india after 50 years essay

India’s achievements after 75 years of Independence

India's achievements after 75 years of Independence: Article talks about the progress India has made in the last 75 years in the field of economic growth, scientific innovations and in other fields.

Table of Contents

India’s achievements after 75 Years of India’s Independence: India’s achivement after August 15th, 1947, has become a prime illustration of a remarkable growth tale. The journey demonstrates India’s development in areas such as agricultural production, nuclear and space technology, world-class educational institutions, Ayurveda, biotechnology, giant steel plants, and becoming a leader in information technology, as well as having the third-largest start-up ecosystem in the world.

India’s achievements after 75 years of Independence: Historic Events, Significant Achievements & Milestones

As India marks its 75th year of independence, let’s examine the historical occurrences, notable accomplishments, and noteworthy milestones that occurred during this time:

15 th August 1947: India’s Independence Day

India became independent from British rule on August 15, 1947. On August 14, 1947, just before the clock struck twelve, our first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, gave the renowned “Tryst with Destiny” speech to the Indian Constituent Assembly in the Parliament. On August 15 in Delhi’s Red Fort, Pandit Nehru raised the Indian National Flag over the Lahori Gate.

26 th January 1950: India became a Republic Country

The Indian Constituent Assembly ratified the Constitution on November 26, 1949. Later, on January 26, 1950, the Indian Constitution went into effect. The Dominion of India became the Republic of India when the Constitution of India took the place of the Government of India Act 1935 as the primary law governing the nation. The Indian Constitution is the country’s highest law. Every year, India celebrates its Republic Day on January 26.

1951: India’s First Five-year Plan was launched

In 1951, Jawaharlal Nehru, our first prime minister, gave the First Five-Year Plan to the Indian Parliament. The Harrod-Domar model, with a few modifications, served as the foundation for the First Five-Year Plan, which concentrated primarily on the growth of the primary sector. Agricultural growth served as the first five-year plan’s guiding principle. The major goal was to find solutions to the various issues that the nation’s division had created. The objective of this strategy was to rebuild the nation once it gained independence.

1952: India witnessed the first Lok Sabha Election

India held general elections from October 25, 1951, to February 21, 1952. These were the first Lok Sabha elections held following the country’s independence in August 1947. On May 13, 1952, this Lok Sabha’s first session officially opened. There were 489 seats in the Lok Sabha overall, and 17.3 crore people were eligible to vote. 364 seats were won by the Indian National Congress (INC). The first Lok Sabha was dissolved on April 4, 1957, after serving its entire five-year term. Jawaharlal Nehru became India’s first prime minister to be chosen democratically.

1953: Air India was nationalized

Nine airlines—Air India, Air Services of India, Airways (India), Bharat Airways, Deccan Airways, Himalayan Aviation, Indian National Airways, Kalinga Airlines, and Air India International—were nationalised by Nehru under the Air Corporations Act of 1953 and placed under the control of two PSEs, Indian Airlines and Air India International.

1954: India and China signed the Panchsheel

In the Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between the Tibet region of China and India signed on April 29, 1954, the two governments first formally stated the Panchsheel, or Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, stating in its preamble that they “have resolved to enter into the present Agreement based on the following principles: –

Mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,
Mutual non-aggression,
Mutual non-interference,
Equality and mutual benefit, and
Peaceful co-existence.”

1955: State Bank of India (SBI) was founded

The State Bank of India was established on July 1st, 1955. In 1955, the Indian government nationalised the Imperial Bank of India, changing the bank’s name to State Bank of India and giving the Reserve Bank of India a 60% ownership interest.

1957: The decimalization of the rupee

On April 1, 1957, ten years after gaining independence from the British, Indian coins became decimal. In September 1955, the Indian Coinage Act was revised to include the decimal system. A circular from the Comptroller and Auditor-General of India stated, “Government accounting with effect from April 1, 1957 is to be maintained in terms of rupees and naye paise instead of rupees, annas, and pies,” in April 1956, after the modified Act became law. Therefore, all challans supporting funds submitted for payment of government dues must be represented in the new coinage. All withdrawal bills must be specified in terms of rupees and naye paise as well.

1960: Green Revolution Began

Norman Borlaug started the Green Revolution movement in the 1960s. He is referred to as the “Father of the Green Revolution” globally. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1970 as a result of his work creating high-yielding wheat varieties (HYVs).

1961: Liberation of Goa

The Republic of India’s process of annexing Estado da India, the former Portuguese Indian territory of Goa, Daman, and Diu, known as the Annexation of Goa, began with an armed intervention by the Indian Armed Forces in December 1961. This event is known as the “Liberation of Goa” in India.

1962: India-China War

In October and November of 1962, China and India fought a war known as the Sino-Indian War. The conflict was mostly sparked by a contested Himalayan border. On November 20, 1962, China announced a cease-fire and its withdrawal to its alleged “Line of Actual Control,” which marked the end of the war”.

1963: India’s first-ever rocket launch

The launch of the first sounding rocket from Thumba near Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala on 21 November 1963, marked the beginning of the Indian Space Programme. Sounding rockets made it possible to probe the atmosphere in situ using rocket-borne instrumentation. This was the first milestone in modern India’s space odyssey. Dr. Vikram Sarabhai and his then accomplice Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam were the brainchild of this achievement.

1965: Indo-Pakistani War

The Second Kashmir War, also known as the Indo-Pakistani War of 1965, was the result of clashes between Pakistan and India between April 1965 and September 1965. Operation Gibraltar, a Pakistani operation intended to infiltrate troops into Jammu and Kashmir and spark an uprising against Indian sovereignty, was the direct cause of the conflict and brought it to a head. Indian troops crossed the line of the cease-fire on 15 August. The United Nations Security Council unanimously approved a resolution on September 20 calling for a 48-hour unconditional ceasefire between the two countries. Pakistan accepted the demand on September 23 while India did so right away.

1966: Indira Gandi Became First Female PM of India

Following Shastri’s unexpected passing in January 1966, Indira Gandhi was appointed Congress Party leader and subsequently became prime minister as part of a deal between the party’s right and left wings. However, the right wing of the party, led by the former minister of finance Morarji Desai, consistently opposed her leadership.

1969: Formation of Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO)

In order to advance planetary exploration and space science research while advancing national development, ISRO was established in 1969. The Indian space program’s founding fathers, scientist Vikram Sarabhai and India’s first prime minister Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru, who founded INCOSPAR (Indian National Committee for Space Research) in 1962, are credited with creating ISRO, which succeeded INCOSPAR.

1970: White Revolution Began

Operation Flood, the largest dairy development programme ever initiated on January 13th, 1970, was an important undertaking for India’s National Dairy Development Board.

1971: India-Pakistan War

The Indo-Pakistani War of 1971 was a military conflict between India and Pakistan that took place in East Pakistan from 3 December 1971 till Dacca (Dhaka) fell on 16 December 1971 as part of the Bangladesh Liberation War.

1975: The Emergency was imposed

India’s “Emergency” was a 21-month period from 1975 to 1977 during which Prime Minister Indira Gandhi imposed a national state of emergency. The Emergency was formally declared by President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed under Article 352 of the Constitution as a result of the ongoing “internal disturbance” and lasted from June 25, 1975, to March 21, 1977, when it was lifted. The majority of Indira Gandhi’s political rivals were put behind bars, elections were annulled, civil freedoms were suspended, and the press was restricted. During that time, many human rights were broken. One of the most contentious eras in independent India’s history is the Emergency.

