“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…India discovers herself again.” - Jawaharlal Nehru
(on Indian Independence Day, 1947)
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| MIDNIGHT, AUGUST 14-15, 1947: Jawaharlal Nehru is sworn in by Lord Mountbatten as independent India’s first Prime Minister. |
After more than two
hundred years of British rule, India finally won back its freedom on August 15, 1947. All the patriotic hearts rejoiced at seeing India becoming a sovereign nation.
It was a birth of a new nation and a new
beginning. The only fact that marred the happiness of the fruits by the blood of martyrs was the fact that the country was divided into India and Pakistan and the violent communal riots took away a number of lives.
The day is celebrated to commemorate the birth of the world’s biggest
democracy as a national
holiday. Schools and people hoist the national flag through out the country and put them up on the rooftops and the buildings.
It was on the eve of August 15, 1947 that India tricolor flag was unfurled by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, on the ramparts of the Red Fort of Delhi. |
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