Indian Independence Day (from the United Kingdom) is August 15, 1947; the day when the Indian Independence Act of 1947 became law.
Indian Independence Day Celebrations
New York City’s big Indian Independence Day celebration is the India Day Parade. The Battery Dance Festival includes a day of Indian classical dance.
In India
2024 is India’s 78th Independence Day. In India, the year’s official theme is “Viksit Bharat” (Developed India). It’s the government’s vision to further develop the country by India’s Independence Centennial in 2047. The world’s most populous country has the potential to be one of the world’s leading modern countries.
Indian Independence Day
India carries the heritage of one of the world’s great ancient civilizations. It began in the Indus Valley and reached a high period around 2,600 BCE. India is a land of many religions, including Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, and many Indigenous religions.
India was the world’s richest country until the British came, enslaved the people, and stole everything they could. British India included what is now India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar. Though not part of India proper, British India also included Ceylon and Afghanistan. Today, we call the entire region South Asia.
When human slavery was abolished in 1833, the British brought many Indians to work in the Caribbean as indentured servants. Some came as business people and professionals as well. This continued until 1920, and is how Indians became Latin, or Indo-Caribbean.
In Hindi, Indian Independence Day is Swatantrata Diwas. It was the culmination of a long struggle against 90 years of British colonial rule that began with incursions by the British East India Company in 1611. Until recently, historians painted a picture of colonization as something noble. In fact, being colonized was an apocalyptic hell of abuse, thievery, rape, enslavement, and murder. The colonized everywhere fought back. The first major revolt was the Indian Rebellion of 1857. The Indian independence movement developed in 1885.
Britain, weakened by World War II, decided to decolonize. The collapse of the British Empire created problems in many parts of the world that is still trouble us. Britain partitioned British India into the Dominion of Pakistan on August 14, 1947, and the Union of India on August 15, 1947. Native police and the military immediately started fighting along religious lines leading to terrible communal violence and one of the biggest mass migrations in modern history.
It was a mess, but at least the countries of South Asia gained there sovereignty.