Their policies of governing the nation was against the people’s morals; they were cruel and created partiality. Millions of Indians died under the foreign rule. Those who raised their voice for Independence were brutally jailed and killed. However, the collective inputs of many patriots gave us Independence on 15th August 1947.
It wasn’t easy to get Independence from Britain. Some facts related to the struggle for Independence are not yet unearthed but some definitely are. Here are some of the very less known facts about Indian Independence that you must know and that would leave you stunned!
1. When India became independent on August 15, 1947 there was no National Anthem. Even though the Bengali invocation of Jana Gana Mana was written in 1911, it was not considered as the national anthem till 1950.
2. Mountbatten chose August 15th, as the Independence date because it also commemorated the second anniversary of Japan’s surrender to the Allied Forces. North Korea, South Korea, Bahrain and Republic of the Congo share their independence day with India.
3. After India’s independence, Portugal amended its constitution and declared Goa as a Portuguese state. Indian troops invaded Goa on December 19, 1961 and annexed it to India.
4. There were 562 princely states in India at the time of independence. 560 of these states joined India and the remaining two (Junagadh and Hyderabad) were annexed by the military.
5. Bhagat Singh was highly fluent in five different languages. It made it easier for him to learn about the great philosophers and thinkers. Bhagat Singh had a great command in English, Arabic, French, Swedish and of course Hindi, Punjabi and Multani.
6. Bal Gangadhar Tilak along with Sir Ratan Jamshed Tata conceived the Bombay Swadeshi Co-Op Stores Co. Ltd. in favour of Swadeshi goods in the early 1900s. The store is popularly known as The Bombay Store now.
7. Records state that, in 1947, if Pakistan hadn’t sent in their tribesmen to attack and conquer Jammu and Kashmir, the state would have eventually gone to Pakistan. Lord Mountbatten had said, “By sending its irregular troops into the state, Pakistan spoiled the whole thing.”
