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Sixty-two years of Indian independence
By Willy | August 15, 2009
At the stroke of midnight on the night of August 14-15, 1947, control of India officially passed from the Raj (British Empire) to the government of the independent country. In New Delhi, a conch sounded, symbolizing the dawn of a new era, and fireworks erupted above the Red Fort in the center of the city. It was the culmination of a half-century’s non-violent struggle for independence, triumphed by Mahatma Gandhi and the Indian National Congress Party.
Shortly before midnight, Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of independent India and Gandhi’s political successor, delivered a speech to the Indian Constituent Assembly:
Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance…
(Read the full text of the speech.)
It was one of the 20th century’s most tragic ironies that a non-violent independence movement led, however indirectly, to appalling violence and bloodshed. British India became independent not as one nation, but two. Under pressure by the Muslim League and its leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the British agreed to divide India along religious communal lines. A commission led by Cyril Radcliffe partitioned those parts of India with a Muslim majority population into the separate state of Pakistan. Violence erupted almost immediately after the announcement of the border between the two states, as communal groups attempted to clear their areas of other religious groups. Hindus and Sikhs in Pakistan fled to India, and Muslims traveled the opposite direction. Roughly 14.5 million people were displaced. The death toll of Partition remains unknown; estimates range from 250,000 to 1,000,000 people of all religions, classes, and castes.
This is the first in a series of posts about the history of India.
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