August 15, India completes 64 years of freedom. In this visual chronology of post-Independence India, we choose the moments that stood out in each year of the nation’s triumphant, troubled history.
1947 - Tryst with destiny
Eleven days before August 15, 1947, Viceroy Lord Louis Mountbatten (center), Jawaharlal Nehru (extreme left) and Mohammad Ali Jinnah (right) prepare for the transfer of power from the British Crown. A notional picture of a divided nation comprising India and Pakistan, as distinct from the agglomeration of princely states and provinces administered by the Raj, came into being during these deliberations. Nehru represented the Indian National Congress while Jinnah stood for the Muslim League, which demanded a separate sovereign state for Muslims. Although the British were in favor of a united Indian subcontinent and the 1946 Cabinet Mission attempted to reach a compromise between the Congress and the Muslim League, neither Nehru nor Jinnah agreed to its proposal for a decentralized state with power vested in local governments. August 14, 1947, the dominion of Pakistan (which then included East Pakistan) declared independence from the British Crown. At midnight the following day, India followed suit with Nehru famously heralding our tryst with destiny.
1947 - Train to Pakistan
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As British India was cloven in two, the birth pangs of nationhood were followed by separation anxiety. The first train to Pakistan, which ran from Delhi to Lahore, was flagged off in August 1947 in a climate of warmth and bonhomie. However, as massive population exchanges took place between the two young nations, tensions ran high and fanned communal passions aflame. As people were plucked out of their homes and forced to cart their families and belongings to the strange new land across the newly drawn border, they came under attack from brigands and hired thugs. Both fledgling governments were ill equipped to deal with such massive migrations, displacement and violence driven by communal sentiments. About 10 million people are believed to have been displaced, and over a million are estimated to have died during the Partition. Sixty-four years later, the scars of Partition live on in public memory, even though the descendants of those affected by it have few physical memories of the event.
1948-49 – A prodigal son’s patricide
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Nathuram Vinayak Godse (extreme left) and Narayan Apte (center), members of the extremist outfit Hindu Mahasabha, blamed Mahatma Gandhi for conceding Pakistan to the Muslims. Godse and Apte had been part of previous unsuccessful attempts to assassinate Gandhi. On January 29, 1948, the two men reached Delhi Railway Station and checked into the retiring room. Financed by their organization, they had purchased a Beretta .38 semi-automatic pistol. The next morning Godse approached Gandhi as he was heading to a prayer meeting and bowed before him. At point blank range, the assassin fired three shots and the Mahatma collapsed to the ground. Gandhi, breathing his last, is believed to have uttered the words, “Hai Ram”. Announcing Bapu’s death to the nation, Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru said, “The light has gone out of our lives, and there is darkness everywhere.” Godse and Apte were executed in November 1949.
1950 – Glory to the republic
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On January 26, 1950, the 34th and last Governor-General of India Chakravarti Rajagopalachari read out a proclamation announcing the birth of the Republic of India. The Constitution of India came into effect, declaring India as a sovereign, democratic and secular state. Until this day, India was a dominion under the British Commonwealth acknowledging George VI as King and Emperor. Dr Rajendra Prasad (in picture, right) took oath as the President of the new republic. Interestingly, despite the newly proclaimed status India did not renounce allegiance to the British Commonwealth. As the Manchester Guardian observed on January 26, 1950, India regarded the Commonwealth as a “political machinery used to promote peace and economic advancement.”
1950 – The first missionary of charity
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Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, an Albanian nun, came to Darjeeling, India in 1929 with the Sisters of Loreto. She learned Bengali and took the name Teresa upon being initiated into the order. While the nuns at the Loreto Convent were engaged in teaching, Teresa was moved by the poverty she witnessed around her. Traveling by train to Kolkata (then Calcutta), she experienced the epiphany that was to become her life’s mission – to devote her life to the service of the poorest of the poor. On October 7, 1950, Teresa established her own congregation, the Missionaries of Charity, in Kolkata after receiving permission from the Vatican to do so. Its purpose was to care for “the hungry, the naked, the homeless, the crippled, the blind, the lepers, all those people who feel unwanted, unloved, uncared for throughout society, people that have become a burden to the society and are shunned by everyone." She abandoned her nun’s habit and adopted a white sari with a blue border, which continues to be worn by members of her order. Started with 13 members, the Missionaries of Charity have more than 4,000 nuns today running hospices and orphanages around the world.
