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On is15 August 1997 Bismillah
Khan played shehnai
from
Red fort,
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The 50 years since India became independent have been some of the most turbulent in modern world history and yet, among the most triumphant. We present some of the most moving and telling images of that time. They are nostalgia unlimited. They define India. They define us.
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November 30, 1999
ISSUE DATE: August 18, 1997UPDATED: August 14, 2015 20:58 IST
Photographs are double-edged swords. They can be kind to a country, or unkind. They can flatter people, or they can flatten them. Usually, though, they show us up for what we are. The 50 years since India became independent have been some of the most turbulent in modern world history and yet, among the most triumphant.
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We present some of the most moving and telling images of that time, images that go beyond mechanically recording events or profiling rulers or rabble-rousers. They are nostalgia unlimited. They define India. They define us.
By the time India celebrated its inauguration as a republic in 1950 (left), Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was already a memory. Actually, it happened three years before, as Jawaharlal Nehru delivered the inaugural Independence Day address on an overcast day on August 15, 1947. The Father of the Nation stood by, his work done, his place assumed by the rulers of New India. Overnight, Gandhi was the past. Nehru was the future.
PARTITION & PASSAGE
The vote for Partition was the easy part. As departing British soldiers took a last look at the Raj, the man who worked to make them leave paid the price for a divided nation with his life. These were the years of stark horror. As Hindu crowds ignored a Meo Muslim running for his life, this shattered refugee family from Pakistan was gathered around the remains of their lives.
LEADER TAKES CHARGE
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The business of nation-building started with invocations to the Gods, but as the first prime minister would find out, the business of running a nation weighs heavy. Internal friction within the Congress leadership would spill over beyond amicable luncheons for the council of ministers to discuss matters of a young, turbulent state. There was talk of "Iron Man" Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel being short-changed in the run for power, bending before realpolitik. These were also the years when Nehru's idea of the "temples of India" took shape, building blocks of industry with total state intervention. The new republic had its first larger-than-life demagogue.
HINDI-CHINI BHAI BHAI
Nehru instinctively offered the young Dalai Lama a refuge from the Chinese aggression in Tibet. That was in 1953. It was also the time of Panchsheel, a time to preach brotherhood between nations. When Chinese Premier Chou En-lai visited three years later, the times were still warm enough for all three to share a platform - however uneasy - and declare good intention. In the '50s, India was a naive place-non-aligned did not necessarily mean non-aggression.