INDIA@75 Special Edition

While India and Indians worldwide celebrate India’s 75th Independence day,  Prime Minister Modi’s seven+ years in office marks the longest uninterrupted non-Congress government at the centre. It’s a combination of the pull of PM Modi’s personality, a right-of-centre stream of politics, and a few lessons learned from the Congress party. In 2007, with the BJP nowhere within striking distance of …

Present on the stage, Governor of Gujarat Shri Acharya Dev Vrat ji, Chief Minister Shri Vijay Rupani ji, my colleague in the Union Council of Ministers, Shri Prahlad Patel ji, my fellow Parliamentarian in the Lok Sabha, Shri C.R. Patil ji, the newly elected Mayor of Ahmedabad, Shri Kirit Singh Bhai, trustee of Sabarmati Trust, Shri Kartikeya Sarabhai ji and …

Every year on August 15, the Indian nation celebrates its Independence Day with great pride and enthusiasm. It is the day on which in 1947, the British transferred political power to the Indians after nearly 200 years of imperial rule over the country. This day is remembered as the day on which India shook the chains of bondage and made …

The twentieth century has been characterised as a century of widespread democratic upsurge. The first half of the century witnessed the overthrow of colonialism in Asia and Africa because of the liberation struggles. The Indian freedom movement led by Mahatma Gandhi which used nonviolent direct action satyagrahaas a technique of struggle, has won general acclaim for the pioneering role it …

As citizens of India and Pakistan celebrate 71 years of their independence on August 15, they will also remember 1947 as the momentous year of their simultaneous birth. That year, the British quit their “jewel in the crown” and partitioned colonial India on the basis of religion. What followed in the aftermath of the partition was one of the largest …

  In 2019, the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby visited the site of a brutal massacre, Jallianwala Baugh, which happened in 1919 under British colonial rule in India and offered his personal apologies. He expressed his “deep sense of grief” for a “terrible atrocity.” The former U.K. Prime Minister Theresa May told the House of Commons that the episode was …

An immense trove of the most important royal historical material for decades has quietly been released in the United Kingdom. These are the diaries of Lord Louis Mountbatten and his wife Lady Edwina, from the 1920s until 1968. As the last great-grandchild and godchild of Queen Victoria, uncle of Prince Philip and adored great-uncle of Prince Charles, Mountbatten exercised a …

When India gained independence from Britain on August 15 1947, the majority of Anglo-Indians had either left or would leave soon after. Many within the Indian Civil Service would write of the trauma that they experienced from witnessing the violence of the years leading up to the end of British rule and the bloodbath that would follow as the lines …

This piece is part of a new series in collaboration with the ABC’s Saturday Extra program. Each week, the show will have a “who am I” quiz for listeners about influential figures who helped shape the 20th century, and we will publish profiles for each one. You can read the other pieces in the series here. Jawaharlal Nehru was not …

The Indian National Congress, on December 19, 1929, passed the historic ‘Purna Swaraj’ – (total independence) resolution – at its Lahore session, which called for “complete freedom from the British.” The Purna Swaraj resolution—proclaimed on January 26, 1930,  – a day, which the Congress Party urged Indians to celebrate as ‘Independence Day’.​​​​​​​ The declaration was passed due to the breakdown …

The Dandi March, also known as the Salt Satyagraha, salt March and the Dandi Satyagraha, was an act of nonviolent civil disobedience in colonial India led by Mahatma Gandhi. The twenty-four day march lasted from 12 March 1930 to 5 April 1930 as a direct action campaign of tax resistance and nonviolent protest against the British salt monopoly. Another reason …