1952 – Democracy’s first dance
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Jawaharlal Nehru, who had led the interim government since 1947, was elected in the country’s first parliamentary election in 1952. The Congress Party emerged victorious in the elections, the first test of fledgling democracy. On May 13, Nehru formed the first democratically elected Government of India and assumed office as Prime Minister. Later that year the Prime Minister, seen here on his 65th birthday two years later, unveiled India’s first Five Year Plan.
1954 – The China syndrome
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Before India became independent of British rule, it had little political contact with its northerly neighbor. China had also recently undergone a political upheaval. The incumbent Kuomintang nationalist party had been defeated in a civil war by the People’s Liberation Army, which established the People’s Republic of China. Nehru’s foreign policy began with his government’s recognition of the new republic. In April 1954 Nehru traveled to Peking (as Beijing was then known) where he met Chinese leaders Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong (in pic). April 29 became a red-letter day in the history of Sino-Indian ties for the declaration of the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, known as Panchsheel (inspired in part from the Pancasila – the five principles for the foundation of Indonesia as laid out by the nation’s first president Sukarno), which comprised respect for each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-aggression, non-interference in each other's internal affairs, equality and mutual benefit, and peaceful co-existence. The refrain “Hindi Chini bhai bhai” was common during the 1950s as the two countries ignored the odd border skirmish to maintain peaceful relations. Within a few years, India and China fell out over China’s occupation of Tibet.
1955 – Devdas, the original bizarre love triangle
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Bimal Roy’s Devdas was not the first cinematic adaptation of Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyay’s novel (it was preceded by five versions in various Indian languages) but the 1955 film was path-breaking in its mass appeal. Starring Dilip Kumar as the tragic male protagonist, Suchitra Sen as Parvati (the estranged childhood sweetheart) and Vyjayanthimala as the courtesan Chandramukhi, the bizarre love triangle left an entire nation bewitched. Though the film has been remade amid great hype, no one could surpass Dilip Kumar’s iconic portrayal of the doomed lover, which has since been much emulated, imitated and parodied. Even the bitterest critics agree that Roy’s cinematic technique was leagues ahead of his time. Elsewhere in the Hindi film industry, Raj Kapoor and Nargis stole hearts in Shree 420, and the song “Mera joota hai Japani” symbolized a bold new patriotism.
1956 - Ambedkar embraces Buddhism, spearheads Dalit Buddhist movement
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Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar was born into an impoverished family of the Mahar caste and spent his life battling the stigma of untouchability and caste-based discrimination in Indian society. In an era when education was the province of privileged upper castes, he obtained multiple doctorates in law, economics and political science from institutions such as Columbia University and the London School of Economics. As Law Minister in the first Union Cabinet and chairman of the committee appointed to draft the Constitution of India, Ambedkar envisioned a law that provided constitutional guarantees for a wide range of civil liberties including freedom of religion, abolition of untouchability and equal rights for women. The Constituent Assembly adopted it in 1949. However, Ambedkar’s proposal for a Hindu Code guaranteeing equal right to inheritance and property was opposed by a section of Parliament. Disappointed, he resigned. After unsuccessful attempts to contest the Lok Sabha elections as an independent, he turned his focus on Buddhism. Discovering through anthropological research that his Mahar ancestors were in fact Buddhists who were made untouchables by dominant Brahmins, he converted to Buddhism in 1956. He also proceeded to proselytize the faith among 5 lakh supporters. Despite failing health he completed the manuscript of his book, The Buddha and His Dhamma, and died just days later on December 6, 1956. Ambedkar’s philosophy had a profound influence on Indian society and initiated a journey towards equality that continues to date.
