15th August 1947
I’ve grown up listening to stories of how India gained its independence. The stories of the many who laid down their lives hoping for a better future for our country. The songs, the movies, the stories about our fight for Independence still give me goosebumps. Knowing that less than a century back – people my age and even younger were giving up their lives so that I could be here right now writing this from the comfort of my home – makes me want to honour their memory. Walk down memory lane with me?
Bharat or India was called the ‘golden bird’ of the world. Until about the 18th century, India’s GDP was 1/4th of the world’s GDP. India flourished in trade and industry. India was ruled by different dynasties across the country with the significant ruler being The Mughals. In 1857, the British took control of India and started an oppressive rule that lasted almost 200 years.
It amazes me how the world doesn’t stop shaming Germany for the war crimes of the Nazis but has left colonialists like Britain off the hook for the crimes that they’ve perpetuated. To put it in numbers:
- A Columbia University researcher calculated that the British drained India of over $45 trillion.
- The British stole treasures worth billions of dollars from India. Some of which are in the British Museum and many are a part of the Monarchy’s treasures. The Kohinoor Diamond (which sits on the queen’s crown) alone is estimated to be worth about $10 billion.
- The British killed about 35 million Indians during their oppressive and cruel rule. (Just for comparison – the Nazis killed around 17 million people but in a much shorter time frame.)
- The British used around 2.5 million Indian soldiers in WW2.
- The British war politics led to a major famine in India (in 1943) that caused the death of around 2-3 million people.
- The British still not pleased with the idea of giving India independence struck the country and divided it on the basis of religion leaving behind a trail of blood and hatred even as they exited the country.
(Please note these are only numbers related to India. There were other colonies where the same crimes were perpetuated by the British and other colonialists.)
When I hear of the ‘Commonwealth’ it angers me SO much. The Commonwealth countries are basically all the countries wronged by the British that deserve repatriation. Honestly, if today the British museum returns all the treasures stolen from across the world – the museum would stand almost empty. It angers me when people from the ‘first world’ countries make snide remarks about poverty and people from the ‘third world’ countries without realizing that their entire present life is built on a history of oppression and cruelty perpetuated by their forefathers on the very same ‘third world’ countries.
When the British exited India in 1947, they left the country – broke, poverty-ridden, and worse of all divided. India has risen from the flames. We are an economic power to reckon with today with our nominal GDP almost at par with the UK. And I’m proud of how far my country has come in the last 75 years.
Is India in its present state perfect? Ofcourse not! But honestly, no country in the world is perfect. Even the largest democracy (and economy) in the world in 2022 hasn’t had a single woman president and is still taking basic rights away from women.
But here are my hopes for my India in the coming decade –
- More unity: The politics of divide and rule started by the British, unfortunately, still continues to be a trend amongst our politicians. I hope the younger generations are able to unite for a better future for our country.
- A stronger judicial system: Unfortunately, our judicial system is dated and needs a major upgrade with stronger laws and faster handing out of justice. Also, a relook into laws like UAPA.
- More youngsters in politics: I say this even though personally I would never enter the dirty world of politics. But I hope other, more determined youngsters get a chance to change the future of India.
- More focus on the environment: India has started doing its bit but there needs to be a push to do better especially with regards to clean energy and curbs on industries.
- Population control: Here is hoping with more people like me (who don’t want biological children), the population issue can be solved. But if not, we definitely need laws and/or incentives for this.
- More start-ups, more push for manufacturing in India, and more economic growth
I am incredibly proud of my country. Onwards to greater achievements. Jai Hind!
If you haven’t already, check out my other recent posts:
Happy Panda 
स्वतंत्रता दिवस की हार्दिक शुभकामनाएं।।
जय हिन्द जय भारत।
🇮🇳
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I am a proud Indian too….and our country is slowly but surely progressing….happy about that too…
I agree with your hopes for a better India.
I would like to add one more thing:
We have physically got liberty but the colonial mindset still prevails. Why would we look to the west for approval of all that we do otherwise?
The day we stop looking up to others for approval, that day we will be truly independent…
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Happy Independence day! Nice and insightful post. Do the grey areas in your map represent independent states that joined India or Pakistan with time? As Kashmir didn’t join any based on the map, is it the reason behind both countries’ conflict or there is other reasons? I love to read historical and cultural posts. The Indian culture is super rich and ancient. Do you have any other previous posts about Indian culture, so we can get to know more about it?
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Thank you so much. I haven’t written much about India’s history and culture before.
So a lot of princely states didn’t join either countries at first but did so over the next few years. The state of Jammu & Kashmir happened to be at the border of the two countries and hence, both countries hoped the king would accede his kingdom to them. While I’m not sure about the exact events but our then minister Sardar Patel managed to convince the King of Kashmir (Hari Singh) to join with India. An attack on Kashmir by Pakistani tribal militia also pushed the matter along in India’s favour.
Why Pakistan thinks it has a right over Kashmir – I don’t know. But I do think China has a hand in it since China has also occupied a part of Kashmir and has ulterior motives in destabilizing the area. There is just too much history and also, dirty politics involving Kashmir which has wrongfully impacted the lives of those living there. I visited Kashmir in January this year and fell in love with the place.
I did write a cutesy post about things you see in India – https://thenirvanatales.com/2021/07/02/things-i-find-endearing-about-india/
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Super interesting! Thanks, for the information. When it comes to lands and long-term conflicts definitely lots of history and dirty politics are involved. The only victims are the residents.