1982: Colour television began its journey in India

When it began airing national programming in 1982, DD officially became a national broadcaster. Colour TVs were released in Indian markets the same year. The first colour television broadcast was the Independence Day parade on August 15, 1982, which was followed by the Asian Games in Delhi.

1983: India won the cricket World Cup for the first time

The Indian Cricket Team made history on June 25, 1983, when it defeated the two-time defending champion West Indies to win the World Cup. The turning point in cricket history is widely regarded as being India’s victory in 1983. The 1983 World Cup was held in England’s Lord’s Stadium. India reached the World Cup Final for the first time, and the West Indies were competing in their third straight World Cup final.

1987: Goa became one of the States of India

Goa became a state on May 30, 1987, and was divided into North Goa and South Goa as a result (Daman and Diu got their own union territory). The first Chief Minister of Goa, Daman, and Diu is Dayanand Bandodkar. On May 30, 1987, Goa became the 25th state of India.

1988: The SEBI was established

The Government established the Securities and Exchange Board of India on April 12, 1988, as a non-statutory body to handle all issues pertaining to the growth and regulation of the securities market, investor protection, and to provide guidance to the Government on all of these issues.

1989: Agni Missile was successfully launched

Liberalisation, Privatisation, and Globalisation were the three pillars of the new economic strategy of 1991. A severe balance of payments crisis that occurred in the same year served as the immediate catalyst for India’s economic reforms in 1991. India’s balance of payments issue first showed signals in late 1990 when its foreign exchange reserves started to decline.

1995: Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited was founded

On May 3, 1995, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) was established in partnership by the governments of Delhi and India under the leadership of Prime Minister H.D. Deve Gowda[19].

1998: India conducted Pokhran-II tests

Twenty-four years after Pokhran-I, on May 11 and 13, 1998, the Indian Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) carried out five more nuclear tests at the Pokhran range, called “Pokhran-II.” Dr. R. Chidambaram, the Director of the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), and Dr. Abdul Kalam, the Chief Scientific Advisor and Director of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), served as the principal coordinators for this test planning.

1999: Kargil War

The Kargil War, commonly referred to as the Kargil conflict, was an armed battle that took place between India and Pakistan in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir as well as other locations along the Line of Control from May to July 1999. By proclaiming victory over Pakistan in the Kargil war on July 26, 1999, India celebrated the successful conclusion of “Operation Vijay” and put an end to the three-month conflict along the Line of Control. Since then, the day has been recognised as “Kargil Vijay Diwas.”.

2000: Jharkhand became India’s 26th state

On November 15, 2000, Jharkhand was separated from Bihar’s 18 districts to form its own state. Later, six additional districts were created by rearranging the existing ones.

2007: First Woman President of India

Pratibha Patil, an Indian politician and attorney, presided over India as its first female president from 2007 until 2012.

2008: Chandrayaan-1 launched

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) launched Chandrayaan-1 on October 22, 2008, the nation’s first lunar probe under the Chandrayaan programme. India’s space programme received a big boost from the expedition as our nation created its own technologies to study the Moon.

2010: Education became a fundamental right of children

On August 4, 2009, the Indian Parliament passed the Right to Education Act (RTE), also known as the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act. In accordance with Article 21A of the Indian Constitution, it outlines the specifics of the significance of free and mandatory education for children in India between the ages of 6 and 14. India became one of the nations in the world to declare education to be a fundamental right when the Act went into effect on April 1, 2010.

2015: NITI Aayog was formed

The NITI Aayog, the country’s top public policy think tank and the nodal organisation charged with fostering cooperative federalism and accelerating economic development by involving state governments in the formulation of economic policy, was established on January 1, 2015.

2017: GST was launched by the Indian government

The GST, or Goods and Services Tax, was introduced by the Indian government and President of India at midnight on July 1, 2017. It was commemorated by a historic midnight session of both Houses of Parliament (June 30-July 1), which met in the Central Hall and was attended by prominent figures from the business and entertainment industries.

2020: COVID-19 Pandemic and India’s lockdown

India experienced the COVID-19 epidemic in 2020, and as a result of the ensuing lockdown, residents were confined to their houses. The story of lockdown started on the evening of March 24, 2020, when the Indian government imposed a 21-day statewide lockdown, restricting the movement of the whole populace in an effort to stop the pandemic from spreading. It came following a 14-hour voluntary public curfew on March 22 and the implementation of a number of rules in the areas of the nation affected by COVID-19.

2022: India gets its first tribal President

On July 25, 2022, Draupadi Murmu took the oath of office as India’s fifteenth president. She ran against Yashwant Sinha, the candidate for the top constitutional position put up by the unified opposition. Tribal leader Draupadi Murmu hails from Rairangpur in the Odisha district of Mayurbhanj.

Important Facts on India’s Achievement after Independence

Below is a brief list of some of India’s notable post-independence accomplishments:

The Indian Railways were founded in the year 1951.
With over 7000 stations, India’s rail system is the largest and busiest in the world.
India had its first general election in 1951.
The Apsara nuclear reactor, which was created in 1956, was Asia’s first nuclear reactor.
On the moon, Chandrayaan 1 was established in 2008.
Sir M Visvesvaraya, the pioneer of Indian economic planning, contributed to the development of the most effective form of the Indian economy.

Sharing is caring!

India's achievements after 75 years of Independence FAQs

What did india achieved after 75 years of independence.

In 1974, India conducted “Smiling Buddha”, its first nuclear test, making its place on the list of five nuclear-powered nations. This is one of the biggest achievements of India since 1947. Today, India has the 2nd largest military force and largest voluntary army in the world.

What we achieved in 75 years?

In the last seven-and-a-half decades, India achieved remarkable development in agriculture, heavy industry, irrigation, energy production, nuclear power capability, space technology, biotechnology, telecommunication, oceanography and science education and research.

UPSC Electrical Engineering Syllabus 2024 for UPSC Mains, Paper 1 & 2

BPSC Exam 2024

BPSC 70th Notification
BPSC 69th Exam Analysis
BPSC Admit Card
BPSC Syllabus
BPSC Exam Pattern
BPSC Cut Off
BPSC Question Papers

IB ACIO Exam

IB ACIO Salary
IB ACIO Syllabus

CSIR SO ASO Exam

CSIR SO ASO Exam 2024
CSIR SO ASO Result 2024
CSIR SO ASO Exam Date
CSIR SO ASO Question Paper
CSIR SO ASO Answer key 2024
CSIR SO ASO Exam Date 2024
CSIR SO ASO Syllabus 2024

IMPORTANT EXAMS

Terms & Conditions
Return & Refund Policy
Privacy Policy

What India's extraordinary growth and future can teach global leaders

Cricket - India v England - Second Test cricket match - Dr. Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy ACA-VDCA Cricket Stadium, Visakhapatnam, India - 19/11/16. A fan waves an Indian flag during the match. REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui - S1AEUNSMFKAB

India and its diverse 1.3bn population can become a $10-trillion economy in the next 15 years Image: REUTERS/Danish Siddiqui

.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo{-webkit-transition:all 0.15s ease-out;transition:all 0.15s ease-out;cursor:pointer;-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;outline:none;color:inherit;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:hover,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-hover]{-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;}.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo:focus,.chakra .wef-1c7l3mo[data-focus]{box-shadow:0 0 0 3px rgba(168,203,251,0.5);} Børge Brende

.chakra .wef-9dduvl{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-9dduvl{font-size:1.125rem;}} Explore and monitor how .chakra .wef-15eoq1r{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;font-size:1.25rem;color:#F7DB5E;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-15eoq1r{font-size:1.125rem;}} India is affecting economies, industries and global issues

A hand holding a looking glass by a lake

.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{margin-top:16px;margin-bottom:16px;line-height:1.388;color:#2846F8;font-size:1.25rem;}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-1nk5u5d{font-size:1.125rem;}} Get involved with our crowdsourced digital platform to deliver impact at scale

Stay up to date:.

