INDIAN INDEPENDENCE DAY

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we will 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. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance .... We end today a period of ill fortune, and India discovers herself again."

The day when India woke up to freedom back in 1947 was a day of great celebration. A country got rid of her foreign yoke and became a sovereign nation, she celebrated her sovereignty on this day - the triumph of numerous martyred souls. It was a day of fulfillment, it was the day of a new beginning, a birth of a nation.On the stroke of midnight, a country came into life again as the british handed over the governance of India to the Indian leaders.The long and difficult struggle had borne fruit at last, though the happiness was marred by the fact that the country was divided into India and Pakistan and the violent communal riots had left the countries permanently scarred. That was the price that India paid for her dearly bought freedom. The british government declared the country independent and left for their own shores.

On the 15th of August, 1947, India became completely independent. It was on this historic date that Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime Minister of India, unfurled the Indian tricolor on the ramparts the magnificent Red Fort, symbolically marking the end of the british colonial rule.

A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks. Thomas Jefferson

You cannot build character and courage by taking away a man's initiative and independence. Abraham Lincoln

Mickey Mouse is, to me, a symbol of independence. He was a means to an end. Walt Disney

The Declaration of Independence I always considered as a theatrical show. Jefferson ran away with all the stage effect of that... and all the glory of it. John Adams

If money is your hope for independence you will never have it. The only real security that a man will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability. Henry Ford

True individual freedom cannot exist without economic security and independence. People who are hungry and out of a job are the stuff of which dictatorships are made. Franklin D. Roosevelt

Injustice in the end produces independence. Voltaire

There is no more independence in politics than there is in jail. Will Rogers

The beauty of independence, departure, actions that rely on themselves. Walt Whitman

I know of no country in which there is so little independence of mind and real freedom of discussion as in America. Alexis de Tocqueville