I am excited to read your previous post 🙂
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You are obviously much more familiar with India’s history than I am, but what you say about Nazi Germany being shamed far more than the British seem true from this outsider’s point of view. Happy Independence Day! Let freedom ring from the oppression of bullies.
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I’ve been watching this German YouTube channel – DW Documentary (I think it is state owned). It is so interesting to see how they’ve tried to not hide away from their history and instead preserve it so that future generations know to do better. Which is not the same for other colonialists like Britain, France, Spain etc. The fact that the British actually proudly display all the treasures they’ve literally stolen from other countries says how they feel about their gruesome past. 😦
And thank you 🙂
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Happy Independence day to you!
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Thank you 🙂
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Your welcome!
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Thank you so much for sharing these details as I’ve never really heard them before. It’s honestly pretty sickening to hear about and I think it’s so important to keep bringing this into the light. It just comes down to old fashioned greed, racism, power, and bullying. Rich white people who think they’re better than everyone else running around just taking from others. I’m sorry this happened to your country and I so appreciate this post and the things you shared here 💚🧡
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Thank you for reading! It is really crazy how most of the colonialists have gotten scot free for all that they did.
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Happy Independence Day and it was quite interesting learning more about India! I so want to visit someday since my mum grew up in India and has so many memories of it 😊
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I’m very proud of our country, but, what you said about “law’s for population control” cannot be possible in India as, we are a country where the democracy rules out not the aristocracy or other administrative or monarchy regimes. Bringing population law control can provoke the people, and and violence will surely break out in the country, rather what could we do is ‘we can follow the Uttar Pradesh model on population control laws” which do not instruct people to have more than one or children but praise and rewards people for not having more than one or two children.
What saddens me the most is the dilution of our culture and slow degradation of our culture. Today, the Generation Z or the youths are more inclined with the western cultures, and their practices. Today, we as Indians rather than trying to learn and explore and entrust us with a wide base knowledge of our culture, we are busy scrolling the instagram and embracing the western cultures. We at times praise them and Beyonce l criticise our own country.
Today, when the people have a better and easily available digital resources, rather than trying to learn our Indian laws and rights, and the conditions of people in India, the administrative works and efforts of our administration, are busy using internet for rubbish things.
Soon as we progress towards the capitalism in our country, people will start downgrading the values of relationships and friendships and caring about our own families first. Because people don’t realise that while they embrace the western culture, they don’t see the detailed insights within those countries.
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Thank you for reading and commenting.
I, unfortunately, disagree with you on a lot of points.
1. By population control I didn’t necessarily mean laws to stop people from having children altogether. But restricting the number of children people can have to 3 max. definitely will help. Ofcourse, giving people incentives is a great starting point but I don’t see it being effective. What most people don’t realise is that India’s major problem is it’s population. We may have a huge GDP putting us in the top 10 but if you see our GDP per capita – it is not a lot. (https://www.investopedia.com/insights/worlds-top-economies/) Pollution, inflation, poverty – a lot of these problems arise from our large population. The sooner we do something about it, the better it is for our country.
2. I don’t think any one culture is better than the other. Neither is Indian culture perfect nor is western but if we can adopt the good parts of both the cultures then maybe we can create a new and better culture.
3. You can appreciate Beyonce, love your own country and still criticize how some things are going down in the country.
4. “Efforts of our administration” – on any other day, I’d be open to having a discussion on this but as 14 rapists (and murderers) get released and garlanded – I’m sorry I don’t see the efforts.
Our country is improving and that is because of it’s hard working people, us, commoners who work hard every single day. 🙂
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Indeed, you can disagree on many points of mine, but, where you perceived (on my Indian culture comment), I was emphasizing about the greatness of our own culture and I was not discouraging the culture of other countries,
Yeah, on number 4, I am going to read that news, it has been in newspaper but my tight schedule didn’t allow me to read that, I will read that.
And, regarding culture my ulterior motive was to convey “The eastern culture along with western conscience” can bring a great implications constructively on us.
Talking about population control, the youths today who are going to be the lead generation tomorrow are much aware of the fact of the balancing acts of cost of living and raising a kid, so it won’t be much difficult in coming future regarding the population albeit, the studies shows that we are going to touch our peak in terms of population or may have already touched it. But, the biggest factor here is all about the awareness.
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A very thoughtful post. And you are right about how Britain hardly gets criticized. Very intriguing!
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Right?!? I mean Germany’s history is so deeply linked to who they are but other colonialists get to pretend like they have a clean slate. 😒
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Agreed. A very puzzling fact to understand.
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Wow! This was very enlightening. Sad about the British, I never kmew thar. Happy Independence Day and wishing the best for India!
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Thank you 😊
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Most welcome!
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Happy Independence Day! Sorry I missed this milestone! I love your pride in your country!
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That was a very interesting and insightful post. I know very little about India’s history (in Europe we mostly learn about European history) so I am very glad to know a bit more about it now. Colonialism left its trail of blood and tears in many countries of the world and it makes me mad to think of how some “Western countries” used to treat other countries and impose their own views of the world on people that didn’t do anything… Anyway, I completely agree with your list of things that still need to be done because it also applies to the countries where I’m from (even though they like to pretend like they don’t need all this)! Thanks for sharing!
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