If the 19th century can be characterized by the rise of industrialization and the 20th century by the expansion of the market economy and globalization, the defining characteristics of the 21st century are dramatic and pervasive transformations and a shift from unipolarity towards multipolarity.

Triggered by disruptive technological change, the onset of the Fourth Industrial Revolution has led to fundamental changes in the nature and structure of the economy. With significant redistribution of the level, location and composition of output, our organizations are more global and interconnected than ever. A hastening erosion of trust in extant political frameworks and institutions is driving human societies to be more isolated and divergent. Concurrently, the ecological challenges and climate crisis have never been more existential. In a nutshell, in a fragile world order, the need for a cohesive leadership arrangement to drive positive change is conspicuous in its absence.

Have you read?

What the private sector can do for india's economic growth, india's women are the secret to a potential economic boom, how can india make sure its growth benefits all citizens.

At the same time as these grave geopolitical and ecological struggles, escalating trade tensions and policy uncertainty have led to a slowdown in investments and business confidence. With global GDP growth in 2019 downgraded to 3.2% with only a modest recovery projected for the next few years and credibility in the existing multilateral rules-based trade system waning, the prospects are worrisome. In fact, with the increasingly strong probability of global growth falling short by at least 1 percentage point from projections, the magnitude of the decline is comparable to the agonizing global recession of the early 2000s.

By contrast, the economic outlook for South Asia continues to be strong. In the past half-century, emerging and developing economies have significantly enhanced their contribution to global output from around 15% to well above 50%. Underpinned by strong domestic demand, private consumption and investment, a growth projection of 7% suggests South Asia’s resilience and strength to not only weather the global slowdown but also to contribute to propelling global growth forward.

Especially noteworthy is the economic outlook of the region’s largest economy, India. With its GDP growth projected to again increase by 7.5% in the next few years , India continues to be one of the world’s fastest-growing major economies. India’s has been a dramatic rise, deserving of the global attention that it has commanded. The stage is set for India to realize its vision of becoming a $10-trillion economy in the next decade-and-a-half and to assist in appeasing the woes besetting the world economy.

Steered by decisive leadership, India is rising to the occasion through a significantly enlarged global profile. India’s commitment to renewable energy through voluntary and ambitious renewable power capacity targets, a lead role in the Paris Climate Agreement negotiations and the International Solar Alliance shows its aspirations of becoming a leader in environment security and climate change mitigation.

India has also expanded its global stature in space exploration through widely celebrated breakthroughs such as its recent lunar mission and its distinction of becoming the fourth country worldwide to shoot down a low-orbit satellite with a missile. India, too, is more involved in global humanitarian efforts and development initiatives, including infrastructure development in Afghanistan, the International North-South Transport Corridor, the Ashgabat Agreement, the Chabahar port and the India-Myanmar-Thailand highway. The Indian Prime Minister has articulated his strong vision for an India-Africa cooperative interest and India’s deepened participation in coalitions such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the India-Brazil-South Africa Dialogue Forum and the BRICS group demonstrate its growing global influence and appetite for enhanced visibility on a range of global initiatives and multilateral fora.

With half of its population of working age, India has a unique demographic advantage. Climbing to 52nd spot in this year’s Global Innovation Index , India is one of the few countries to have consecutively improved its rank for nine years. Its distinctive demographic advantage, technical prowess and knack for innovation, fused with the leap-frogging opportunities of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies, can consolidate its position as a dominant force in global economic, political and strategic affairs.

Simultaneously aware that the quest for becoming a great power must begin at home, India has undertaken groundbreaking structural reforms mirroring its growth ambitions and development priorities. Initiatives aimed at revamping India’s restrictive business regulations have already borne fruit. India’s 65-place leap in the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business rankings demonstrates an improved business climate and expounded investor confidence.

In the past decade, India has witnessed a mushrooming of start-ups, innovating across domains such as digital payments, online retail, education and software. The number of Indian unicorns has also risen every year. Furthermore, in the biggest liberalization to occur in single-brand retail in the past decade, the government has recently permitted retailers to sell goods online to Indian consumers before opening brick-and-mortar stores , significantly expanding the domestic market for global players. In addition, the implementation of the Goods and Services Tax has removed tax barriers across states and unified various central and state tax laws, creating a single common market.

Committed to ensuring that its economic achievements correspond with inclusive development, India has also made big strides in social progress. The expansion of the biometric identification system under the Unique Identification Authority of India has streamlined the delivery of government services and made resource disbursement through welfare programmes more efficient. Devising such a database of more than a billion people is no mean feat. In addition, through the financial inclusion programme Jan Dhan Yojana, it has provided bank accounts for 300 million hitherto unbanked people , creating new opportunities for them to access credit and state subsidies and bringing them into the formal economy.

Initiatives such as the Ayushman Bharat for universal health coverage in India, the world’s largest LED programme to improve energy efficiency, a sweeping rural electrification drive and a strong push towards broad-based energy access and security through the Ujjwala and Saubhagya schemes, among others, show India’s ability to devise and implement a reform agenda that balances global aspirations with critical development imperatives at home.

Under the theme, Innovating for India: Strengthening South Asia, Impacting the World , the World Economic Forum's India Economic Summit 2019 will convene key leaders from government, the private sector, academia and civil society on 3-4 October to accelerate the adoption of Fourth Industrial Revolution technologies and boost the region’s dynamism.

Hosted in collaboration with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the aim of the Summit is to enhance global growth by promoting collaboration among South Asian countries and the ASEAN economic bloc.

The meeting will address strategic issues of regional significance under four thematic pillars:

• The New Geopolitical Reality – Geopolitical shifts and the complexity of our global system

• The New Social System – Inequality, inclusive growth, health and nutrition

• The New Ecological System – Environment, pollution and climate change

• The New Technological System – The Fourth Industrial Revolution, science, innovation and entrepreneurship

Discover a few ways the Forum is creating impact across India.

Read our guide to how to follow #ies19 across our digital channels. We encourage followers to post, share, and retweet by tagging our accounts and by using our official hashtag.

Become a Member or Partner to participate in the Forum's year-round annual and regional events. Contact us now .

Looking ahead, India must continue on its journey toward holistic structural reforms that are conducive to boosting the sustainability and resilience of its economy, while also ensuring that the progress reaches a broad base. It is important that India arms itself with modern infrastructure, social services and the connectivity becoming of a developed economy. It must simultaneously create jobs, wealth and value to accommodate the aspirations of a young and upwardly mobile population and to help it eradicate poverty. Policy solutions inspired by a vision of a regenerative, inclusive and sustainable economy will ensure that the milestone of a $10-trillion economy coincides with a stronger India at the global, national and grassroots level, with ameliorated living outcomes for all.

