular, reflecting in part Rishi's theories, according to which Romanies were a "medieval warrior caste" akin to Rajputs. Reportedly, this variant defeated proposals by other attendees, who supported "earlier flags which had depicted an icon of a horse". Several activists were upset by Rishi's intervention, feeling that the chakra was an outside symbol, and as such one "thrust upon them". As noted by Smith, the 1971 flag did not detail specifications such as designs or Pantone values. The original design associated with the Congress described a "carriage wheel" which did not closely resemble the chakra; chakra-like designs are therefore more recent. Painter Michel Van Hamme, who claims to have contributed in constructing the wheel flag, notes that the sixteen spokes stood for 16 centuries of nomadism.
  According to sociologist Lídia Balogh, the Romani flag retained Indian symbolism, but was still readable without it: "The wheel can also refer to the eternal cycle of the world, or it can be interpreted as a carriage wheel". One complex explanation of the resulting composition is favored by the Romanies of Brazil. According to these sources, the upper blue half represents heavens, as well as "liberty and peace", as "fundamental Gypsy values"; the green is a reference to "nature and routes explored by the caravans". The red wheel is "life, continuity and tradition, the road traveled and still ahead", with the spokes evoking "fire, transformation, and constant movement." According to ethnologist Ion Duminică, it stands for the "Road of Life", with red as an allusion to the "vitality of blood." Duminică also explains the blue as a reference to "Heavens-Father-God" and to the ideals of "liberty and cleanliness, the unbound space"; whereas green is a stand-in for "Mother Earth". Balogh also notes that the two stripes can be deciphered "without any particular cultural background knowledge" as being the sky, implicitly a symbol of "freedom and transcendence", and the earth; she views the red as a reference to blood, with its dual meaning: "blood is the symbol of life, on the one hand, and the blood spilled on wars and destruction."
  As sociologist Oana Marcu argues, the reference to "perpetual movement" signified that the Romanies were proudly accepting their nomadic traditions, previously seen as "socially dangerous". According to Balogh, the wheel recalls ancient nomadism, but also the Romanies' participation in the 21st-century economic migration across Europe. Similarly, Duminică writes about symbols of nomadic life as evoking prosperity, since "with no opportunity to perambulate, Romanies will fall prey to poverty." Activist Juan de Dios Ramírez Heredia explained it as a "cartwheel standing in for freedom, which is characteristic of our culture." However, in order to honor the "continuous and varied" support it had received from Socialist Yugoslavia, the WRC also accepted an unofficial variant, which used the red star of the Yugoslav flag instead of the wheel.
  Yugoslavia also pioneered the official Romani flag, which was given recognition in the constituent Socialist Republic of Macedonia as early as 1971 (or 1972). This was the culmination of efforts by Faik Abdi, a Macedonian Rom. The symbol was especially important for the Gurbeti around Skopje, who 
caption: Alternative flag for survivors of the Romani genocide, as used at Fort Mont-Valérien in 1975