Review of ReseaRch issN: 2249-894X impact factoR : 5.7631(Uif) UGc appRoved JoURNal No. 48514 volUme - 8 | issUe - 9 | JUNe - 2019 ________________________________________________________________________________________ Journal for all Subjects : www.lbp.world 1 STRUCTURE AND MEANING OF THE GONDI PUNEM FLAG: A SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS Anand Raja Doctoral Candidate, TATA Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. ABSTRACT: Flags quite often are the symbols of their community; which have a semiotic structure. To find out more about how semiotic structure created meaning, this paper carries out a semiotic analysis of the Gondi Punem Flag, the flag of the Gonds of India. Semiotic structures can create meaning by (1) The logic by which the semiotic structure is constructed. (2) The relation of the semiotic structure with society. (3) By the relationship of the parts of the symbol with other parts. The paper concludes with pointers for future research. KEYWORDS: semiotic structure , society , future research. INTRODUCTION Flags quite often represent their communities. Nations, religions, tribes, among others; associate with flags. Almost always, flags are symbols; entities which stand for something other than the entity itself. Although all symbols have a structure, the role of the symbol’s structure in creating meaning has often been overlooked. This paper asks how the Gondi Punem Flag, which is the flag of the Gonds of India, creates symbolic meaning. India is home to the largest tribal population in the world, many of which are Gonds, an ancient community with centuries of history.Gondi Punem is the Gondi philosopher. Although a lot is known about the Gonds; this paper will attempt a social- semiotic analysis of the Gondi Punem Flag. The Gondi Punem Flag comes about by the logic of its creation and the socially- situated interpretation of the flag’s structure and characteristics. Objects like the flagcan stand as a matter of fact or as a matter of meaning, which are opposed to each other. Wittgenstein (1953) distinguishes between ‘See That’ and ‘See As’. For instance, a Gondi Punem Flag is the visual image of the flag. A fact without any kind of interpretation. Seeing That. The flag can be seen as a flag that has a particular meaning, which comes from a human interpretation. This interpretation creates meaning. Seeing As. ‘Seeing As’ creates meaning of a particular symbol. A symbol, thus, is a carrier of meaning which can either be: denotative meaning or connotative meaning. Denotative meaning, the meanings that a symbol has, is the essential meaning of asymbol. For instance, the denotative meaning of the flag is that it is a flag of the Gonds. Connotative meaning is implied by a symbol. For instance, that Gonds have primitive beliefs could be a connotative meaning of the flag. ‘Seeing As’ involves a subjective meaning which arise from an individual mind but not without a conceptual (Saussure, 1983) apparatus which is commonly shared. ‘Seeing As’is not random.