Achieving that scale of change in a country with more than 1.3 billion people who speak dozens of different languages and dialects and have different customs and cultural practices is monumental. But with its geographic and demographic size and extensive diversity, India has a unique opportunity to shape global agendas. It can establish itself as a role model and inspiration for the world through its response to these opportunities, with a resounding impact on our collective future. India can tap its own sphere of influence and emerge as a global leader by providing the world with replicable and scalable models for solutions to critical global challenges.

A version of this article was first published on https://www.narendramodi.in.

Don't miss any update on this topic

Create a free account and access your personalized content collection with our latest publications and analyses.

License and Republishing

World Economic Forum articles may be republished in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International Public License, and in accordance with our Terms of Use.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

.chakra .wef-1dtnjt5{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-flex-wrap:wrap;-ms-flex-wrap:wrap;flex-wrap:wrap;} More on Geographies in Depth .chakra .wef-17xejub{-webkit-flex:1;-ms-flex:1;flex:1;justify-self:stretch;-webkit-align-self:stretch;-ms-flex-item-align:stretch;align-self:stretch;} .chakra .wef-nr1rr4{display:-webkit-inline-box;display:-webkit-inline-flex;display:-ms-inline-flexbox;display:inline-flex;white-space:normal;vertical-align:middle;text-transform:uppercase;font-size:0.75rem;border-radius:0.25rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;line-height:1.2;-webkit-letter-spacing:1.25px;-moz-letter-spacing:1.25px;-ms-letter-spacing:1.25px;letter-spacing:1.25px;background:none;padding:0px;color:#B3B3B3;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;box-decoration-break:clone;-webkit-box-decoration-break:clone;}@media screen and (min-width:37.5rem){.chakra .wef-nr1rr4{font-size:0.875rem;}}@media screen and (min-width:56.5rem){.chakra .wef-nr1rr4{font-size:1rem;}} See all

Funding the green technology innovation pipeline: Lessons from China

May 8, 2024

These are the top ranking universities in Asia for 2024

Global South leaders: 'It’s time for the Global North to walk the talk and collaborate'

Pooja Chhabria

April 29, 2024

How can Japan navigate digital transformation ahead of a ‘2025 digital cliff’?

Naoko Tochibayashi and Naoko Kutty

April 25, 2024

What is desertification and why is it important to understand?

Andrea Willige

April 23, 2024

$400 billion debt burden: Emerging economies face climate action crisis

Libby George

April 19, 2024

Argument: 75 Years After Independence, a Changing ‘Idea of India’

Create an FP account to save articles to read later and in the FP mobile app.

ALREADY AN FP SUBSCRIBER? LOGIN

World Brief

Editors’ Picks
Africa Brief

China Brief

Latin America Brief

South Asia Brief

Situation report.

Flash Points
War in Ukraine
Israel and Hamas
U.S.-China competition
Biden's foreign policy
Trade and economics
Artificial intelligence
Asia & the Pacific
Middle East & Africa

Reimagining Globalization

Fareed zakaria on an age of revolutions, ones and tooze, foreign policy live.

Spring 2024 Issue

Print Archive

FP Analytics

In-depth Special Reports
Issue Briefs
Power Maps and Interactive Microsites
FP Simulations & PeaceGames
Graphics Database

From Resistance to Resilience

The atlantic & pacific forum, redefining multilateralism, principles of humanity under pressure, fp global health forum 2024.

By submitting your email, you agree to the Privacy Policy and Terms of Use and to receive email correspondence from us. You may opt out at any time.

Your guide to the most important world stories of the day

Essential analysis of the stories shaping geopolitics on the continent

The latest news, analysis, and data from the country each week

Weekly update on what’s driving U.S. national security policy

Evening roundup with our editors’ favorite stories of the day

One-stop digest of politics, economics, and culture

Weekly update on developments in India and its neighbors

A curated selection of our very best long reads

75 Years After Independence, a Changing ‘Idea of India’

India’s liberal founders recede from view as its current leaders craft a new, less tolerant nation..

The evening before he was sworn in as newly independent India’s first prime minister 75 years ago on Aug. 15, Jawaharlal Nehru addressed the Indian nation. There was immense curiosity around the world. Nehru’s address, which quickly became known as his “tryst with destiny” speech, is remarkable for its eloquence and his awareness of the task that lay ahead for his nation. At the time, the subcontinent was still undergoing a bloody partition, during which millions of people would die and tens of millions of lives would be uprooted.

Three-quarters of a century later, under Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s leadership, the country’s narrative is undergoing its broadest shift since independence. India’s secular, liberal founders such as Nehru are increasingly lost from view—and blamed for the tragedy of Partition. Modi’s government wants to turn India into a more assertive, nationalistic, Hindu nation—where minorities exist but are expected to be subservient and grateful. As government officials, including Modi, increasingly mix Hinduism with politics, and as minorities, particularly Muslims, find increased restrictions against displaying their faith, India is fast becoming the country Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Pakistan’s founder, warned about when he demanded a separate nation for British India’s Muslims.

At the time of independence, there was understandable apprehension in foreign capitals about what India might become. Former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, who had never liked the idea of granting his country’s biggest colony its freedom, had ridiculed India as “a geographical term … no more a united nation than the equator.” When the British left India, it was divided into two nations—two wings of Pakistan to the west and east for the subcontinent’s Muslims and a much larger Hindu-majority nation that said it would be a secular democracy. India included not only regions directly administered by the British but also more than 500 princely states, large and small, whose rulers believed themselves to be sovereign. Many thought Balkanization was inevitable. India would remain the poster child of poverty, many insisted, particularly after the Nehru government opted for post-independence economic policies that professed socialism, vastly expanded state control of the economy, and did not succeed in promoting economic welfare while announcing plans to do so. Indeed, for many decades, the poor remained poor.

Much more recently, Singaporean elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew, too, dismissed India, insisting it is not a real country . “Instead,” he said, “it is 32 separate nations that happen to be arrayed along the British rail line.” Reality, however, looks different: The multiethnic former Yugoslavia has broken up, the Soviet empire has splintered, and Pakistan has split into two. India, however, remains a unitary state, notwithstanding challenges such as the future of Kashmir.

India did bring together those princely states, and over three-quarters of a century, it has not only stayed united but emerged stronger, became self-sufficient in food, and turned into a much wealthier economic powerhouse. Crucially, India has continued to hold democratic elections, even if election campaign finance is opaque. It has a judiciary that’s independent in theory but rarely pronounces verdicts the government doesn’t like. The Army has not intervened in politics, even though retired generals fulminate in the media. The Indian media is free to criticize—but directs much of its criticism at the opposition while mostly sparing the government.

India has had major internal strife and fought wars. Today, its relations with most neighbors are fragile. Income inequality has widened. But New Delhi no longer needs help from foreign governments when facing emergencies such as natural disasters and no longer seeks concessional aid from rich countries.

India’s singular achievement since independence has been to remain a democracy that clings to its liberal, secular ethos. True, there were significant setbacks—most notably, the Emergency of 1975-1977, when then-Prime Minister Indira Gandhi suspended key civil rights provisions, jailed opposition leaders and workers, and censored the press. But she held elections in 1977. When she lost, she stepped down without disputing the outcome, returning to power legitimately by winning the next elections in early 1980, following the collapse of the government that replaced her.

