India is marking 75 years since becoming independent.
“At the stroke of the midnight hour,” India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru said, “when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.”
The historic speech just before midnight on August 15 1947 turned the hopes of millions into reality with India a free, independent country and its British colonial history in the past.
Seventy-five years on, India is vastly changed and its story is told through its throbs of tumult, daunting hurdles, spirited triumphs and terrible tragedies.
The nation’s birth was not an easy one, with bloodletting claiming many lives as the former jewel in the crown of the British Empire was partitioned into predominantly Hindu India and largely Muslim Pakistan.
The assassination of Mahatma Gandhi was another difficult moment for the nascent nation but India pressed on with plans to become the world’s biggest democracy.
A glorious unifying moment came for India in 1983, when a team led by Kapil Dev won the World Cup at Lord’s in 1983 with an unexpected victory over the mighty West Indies.
Few would believe that in decades India would become financially the dominant force in the sport it has helped transform.
In 2000, India’s population passed the billion mark and it is on course to replace China as the world’s most populous nation, though the tsunami of 2004 was another disaster that exacted a heavy toll on India.
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