Free Republic

As the midnight hour approached for India 60 years ago on Aug. 15, 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru, the prime minister designate, took to the podium to address India's Constituent Assembly in session in New Delhi. Nehru said: "Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom." Freedom came with a cost as British India was partitioned to create Pakistan on the basis of...

A major part of the history of India is characterized by two major foreign rules: the Islamic invasion and the British occupation. The Islamic invasion started with the assault of Muhammad bin Qassim in 712 on the order of Hajjaj, the governor of what is now Iraq, and it took until 1690 for the Muslim rulers to conquer India completely. The fall of Islamic rule started with the British East India Company's capture of Bengal in 1757, during the days of Industrial Revolution in Europe. The British rulers took almost 150 years to capture the entire sub-continent from the hands...