The world was impressed and inspired by Indian democracy and its astounding ability to hold together a vast geographic, ethnic, and religious tapestry. John Kenneth Galbraith, who later U.S. President John F. Kennedy’s ambassador to India, called India a “functioning anarchy” in 1958. Many Indians bristled at the word “anarchy,” but Galbraith’s point was valid: Even in what appeared to him as anarchy, India functioned. Anarchies aren’t meant to function. To many outsiders, there seemed to be an Indian genius at work.

Because of India’s democratic exterior—and the socialist, nonaligned policies with which many of in the international liberal community sympathized—the world gave India a free pass for many of its flaws. India’s pernicious caste system that defined an entire swath of society as “untouchable” persisted despite laws banning the practice, and India was never subjected to the kind of campaigns that rightly targeted South Africa’s apartheid regime. Frequent outbreaks of sectarian violence killed hundreds and at times thousands, but India did not face sanctions. Its robust democratic norms—politicians challenging one another, newspapers exposing scandals, and the occasional resignations of politicians guilty of corruption or misdemeanors—strengthened India’s image, suggesting that the country was adhering to its remarkably progressive constitution. And that document was progressive indeed: From the moment of independence in 1947, every Indian of a certain age, regardless of sex, religion, caste, language, or social status, had the right to vote.

In spite of major crises—several wars, droughts, incompetent leadership, corruption, and internal strife, to say nothing of autarkic economic policies and growing inequality—India continued on its path of remaining a liberal, secular, democratic country. It was an oasis surrounded by authoritarian regimes, where generals took over when they didn’t like the elected civilian government, including Myanmar, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. The comparison to its neighbors further enhanced India’s reputation. How deserved that reputation was is a different question. One problem was the government’s ability to curb freedoms whenever it wanted under esoteric so-called national security laws, which independent India actually tightened, making its citizens’ freedoms more vulnerable than during colonial times. But India’s earlier governments played by known rules. The constitution India had adopted with independence was imbued with a liberal, secular, democratic ethos. Part of the reason India got a free pass for many horrible things was because the international community trusted India to get it right. And unlike other countries in the region, India did not export its problems, not least because its very large Muslim population wasn’t radicalized by the ideologies that were sweeping Islam from the Middle East to Southeast Asia.

Instead of being a multi-everything society that celebrates its diversity, India has become a majoritarian entity, fearful of its minorities and keen to subjugate them.

I recall a private conversation with a U.S. diplomat in what was still called Bombay, now Mumbai, in the late 1980s. By then, Eastern Europe was restless and in the process of shaking off the Soviet umbrella. One by one, Moscow’s satellite states were freeing themselves. Vaclav Havel, a writer I deeply admire, would soon become president of Czechoslovakia—and later the Czech Republic. (Disclosure: I am a jury member for the Vaclav Havel Library Foundation’s Disturbing the Peace Award given annually to a courageous writer.) The diplomat at whose home I was having dinner told me, quite frankly: “India’s free ride is going to end soon. Until a few years ago, there were a handful of democracies, and most were in the West. You were the exception. Now, with [protest leader Lech] Walesa in Poland, Havel in Czechoslovakia, the world is changing—there are going to be many more democracies. They will write liberal constitutions. Their new leaders have been close to the West. And India’s flaws—the communal riots, caste riots—will be far more visible.”

He was right. In 1990, I went to South Africa for the first time. Interviewing politicians across the political spectrum, I learned early on that the constitution they planned to write after the end of apartheid was going to be far more liberal than India’s. South African intellectuals and politicians such as Nadine Gordimer, Zach de Beer, Allister Sparks, Nelson Mandela, F.W. de Klerk, and many others I talked to admired India and its democracy, not least because of Mohandas Gandhi’s years in South Africa. As South Africans often tell Indian visitors, “You gave us Mr. Gandhi, we gave you the Mahatma,” and anyone who has followed Gandhi’s life would agree that South Africa strongly shaped the Indian leader’s views and political talents.

The “idea of India,” as political scientist Sunil Khilnani described the ethos of the nation’s early years, was assumed to be what every Indian believed in: democracy, liberalism, secularism, and a concern for the poor.

However, since 1925, an organization called the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (abbreviated RSS, meaning “National Voluntary Union”) has sought to write a different narrative. Many of its early leaders have written approvingly or been unabashed admirers of Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler, admiring in particular Nazi Germany’s nationalism and ideas of racial purity. During the struggle for independence, the RSS vehemently opposed Gandhi’s and Nehru’s cooperation with Muslims. But for all their admiration of nationalism, no major RSS leader made a notable contribution to India’s struggle for independence. Vinayak Damodar Savarkar, a prominent icon of Hindu Mahasabha, another right-wing organization, was charged as co-conspirator in Gandhi’s assassination in 1948, though he was acquitted. Gandhi’s actual assassin, Nathuram Godse, was a member of Hindu Mahasabha and had previously been a member of the RSS.

India has banned the RSS three times—in 1948, after Gandhi was killed; in 1975, during the Emergency; and then again in 1992, after right-wing zealots destroyed a mosque in Ayodhya because they claimed it was built on a site where they believed Rama, the Hindu god-king, was born millennia ago. One of the RSS’s allied organizations is today’s ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), which, since its inception in 1980, has steadily expanded its influence. Since the Indian electoral system follows the British first-past-the-post system, it’s enough for the BJP to get a plurality of votes, most recently 37 percent in 2019. The opposition vote is splintered, and the grand old party of India’s independence movement, the Indian National Congress, is struggling. Thanks to the first-past-the-post system, the BJP—under Modi’s charismatic leadership—has been in power without a majority of votes since 2014.

The eight years of BJP rule have changed India’s governing ethos—and what the “idea of India” means today. Instead of being a multi-everything society that celebrates its diversity, it has become a majoritarian entity, fearful of its minorities and keen to subjugate them. Hindus have lynched Muslims on the suspicion of possessing meat. The central government has used national security laws to arrest human rights defenders—including Christians and Muslims—who had been working for the poor, in many cases with no charges filed and bail denied. In the populous state of Uttar Pradesh, the BJP-run state government has razed the homes of Muslims who have challenged the government. Indian jails are filled not only with criminals awaiting trials but also with dissident human rights activists, journalists, writers, and others whose voices an older India might have celebrated.

Continuing to describe India as “the world’s largest democracy” is increasingly bizarre; it is merely the most populous country to hold elections.

The Modi administration is unabashed in promoting the Hindu faith over others. Modi ritually prostates himself before Hindu idols and participates in religious ceremonies on state business—when unveiling national monuments, for example. Under his government, India has become a Hindu country whose minorities must accept second-class status without equal rights and protections as citizens. State schools in many BJP-ruled states no longer offer meat to children at lunch out of a mistaken belief that Hinduism prohibits eating meat. Other Hindu nationalists have been running campaigns on social media singling out films with Muslim actors for boycotts. Hindi, a language spoken as their first language by less than half of India’s 1.4 billion people, is increasingly imposed on regions where it is neither spoken nor popular as a second language. Southern Indian states, where the BJP is generally weaker than in the north, often have superior literacy rates, greater female empowerment, and lower birth rates. In cities in southern and western India, such as Mumbai, Bengaluru, Chennai, and Hyderabad, the BJP vote is boosted by large numbers of job-seeking, Hindi-speaking, hard-to-assimilate migrants from BJP-ruled states. “India is like Europe,” the actor Mohan Agashe once told me. “A common civilization, but different local cultures.”

