India is a land of such incredible things one could never get enough of. India, once the wealthiest country in the world attracted invaders from far across. Some accepted India as it was and dissolved in the Indian richness but few countries came under the shadow of greed and exploited the wealth resources. We all are aware that the country which ruled India for 200 years was The Great Britain.
Their policies of governing the nation was against the people’s morals; they were cruel and created partiality. Millions of Indians died under the foreign rule. Those who raised their voice for Independence were brutally jailed and killed. However, the collective inputs of many patriots gave us Independence on 15th August 1947.
It wasn’t easy to get Independence from Britain. Some facts related to the struggle for Independence are not yet unearthed but some definitely are. Here are some of the very less known facts about Indian Independence that you must know and that would leave you stunned!
1. When India became independent on August 15, 1947 there was no National Anthem. Even though the Bengali invocation of Jana Gana Mana was written in 1911, it was not considered as the national anthem till 1950.
2. Mountbatten chose August 15th, as the Independence date because it also commemorated the second anniversary of Japan’s surrender to the Allied Forces. North Korea, South Korea, Bahrain and Republic of the Congo share their independence day with India.
3. After India’s independence, Portugal amended its constitution and declared Goa as a Portuguese state. Indian troops invaded Goa on December 19, 1961 and annexed it to India.
4. There were 562 princely states in India at the time of independence. 560 of these states joined India and the remaining two (Junagadh and Hyderabad) were annexed by the military.
5. Bhagat Singh was highly fluent in five different languages. It made it easier for him to learn about the great philosophers and thinkers. Bhagat Singh had a great command in English, Arabic, French, Swedish and of course Hindi, Punjabi and Multani.
6. Bal Gangadhar Tilak along with Sir Ratan Jamshed Tata conceived the Bombay Swadeshi Co-Op Stores Co. Ltd. in favour of Swadeshi goods in the early 1900s. The store is popularly known as The Bombay Store now.
7. Records state that, in 1947, if Pakistan hadn’t sent in their tribesmen to attack and conquer Jammu and Kashmir, the state would have eventually gone to Pakistan. Lord Mountbatten had said, “By sending its irregular troops into the state, Pakistan spoiled the whole thing.”
8. We see various adoptions of the Indian national flag today. However, very few are aware of the fact that khadi or hand-spun cloth is the only material allowed to be used for the flag and flying a flag made of any other material is punishable by law with imprisonment up to three years, besides a fine.
9. Pandit Shyamji Krishnavarma was a great patriot, philanthropist and political propagandist of Bharat-India. Fired with a deep patriotic urge and nationalist emotion, Shyamji launched the freedom movement in England in 1905, two decades before Gandhiji entered into freedom movement of Bharat.
10. Batukeshwar Dutt was an Indian revolutionary in the early 1900s. He is best known for having exploded a few bombs, along with Bhagat Singh, in the Central Legislative Assembly in New Delhi on 8 April 1929 to register protest against the Trade dispute bill and raised the slogan “Inquilab Zindabad“.
11. One of the youngest freedom fighter jailed at the age of 6 months is Rani Saroj Gaurihar. The city of Agra cherishes this grey-haired veteran who is 85 now. She, along with her mother Satyawati Rawat were imprisoned by the British Raj. Saroj, who graduated with a degree in law and a diploma in Public Administration, became part of the freedom struggle as a teenager in 1942.
12. Bhikhaji Rustom Cama is the first person to raise the tri-colour in Germany on 22nd of August 1907. This flag consisted of three colors – the topmost being green followed by golden saffron in the middle and the red color at the bottom. It had ‘Vande Mataram’ inscribed on it.
13. Controversy surrounding Jana Gana Mana claims that Rabindranath Tagore wrote the song ‘Jana Gana Mana’ for the British monarch. He later refuted this claim and said that he wrote the song as requested by his friend and the song pronounced the victory in ‘Jana Gana Mana’ of that Bhagya Vidhata of India and not of King George V.
14. The first Prime Minister, Pandit Jawarharlal Nehru had the privilege of hoisting the national flag from the ramparts of the Red Fort 17 times on Indian Independence day and he addressed the nation on the national day as many times.
I feel so proud to be an Indian not just because it’s my country but because it’s bases are sacrifices, struggle and patriotism. Share this article to spread the lesser known facts about the nation. Once again, Happy Independence Day to all!
Written by Bhakti Patel
