Independence Day India is the subject of the latest Google doodle in India.
India Independence Day is celebrated on August 15 every year to mark independence of India from British rule. India was born as a sovereign nation on 15 August 1947, at the stroke of midnight, after spending nearly 2 centuries under the rule of the Britishers.
The East India Company start ruling India after it defeated the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies in the Battle of Plassey in 1757. The company ruled India for a 100 years, before it was forced to hand over the reigns to the British Crown, after the first revolt of Indian Independence in 1857.
The British Crown assumed direct control of India in 1858, and passed a series of stricter, repressive laws that broke the proverbial back of the local population. Unrest against the British Empire started rising, and the arrival of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi from South Africa gave the movement a much needed focal point.
Gandhi became the symbol of the Independence movement, which was built upon the ideas of non-violence, civil disobedience and non-cooperation. The movement hit an upsurge during the late 1930s, and early 1940s, with India frustrated at being dragged into the World War II, and pressing for a full independence from the Empire, after earlier calls for partial self-rule.
Beaten down by the World War II, and the movement within India that was now at its peak, the British Government finally decided to end the British rule in India. A tragic side-effect of India's independence was the partition of India into two states, India and Pakistan, and the mass migration as well as communal violence that followed.
Independence Day is one of the three national holidays in India (the other two being the Republic Day on 26 January and Mohandas Gandhi's birthday on 2 October) and is observed in all Indian states and union territories. On the eve of the Independence Day, the President of India delivers the "Address to the Nation", which is televised nationally. On 15 August, the Prime Minister of India hoists the Indian flag on the ramparts of the historical site Red Fort in Delhi.
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