It is that distinction that bothers the BJP, whose long-term aim is to mold India into a unitary state with a single identity and following a single faith. Former Indian Prime Minister Morarji Desai once told me he considered this vision as ridiculous because, in his view, Hinduism is a faith with many interpretations, many gods, and many paths toward spiritual salvation, and not the singular narrative the nationalists are making it out to be. But, for better or worse, that’s the direction the BJP is headed. Like other strongly ideological parties—communists come to mind—the BJP’s aim is not the next election but the next generation.

In Modi, India’s Hindu nationalists have found a leader who galvanizes the population, even though he was the chief minister of the state of Gujarat when one of the worst massacres in independent India took place in 2002, and his government was severely castigated by human rights groups at the time. Many have forgotten that Modi was banned from entering the United States until he became prime minister in 2014. That the BJP’s vision vastly diminishes India is hardly a concern for its supporters. If it succeeds, India will be reshaped into something very much different from what Nehru described in the 1940s: “[India] was like some ancient palimpsest on which layer upon layer of thought and reverie had been inscribed, and yet no succeeding layer had completely hidden or erased what had been written previously.”

Continuing to describe India as “the world’s largest democracy” is increasingly bizarre. Today, India is merely the most populous country to hold elections. It has the form of democracy but has lost the content. Since Modi came to power, India’s ranking in the United Nations Development Program’s human development indicators has stagnated. In its annual review of political freedoms around the world, Freedom House no longer categorizes India as “free.” India is the only nominal democracy among the 10 worst jailers of writers and journalists, according to PEN America; according to Reporters Without Borders, India has become one of the most dangerous places in the world for journalists to work.

Modi operates like a master performer with a keen eye for exceptional photo-ops. Never mind that many of his policies are whimsical—like the sudden demonetization of the currency in 2016—or woefully inadequate, such as India’s response to the pandemic or to the country’s widening inequality. There are 200 million Indian Muslims—and currently not a single one in Modi’s cabinet.

Of course, India remains a hugely important country. During one of my conversations with Lee when I was a reporter in Singapore, he told me his biggest worry was turmoil in China. But have we thought about what might happen if instead of China, it’s India that disintegrates? If poorly educated, Hindi-speaking northern India increasingly imposes its retrograde values on a more educated, prosperous south, there will be trouble ahead. Going back to a social order before British rule (if it ever existed at all)—requiring moral codes that restrict women, enforcing religious practices, legislating bizarre vegetarian dietary practices, and requiring everyone to speak a single language, believe in one faith, and support one ideology—then Indian unity, preserved for the past 75 years, could begin to unravel. As any glance at a history book makes clear, that is unlikely to be a pleasant process.

An outwardly democratic India may seem like a good counternarrative to an autocratic China. But India has been an unreliable ally of the West and is looking increasingly odious. Look no further than India’s votes at the United Nations abstaining from condemning Russia’s unlawful and brutal invasion of Ukraine.

To regain the moral ascendancy India had at independence, the country needs a makeover. India needs to return to its origins—the “idea of India” and the spirit that its sole Nobel laureate in literature, Rabindranath Tagore, celebrated in his poetry . Even democratically constituted nations can be gripped by madness, as Europe’s bloody 20th century shows. India is a great adventure and fantastic experiment, but its current leadership is turning it into a mere shadow of what Gandhi, Nehru, and Tagore imagined. That failure of imagination is the ultimate tragedy as India now turns 75.

Correction, Aug. 15, 2022: A previous version of this article misstated the jurisdictions Narendra Modi was barred from entering before becoming prime minister.

Salil Tripathi is a writer based in New York. He reported from Southeast Asia in the 1990s, including on the fall of Suharto in Jakarta. He is the author of The Colonel Who Would Not Repent: The Bangladesh War and its Unquiet Legacy , and he is working on a book about the Gujaratis.

Join the Conversation

Commenting on this and other recent articles is just one benefit of a Foreign Policy subscription.

Already a subscriber? Log In .

Subscribe Subscribe

View Comments

Join the conversation on this and other recent Foreign Policy articles when you subscribe now.

Not your account? Log out

Please follow our comment guidelines , stay on topic, and be civil, courteous, and respectful of others’ beliefs.

Change your username:

I agree to abide by FP’s comment guidelines . (Required)

Confirm your username to get started.

The default username below has been generated using the first name and last initial on your FP subscriber account. Usernames may be updated at any time and must not contain inappropriate or offensive language.

For India, Putin’s War Starts to Look Like a Gift

From cheap Russian oil to sudden overtures from China, India’s neutral stance on Ukraine has many benefits.

Sign up for Editors' Picks

A curated selection of fp’s must-read stories..

You’re on the list! More ways to stay updated on global news:

China and the U.S. Are Numb to the Real Risk of War

Columbia, chicago, and the movies about ’68, ‘fat leonard’ was a crook u.s. admirals called bro, the resilience of ukraine’s war widows, u.n. backs palestinian bid for membership, editors’ picks.

1 China and the U.S. Are Numb to the Real Risk of War
2 The New Idea of India

U.S.-China Conflict: Will There Be a Nuclear War Over Taiwan?

Movies about columbia, chicago 1968 protests: the strawberry statement and medium cool, 'fat leonard' scandal: how a malaysian contractor swindled the u.s. navy out of millions, ukraine war widows show resilience amid conflict with russia, u.n. general assembly backs palestinian bid for full membership, more from foreign policy, nobody is competing with the u.s. to begin with.

Conflicts with China and Russia are about local issues that Washington can’t win anyway.

The Very Real Limits of the Russia-China ‘No Limits’ Partnership

Intense military cooperation between Moscow and Beijing is a problem for the West. Their bilateral trade is not.

What Do Russians Really Think About Putin’s War?

Polling has gotten harder as autocracy has tightened.

Can Xi Win Back Europe?

The Chinese leader’s visit follows weeks of escalating tensions between China and the continent.

The New Idea of India

Saudi arabia is on the way to becoming the next egypt, uncle sam wants you to join the mining industry, the original sin of biden’s foreign policy.

FP’s flagship evening newsletter guiding you through the most important world stories of the day, written by Alexandra Sharp . Delivered weekdays.

AsianStudies.org
Annual Conference
EAA Articles
2025 Annual Conference March 13-16, 2025
AAS Community Forum Log In and Participate

Education About Asia: Online Archives

The history of economic development in india since independence, the background.

The task that the democratically elected leaders of newly independent India embarked on in the early 1950s was not for the faint of heart. It was to lift living standards of a people accounting for one-seventh of the world’s population who earned an average income that was one-fifteenth of the average American income of the time. 1 Three-fourths of the Indian people were engaged in agriculture working with primitive tools and techniques, as either destitute landless laborers, highly insecure tenants-at-will, or small-plot holders eking out subsistence living from their meager plots. The literacy rate stood at 14 percent, and the average life expectancy was thirty-two years.

