75 years of Independence and how far we came!

“If Independence is granted to India, power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues, freebooters; all Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw. They will have sweet tongues and silly hearts. They will fight amongst themselves for power and India will be lost in political squabbles. A day would come when even air and water would be taxed in India.” — Winston S. Churchil

Independence! Happy 75 years of independence.

My questions are,

Are we free? Are we truly independent? How far did we come? How far can we go as a Nation?

Today I would like to focus on our achievements. An answer to “How far we have come?”

We were meant to build a nation by merging 565 princely states and battle poverty with burning hands when the British empire left us.

Unifying the Country:

British left India with princely states and a divided border with complicated terms and conditions. India formed as a country with the unification of 565 princely states over these 75 years. Lastly, By removing the restrictions of Article370, we turned Kashmir into a part of India that is subject to all of its laws and regulations.

Food Production:

Food production was mere around 54 million Tonnes in 1951–52. As of now, it was 305 million Tonnes. Production has been improved 6-fold.

Electricity:

The grid had 3000 households connected in 1947. The government asserts that all households were on the grid. However, several residents of rural villages have yet to light their homes.

Economy:

GDP:

GDP, Gross Domestic Product, was 67 times the freedom day GDP. Present the 6th largest GDP and will be 3rd by 2030 as per predictions.

Forex:

India had just Rs.1029 crores as foreign reserves in 1951–52. But after 75 years, We have 46.17 lakh crores with which we are in the top 5.

FDI:

Foreign Direct Investments rose to $82 billion from 256 crores.

Thanks to Economic reform policies in the mid-90s, which made the advancement in FDIs 10-fold.

IT infra services and automobile industries played an important role.

Banking:

With zero balance accounts, banks were brought to every person earning as low as Rs.200–300/day.

After demonetization in 2016, India became the highest online transaction per day and fastest secured transactions.

Per capita:

Our per capita has been raised from $2.39 to $2800 from 1947 to 2022.

Technology:

ISRO:

We have developed our own cryogenic and liquid engines.

Thanks to actor Madhavan, we all know that our Liquid-engine is yet to fail.

We transitioned from landing on the Moon with Russia’s assistance to sending a ship to Mars all at once, with less money spent on technology than the United States’ Mars mission budget.

DRDO:

From purchasing armaments or defense systems from Israel, the United States, or Russia to developing self-defense missiles.

We successfully developed and tested nuclear missiles in 1998.

IT services:

India is one of the leading nations in the IT sector because of its 20% market share of global IT services.

Transportation:

Roads:

Since the first day of independence, the overall length of roadways has expanded 16 times.

Railway:

India has the largest pre-independence railway network. Following independence, railway services were enhanced, and secure lines were established and extended.

Water transport:

Since 1947, India has made progress in shipping and gradually became the second largest shipping country in Asia and the sixth largest in world. Indian ships ply most of the shipping routes of the world.

Health Care System:

Do you know, Our life expectancy in 1947 was only 32 years, but this has more than doubled to 70 years.

With this vast population, we eradicated Polio, smallpox and the impact of malaria from 70 million malaria cases in 1947 to 0.1 million in 1964 to a meagre 20 k-50 k now.

In the plague of Coronavirus, India supplied vaccines to the world. These statistics show the expansion of the pharmaceutical industry during the last 7.5 decades.

Democracy and Administration :

We are the largest democratic country.

After independence, every country in the west and east believed that India, with its great cultural diversity, religions, castes, languages, and dialects, had no hope of surviving as a nation. Our country was dubbed a “Third-World Nation.” We defied it, and here we are, 75 years later, raising our flag together on our roofs.

The systems may have failed for a period of time, but we, as citizens of this illustrious nation, have never let it down.

During these seven and a half decades, our Parliament and assembly of different states developed policies, made laws, and revised rules to improve administrative transparency and to benefit ordinary individuals.

We always revolted via democracy, not by terror revolts like during the Emergency or when Parliament failed us in 1997–98, letting down Prime Minister A.B. Vajpayee and his administration.

Wars and Defense:

War and peace:

Even after invasion after invasion, we never carried a grudge or struck the first blow against any country to bleed war until now.

We liberalized Bangladesh as a country from Pakistan in 1972.

We attempted to battle China for Tibet’s freedom while we lacked military hardware.

We won wars in 1971 and 1999 but never tried to occupy neighboring countries’ land.

We let thousands of captured Pakistan soldiers free without any demands after the war in 1971.

Despite having proof, we never launched an attack after 26/11, unlike the United States.

Defense:

Following our freedom in 1947, we purchased majority of our equipment from the USSR and later from Israel, the United States, and European countries.

In 1998, we conducted nuclear missile development and tests under the nose of the United States and its satellite.

Our DRDO, or Defense Research and Development Organization, has created a variety of missiles to protect us from potential threats or attacks.

IN UNO and Our Strength:

India strengthened its position in the UNO as an advocate to present the needs and aspirations of the developing countries and promote international cooperation.

We sought Western assistance and accepted what the West dictated. Finally, we reacted rightly, defying Western sanctions against Russia and continuing to conduct business in the same way as the European Union.

In 2016, we killed terrorists who assaulted us in Pulwama. We demonstrated our power to the world that we would not remain silent under threats.

We waived Article 370 to make Jammu and Kashmir fully part of India, and no one in the UN intervened.

India is a developing country, although it is no longer a ‘third-world country’, a term used for poor countries. While western countries reigned with the industrial revolution, the British stole us, used us for their own advancement, and sabotaged our development. Border tensions, poverty, darkness, and division were all left behind. But we defied expectations by running when we were supposed to crawl. With our current position in the world, every country requires India’s help, business, and investment. We still have internal issues that might have been resolved in the last 75 years, but we have progressed to become one of the world’s Superpowers.

Happy Independence day…! and Be proud.