Freedom Story of India

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.

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.

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.

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.