How successful has the country been in fulfilling the task over sixty years later? The charts in this article, using World Bank data, show how some of the country’s development indicators have changed in the last half-century. The country has experienced an increase in per capita income—especially since the 1980s—as well as reductions in poverty and infant mortality rates. These improvements are not insignificant and mark a sharp break from the near stagnation that the country experienced during British rule. But a comparison with the later superior performance of China and South Korea, countries with a comparable level of development in the 1950s, reveals that India’s performance remains below its potential. How did that come about? This essay provides an account of India’s strategy of economic development, its achievements, shortfalls, and future challenges.

The Initial Strategy

The government in the 1950s adopted a very particular strategy of economic development: rapid industrialization by implementing centrally prepared five-year plans that involved raising a massive amount of resources and investing them in the creation of large industrial state-owned enterprises (SOEs). 2 The industries chosen were those producing basic and heavy industrial goods such as steel, chemicals, machines and tools, locomotives, and power. Industrialization was pursued because leaders believed, based in part on the beliefs of some economists, that the industrial sector offers the greatest scope of growth in production. It was not that the Indian agricultural sector offered no scope for growth. Crop yields in India were quite low compared to other countries, and the recent famine in 1943 had underscored the need to increase food production. Still, Indian leaders did not want to make agriculture the mainstay of their strategy. The preeminence of agriculture they believed was characteristic of a backward economy, and growth in agriculture eventually runs up against the problem of insufficient demand. There is only so much, after all, that people are willing to eat.

Investments in the creation of public enterprises were chosen because one goal of the government was to establish a “socialistic pattern of society,” i.e., using democratic methods to bring large swathes of the country’s productive resources under public ownership. Industries producing basic and heavy goods were chosen for investment over consumer goods because the government wanted to reduce the country’s reliance on imports of basic and heavy industrial goods in line with their belief in the goodness of national self-reliance. “To import from abroad is to be slaves of foreign countries,” the first Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, once declared. 3 The production of consumer goods such as clothing, furniture, personal care products, and similar goods was left to small privately run cottage industry firms that had the added advantage of being labor-intensive and therefore a potential generator of mass employment.

Chart of Percent of People living on less than $1.25 a day

Another strategy could have been to rely on private enterprise for industrial development while the government focused its resources on investments in infrastructure, public health, and education—sectors that are not served well by the private sector. Though leaders were cognizant of the dynamism of the private sector and the existence of India’s vibrant entrepreneurial class, they rejected the strategy that involved a prominent role for the private sector out of a commitment to establishing the socialistic pattern of society that they believed was morally superior. As things eventually turned out, the country came around in the 1990s to adopting this previously rejected strategy.

In order to assure the success of the government’s chosen strategy in the 1950s, complementary measures were put in place. Most industries were given significant trade protection so that their growth was not hampered by competition from more efficient foreign producers. An industrial licensing system was set up to ensure that private enterprises would not expand beyond the bounds that national planners had set for them. The system required all private firms beyond a certain small size to obtain a license whenever they wanted to expand capacity, produce new products, change their input mix, import inputs, or relocate plants. The system put the activities of the private sector under significant control of the government. Pundits and students of political economy who were not socialists derisively nicknamed this stifling system “the license Raj,” comparing this economic format of oppression to the political control of the imperialist British Raj.

Their strategy of increasing agricultural production was based on plans to reform agrarian institutions. According to the thinking of the planners, the poor performance of Indian agriculture was due to the fact that tillers did not own the land they worked, so they had little incentive to make land improvements that would increase long-term productivity. The government planned to implement legislation to redistribute land from large landlords to actual tillers and improve the terms under which tenant cultivators leased land from the landowners. The government also planned to organize small farmers into cooperative societies so that their resources could be pooled in order to buy modern tools and implements and the strength of their numbers could be used to obtain higher crop prices. In addition to increasing agricultural production, such reforms were also expected to alleviate the poverty of the huge class of peasants.

The Initial Results

Industrialization was a moderate success. The newly created public enterprises, albeit after major cost overruns and several delays, turned out steel, chemicals, and other products that were generally associated with developed countries. A British colonial official in the early twentieth century once scoffed that he would be willing to eat all the steel than the Indians would produce. 4 If alive in 1960, he would have eaten 6,300 tons of steel. 5

Still, by the late 1950s several problems resulting from the planners’ chosen strategy of economic development were coming to the fore, and such problems intensified in the 1960s and the 1970s. Many SOEs were run on political rather than economic considerations, so they produced losses that drained government resources rather than—as the planners had hoped—augmenting them. The SOEs could also not be counted on to generate mass employment due to their capital and skill rather than labor-intensive character. Several enterprises were overstaffed and faced insufficient demand for what they produced, forcing them to render idle some of their capacity. The case of the Haldia fertilizer plant is an extreme but illustrative example. The plant was set up in the 1970s and employed 1,500 people. The workers and managers showed up regularly, kept the machine facilities clean and in working condition, and often received annual bonuses and overtime. They lived in a nearby spanking-new township built specially for them, one that had excellent roads, schools, and homes. There was only one thing missing. Because of numerous problems, the plant never produced even an ounce of fertilizer. Yet the government kept Haldia’s lights on for twenty-one years. 6

One government method for financing expenditures was the creation of new money, which resulted in significant inflation.

The plans for the reform of agrarian institutions did not pan out. The push for land redistribution ran into political opposition and clashed with the requirements of due process, so as little as 5 percent of the land was actually redistributed. The creation of agricultural cooperatives also did not materialize due to difficulties of organization and lack of enthusiasm on the ground. Agricultural production barely kept pace with population growth, and the country’s food security remained precarious. The drawback of prioritizing industry over agriculture for public investments became glaringly apparent when the country experienced a food crisis in the mid-1960s, necessitating urgent large-scale imports of subsidized grain from the United States. The crisis undermined the government’s claim that its strategy of prioritizing industry over agriculture for public investment would increase national self-reliance.

The drawback of prioritizing industry over agriculture for public investments became glaringly apparent when the country experienced a food crisis in the mid-1960s, necessitating urgent large-scale imports of subsidized grain from the United States.

Under the fixed exchange rate regime that existed in the country, high inflation in the 1960s reduced the country’s exports while increasing its imports, resulting in a shortage of foreign exchange. The shortage was exacerbated by the food imports made necessary by a drought and a war with Pakistan. Foreign exchange became one of the items the government had to resort to rationing. The reverberations were felt throughout the economy. Several new factories lay idle for want of foreign exchange to import some necessary inputs, while others hoarded foreign exchange to starve their competitors or earn a premium in the black market. Holding foreign exchange without a license became an offense punishable by jail time. Ultimately, the rupee had to be devalued, which generated further disruptions in the economic lives of most people.

Meanwhile, the industrial licensing system, designed to ensure that the private sector operated according to the five-year plans, became a source of much inefficiency and corruption. The micromanagement of the private sector called for much more knowledge and technical ability than government bureaucrats possessed. The system descended into a mechanism for rewarding political supporters of the rulers, which undermined the confidence of the people in the integrity of their governmental institutions.

Perhaps the most unfortunate legacy of prioritizing industry at the expense of other alternatives for investment was that scarce public resources were diverted away from health and education. The meager resources expended on these in India stand in marked contrast to the plentiful attention paid to them in China and other Asian countries. Seventy years after independence, India has still to catch up on these fronts; one-half of its children are malnourished, one-half of women are illiterate, and twothirds of its people lack basic sanitation. As a result, a large fraction of Indians today are unable to directly take advantage of the opportunities opened up by the country’s recent tilt toward a market economy and globalization.