1957 – Mother India soothes India’s Kashmir woes
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It was a year of great changes. Even as Kerala ushered into power the first democratically elected Communist government the Kashmir problem rose to a boil with both Pakistan and a section of Kashmiris pressing for a plebiscite to determine the future of the state. However, it was cinema that truly fanned India’s patriotic sentiments. Mother India, a story of grinding poverty directed by Mehboob Khan and starring Sunil Dutt and Nargis, became a national sensation. Nargis played Radha, a poor village woman who rises against odds and sacrifices her own corrupt son in the film’s melodramatic climax. Nargis represented the turbulence of India in the wake of independence. The film’s title was taken from a controversial book by American writer Katherine Mayo that made a disparaging attack on Indian society. Khan, drawing upon Pearl S Buck’s books The Mother and The Good Earth, said that his film’s title was a challenge to Mayo’s “scurrilous work”, declaring the empowerment of Indian women and their triumph over sexual subjugation. Mother India was India’s first official submission to the American Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Language Film category and finished among the top five nominees in 1958.
1958 - AFSPA empowers India to kill its children
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Approved by Parliament on September 11, 1958, the controversial Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act granted sweeping powers to armed forces in what it defined as “disturbed areas”. Under its provisions, armed forces can search, arrest and shoot to kill on suspicion to preserve public order. The AFSPA was first enforced in Assam and Manipur in 1972 and amended to apply to Tripura, Meghalaya, Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram and Nagaland. Historical compulsion for introducing the Act came amid political challenges in integrating the northeast states into the Indian Union after Independence. Since 1990, the Act has also been applied in Jammu and Kashmir where it has been opposed vociferously. India has been under heavy international pressure to repeal the AFSPA, which the watchdog Human Rights Watch condemned as a "tool of state abuse, oppression and discrimination". Opposition to the AFSPA gained momentum when several women activists protesting against the custodial death of Thangjam Manorama Devi stripped before the Manipur headquarters of the Assam Rifles on July 15, 2004. Four years before that Irom Sharmila, the 39-year-old “Iron Lady of Manipur”, began her indefinite fast, accepting neither food nor water. Jailed for attempting to take her own life, Sharmila has been kept alive with tube-fed and intravenous nutrition. Her decade-long fast has made her the icon of the agitation against the AFSPA.
1959 - Tibetans find a home in India
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Since 1951, the Communist Party of China had declared its hold over Tibet but granted the area relative autonomy under the provisions of the Seventeen Point Agreement. A protest in certain parts of Tibet against the redistribution of land according to socialist norms sparked off fighting that turned into an armed rebellion. The Chinese occupants stepped up the subjugation of the Tibetan people with brutal measures that included killings, rape of women and coercing monks and nuns to have sex in violation of vows of celibacy. An armed rebellion intensified in Lhasa, Tibet’s capital, but the Chinese suppressed it. During the uprising the 14th Dalai Lama Tenzin Gyatso escaped to India along with a number of refugees. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru met the Dalai Lama in Mussoorie in 1959 and assured him of protection for his people, offering them land in India to set up settlements in Dharamshala, Bylakuppe and Darjeeling among other places. The Tibetan spiritual leader would go on to establish the Tibetan Government in Exile at Dharamshala. The influx of refugees into India continued for decades thereafter.
1960 – Hamara Bajaj
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In 1960, Bajaj Auto, established in 1945, went public. Just the previous year the company established by visionary industrialist Jamnalal Bajaj had been granted a license to manufacture two- and three-wheelers. While the company initially imported the Vespa 150 under license from Piaggio of Italy, it began production of the Chetak scooter in 1972. Modeled after the Italian Vespa Sprint, the Bajaj Chetak – named for the famous horse of the historical Rajput hero Maharana Pratap – became a household symbol across India. In 1985, a long-running commercial on Doordarshan with the jingle “Hamara Bajaj” cemented its reputation as the people’s scooter. Several scooter models have been rolled out down the ages, but the Chetak became ingrained in culture. In 2009 the company, now among the Forbes 2000, stopped production of the Chetak.
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