We all know what Independence Day is. It is basically a special occasion on which we celebrate the anniversary of a state or a country’s national independence. But do we all know what independence is?
To explain this, let me give you an example. Now that we are all kids, we don’t have the freedom or the right to do whatever we want. But as we grow, we become more responsible and make our own decisions. We become smarter and start doing things according to our convenience. So, this example basically defines what freedom is. It is the state of being independent and doing things according to our wish and not under the influence of others. When we are under the influence of others, we feel bad for sure. But when we don’t get our freedom back even when we deserve it, we have to fight for our freedom, no matter what.
This was the same thing that happened in our country, India, about 73 years ago in the 20th century. India, at that time was known for the vast riches it owned.
Several European countries maintained trade routes with India to exchange and trade goods. The kingdoms in India at that time lacked unity. They kept fighting among themselves and this led to the decline of many kingdoms and empires. The Europeans knew this was their chance and so started conquering and establishing their rule over small colonies and other states. They started building trade centres and industries and took all of India’s riches. Soon, they became more powerful than the other kingdoms in India and all the European countries started fighting among themselves for who gets a greater share of all of India’s dwellings. Out of these, the British emerged as the most powerful and soon began establishing their rule all over India.
The Indian’s were helpless and could do nothing. The British tortured the Indian’s and gave them no freedom. This led to several revolts and thus many innocent Indian’s were killed. For example, the Revolt of 1857. This revolt wasn’t successful, but it did give the Indians the hope that they would be successful. Some great leaders gave away their life for India’s independence. Armed British officers were there everywhere and they used to shoot every person who would go against their law. On April 13, 1919, a large group of armed British officers started firing at the Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar which led to the death of more than 1000 citizens.
However, the Indians didn’t lose hope. They fought for their independence under their leaders called freedom fighters like Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Lala Lajpat Rai, Subash Chandra Bose, Pandit Jawarlal Nehru, Maulana Abul Kalam Azad and the great Mahatma Gandhi. They launched several movements and revolts like the Non Cooperation Movement in 1920, the Quit India Movement in 1942, the Civil Disobedience Movement, and the Dandi March and so on and the British were having great difficulty in controlling the people and their royalty. And finally, after 200 years under the British, having no freedom, the Indians gained their independence on 15 August 1947.
Today, we celebrate this day as Independence Day in India. We owe a lot to our freedom fighters because of whom we are able to gain our freedom back. We should all be thankful to our freedom fighters. Inspite of all this hard work done by our freedom fighters, we still haven’t gained complete freedom from issues like illiteracy, primary education, sanitation, corruption, poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, safety and many more.
UNITED WE STAND, DIVIDED WE FALL, on this Independence Day let us keep all our difference aside and fight against all these grappling issues and make our India Independent from all sorts of problems.
JAI HIND!!