Harish Palaniappan's

Its been 60 years since british ran away, covering up whatever they spoiled, taking off everything that they could handle within their luggage space, on their way out of India. It was past midnight at the end of the day on 14th August 1947, the expatriates a.k.a the british officially declared indians independent in their own country. Since it was after midnight, indian independence is marked on 15th of August though much of work happened on the 14th... and the sun dawned on that day the 15th, on an independent nation.

So, much happened on the 14th,
> Partition on Pakistan from India, its official handover to the muslim community and hence pakistan's independence, muslims migrating in large numbers into the new country pakistan, which was until that morning a territory of india, much of it making for a bigger Punjab province.

> While the preparations and discussions/documentation were under way, for winding up the british occupation and aggreement of independence to india, the seeds of hatred between hindus and muslims, the spark of the division of a pakistan nation from an indian nation were all happening leaving around confusion within the minds of the people of both the new nations. It delayed, delayed until midnight on the 14th, for the british to settle down and officially complete the process of agreeing to india's demand of independence.

It was not a time were we had so many new channels or television or even any proper or known recording of that event or whatever struggle lead to that midnight. So much of it is lost in memory of the adults of those days who are now old or mostly dead, that indians today really have to make an effort to understand what independence meant... and how much struggle was foregone in the run-up to independence.

Today, we have TV channels promoting the independence day as a big bang government holiday for watching programmes on TV, or shoppers extending summer offers asking people to go shop-lifting on this day, and enjoy every minute of this holiday caused by the indendence struggle.

Getting independence after midnight, as far as I have heard/read, indians or even the people there through the official sign-off, didn't celebrate like having a late-night party, no fire crackers, no week-long celebrations, because people were aware of the huge task ahead after independence.. and so people must have just laughed, shouted jai-hind and sang jan-gana-mana all night, and hugged each other exchanging happiness and tears to be living to see the fruits of all their struggle.

How brave should have been people of india after the 15th of August 1947, to be ready(if there was time),

To take care at one-nights turn to take on all their country's needs themselves through the new indian government which was not yet there,
> through indian law which was not constituted then(constitution of india was created and the indian republic happened 3 years later on jan 26th 1950 only),
> through the minds of people who suddenly didn't have jobs because the british were a major employer,
> and not to forget schools, colleges and many many institutions including the railways had to be funded, managed and governed by the new government (until then the british were funding them, managing them, and governed them through taxes they collected, through trade they forced on indians costing everything at a higher price.. imagine selling clothes and stuff manufactured in better developed and invention-filled countries like britain being sold for a profit in a non-independent 99% poor country like india).

So much pressure that Sir Pandit Nehru accepted to handle in being india's first prime minister, at such a time the post would have hardly been anything close to having the richness of being any privileged position.

Today, in 1947, the 14th of August was a hectic and confusing day for the mostly illiterate indians, and probably most of them at least down south in south india probably knew that they had independence only weeks later than 15th August.

The fact that india got its independence slightly past midnight, is often critiqued as the reason why india still remained a developing nation past 30 or 50 years of independence. Now, on the eve of 60th independence in india, we can be more proud today because we have seen india transform really well economically (thanks to software industry for triggering it and maintaining it), that in the past decade a lot has changed in india, not just with bridges, buildings, or government policies alone, but importantly in the attitude of the people in the country.

May the Force be with us. Happy independence day.

Below is a video interview of the Mahatma, that got me humbled at the way a barrister who could have given up to the colorful riches he could have made by practising law in england,... but just came back to fight for his nation and underwent a struggle which has made him more skin-and-bone, more feeble.

It was nice for me to opportunistically stumble on this video right today.

Its the first time I see the real gandhi speak.. thanks to fox news of those days for this interview and savouring it.. and importantly thanks to whoever posted it on youtube.com

See more such interesting videos listed at:
http://aidindia.org/main/content/view/467/182/

If you are humbled too, and wish to, may be you can donate a buck or two at the below websites which are not-for-profit organizations that are helping the india's poor, and in general helping india itself be and grow more stronger.
http://www.aidindia.org
http://www.cry.org

Thanks for your time on this post. May the force be with you.

Regards,
Harish.