''Badruddin Faiz Tyabji (1907-1995) was a senior Indian Civil Service officer, who served as Vice-Chancellor of the

Aligarh Muslim University Aligarh Muslim University (abbreviated as AMU) is a Public University, public Central University (India), central university in Aligarh, Uttar Pradesh, India, which was originally established by Sir Syed Ahmad Khan as the Muhammadan Anglo-Orie ...

, from 1962 to 1965. While serving as a diplomat in 1948, he had undertaken the task of starting the Embassy of India, Brussels. He also served as Indian ambassador in

Jakarta Jakarta (; , bew, Jakarte), officially the Special Capital Region of Jakarta ( id, Daerah Khusus Ibukota Jakarta) is the capital and largest city of Indonesia. Lying on the northwest coast of Java, the world's most populous island, Jakarta ...

, Tehran, Bonn and Tokyo.

Early life

He was born in Bombay. His father was Faiz Tyabji, a judge of

Bombay High Court The High Court of Bombay is the high court of the states of Maharashtra and Goa in India, and the union territory of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman and Diu. It is seated primarily at Mumbai (formerly known as Bombay), and is one of the ol ...

. His sister

Kamila Tyabji Kamila Tyabji (14 February 1918 – 17 May 2004) was an Indian philanthropist and lawyer. As a lawyer, Tyabji was renowned for being London's only woman barrister and the first to argue a case before the Privy Council. Early life and educatio ...

was a lawyer and philanthropist.

Career

Historian Trevor Royle wrote in his book ''The Last Days of the Raj'' that Tyabji designed the final form of the current National Flag of India, the tricolour with Ashoka's Dharmachakra in the centre, and that his wife, Surayya Tyabji, made the first copy that flew on Nehru's car on the night of independence. Royle wrote, "By one of those contradictions which run through India’s history, the national flag was designed by a Muslim, Badr-ud-Din Tyabji. Originally the tricolour was to have contained the spinning-wheel symbol ( charkha ) used by Gandhi but this was a party symbol, which Tyabji thought might strike the wrong note. After much persuasion Gandhi agreed to the wheel because the Emperor Ashoka was venerated by Hindu and Muslim alike. The flag which flew on Nehru’s car that night had been specially made by Tyabji’s wife." It was approved , accepted and adopted in its present form during a meeting of the Constituent Assembly held on 22 July 1947, and it became the official flag of the Dominion of India on 15 August 1947. His daughter is

Laila Tyabji Laila Tyabji (born 2 May 1947) is an Indian social worker, designer, writer, and craft activist. She is one of the founders of Dastkar, a Delhi-based non governmental organization, working for the revival of traditional crafts in India. She was ...

, a Padma Shri awardee. His grand-father was the Indian National Congress leader, Badruddin Tyabji.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Tyabji, Badruddin 1907 births 1995 deaths Vice-Chancellors of the Aligarh Muslim University Indian people of Arab descent Tyabji family Ambassadors of India to West Germany Ambassadors of India to Indonesia Ambassadors of India to Belgium Ambassadors of India to Iran Ambassadors of India to Japan