The Change in Strategies

In response to the food crisis of the mid-1960s, the government changed its agricultural strategy. Rather than holding out for the reform of agrarian institutions, it began to guarantee higher crop prices to farmers and utilize subsidies to promote use of modern inputs such as chemical fertilizers and high-yielding varieties of grain developed in other parts of the world. The resulting surge of production—the so-called “green revolution” of the late 1960s—made the country self-sufficient in food grains. The strategy was controversial because it increased economic disparities among the farmers. For the greatest chance of success, the government had to focus its strategy on the irrigated sections—the very parts of the country that were already doing relatively well. The uptake of subsidized inputs was also the highest among large landowners, owing to their greater education, creditworthiness, and the ability to bear the risk posed by adopting new methods. The strategy did not do much to alleviate the economic condition of the agrarian poor, other than providing the indirect benefit of living in a country with better overall food security that has not since experienced famine. Micronutrient deficiencies (not caloric) such as anemia are today a bigger problem among the poor, and the country’s health indicators lag behind those of other countries with comparable levels of income.

The strategy toward industry, however, turned more interventionist after 1965. Elaboration of all the reasons for this need not detain us here; there is a strong case that the interventionist turn was a cynical ploy by new Prime Minister Indira Gandhi for consolidating her power in response to certain political developments. The new policy stance displayed a suspicion of large firms and a preference for the small. The licensing system imposed additional restrictions on the activities of large firms, curtailing their growth. Under a policy that was one of a kind, consumer goods such as apparel, footwear, furniture, sporting goods, office supplies, leather goods, and kitchen appliances were reserved by law for production by small firms. Foreign firms were asked to dilute their ownership stake in their Indian subsidiaries and in response, multinationals such as IBM and Coca-Cola closed their operations and left the country.

To the extent that the success of the large firms was due to their superior technical or organizational capacity, the curtailment of their growth meant that such capacity remained underutilized. Delays and arbitrariness in the issuing of industrial licenses resulted in supply bottlenecks and shortages of many consumer goods. For example, in the 1970s, there was an eight-year waiting list for people wanting to buy a scooter, the preferred vehicle for middle-class Indians.

Thirty-five years after independence, India’s leadership had yet to achieve, to any significant degree, its pledge of lifting living standards.

The reservation of consumer goods for small enterprises meant that the benefits of economies of scale were forgone, resulting in the production of poor-quality and high-priced goods that foreigners shunned and domestic consumers had no choice but to accept. Meanwhile, countries such as South Korea and Taiwan were growing rich by exporting this very category of goods. It was during this time that Indians developed a craze for foreign products, the imports of which were restricted, and the term “imported” became synonymous with “high-quality.” The result of such policies was economic stagnation. The country’s per capita income grew by an average of less than 1 percent a year between 1966 and 1980, a rate that was too low to make a dent in the country’s massive poverty. Thirty-five years after independence, India’s leadership had yet to achieve, to any significant degree, its pledge of lifting living standards.

Also, years of rhetoric about creating rapid development had heightened people’s expectations for their quality of living. Economic stagnation, combined with high inflation caused by the government’s printing of massive amounts of money, bred political unrest and popular agitation, to which Indira Gandhi responded by declaring a national emergency in 1975. Taking advantage of the suspension of democratic procedures and requirements of due process brought on by the emergency, the Prime Minister attempted strict interventions that included rapid land redistribution and forced sterilization as a part of population control. The programs were poorly administered, contributed to incidents of human rights violations, failed to improve the economic situation, and caused a number of unintended consequences. For example, the government’s attempts to liquidate debts of poor farmers led to the virtual drying up of informal sources of credit and the banks were not up to the task of picking up the slack. The chaos generated by the haphazard and poorly administered interventions generated a popular backlash and tainted in many minds the whole interventionist approach to economic development.

By the 1980s, a substantial number of influential people had come around to the conclusion that the government did not have the political and administrative capacity to successfully run a controlled economy that delivered on economic growth. Gandhi, chastened by the political defeats that followed her earlier attempts to impose strict controls, acquiesced to relaxing some of them. Her Cambridge-educated son, Rajiv Gandhi, who succeeded her as Prime Minister, enacted further liberalization. Certain industries and business activities were exempted from licensing requirements. Such measures helped to cause robust industrial growth in the late 1980s.

The About Turn

When a foreign exchange shortage threatened a crisis again in 1991, the government made a clear break with past policies. By then, the intellectual consensus in favor of state-led, import-substituting development strategies had greatly weakened. The breakup of the Soviet Union had substantially discredited central planning, and the export-led success of East Asian countries had thrown into light the drawbacks of an inward-looking model of development. Also, cultural changes in India, consisting of a deemphasis of asceticism and a greater acceptance of the pursuit of material gain, had made extensive economic controls untenable. 7 At the behest of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), which provided rescue during the foreign exchange crisis, but also of its own accord, the government announced major economic reforms. It dismantled the license Raj almost overnight, slashed tax rates and import duties, removed controls on prices and entry of new firms, put up several SOEs for sale, and rolled out the welcome mat for foreign investors. Rather than socialism, the guiding principles of policy now were liberalization, privatization, and globalization.

The country’s share in world trade increased from 0.4 percent on the eve of the reforms to 1.5 percent in 2006, and foreign exchange shortages, once a chronic headache for policymakers, have now been replaced by reserves upward of US $350 billion . . .

The economy responded with a surge in growth, which averaged 6.3 percent annually in the 1990s and the early 2000s, a rate double that of earlier time frames. Shortages disappeared. On the eve of the reforms, the public telecom monopoly had installed five million landlines in the entire country and there was a seven-year waiting list to get a new line. In 2004, private cellular companies were signing up new customers at the rate of five million per month. The number of people who lived below the poverty line decreased between 1993 and 2009 from 50 percent of total population to 34 percent. The exact estimates vary depending on the poverty line used, but even alternative estimates indicate a post-1991 decline of poverty that is more rapid than at any other time since independence. The country’s share in world trade increased from 0.4 percent on the eve of the reforms to 1.5 percent in 2006, and foreign exchange shortages, once a chronic headache for policymakers, have now been replaced by reserves upward of US $350 billion—prompting debates about what to do with the “excess reserves.” 8

Several significant economic challenges remain for India. The economy has polarized into a highly productive, modern, and globally integrated formal sector, employing about 10 percent of the labor force, and a low-productivity sector consisting of agriculture and urban informal activities, engaging 90 percent of the labor force. The sectors that have experienced the most growth are services and capital-intensive manufacturing. It is illustrative that IT and pharmaceuticals are the two sectors of the economy with international renown. Such industries tend to be urban and employ mainly skilled workers. Yet to come India’s way are millions of lowskill manufacturing jobs that have allowed the poor in East Asian countries to climb into the middle class. Companies are loath to set up labor-intensive manufacturing because Indian labor laws are some of the most restrictive in the world. For example, a manufacturing unit hiring more than 100 workers cannot lay off any of them without seeking government permission, which is rarely granted. 9 Liberalization of labor laws tends to run into fierce political opposition. The second reason for the dearth of manufacturing jobs is that the country’s infrastructure is relatively deficient, and so companies increasingly practicing just-in-time inventory management do not find it cost-effective to include India in their global supply chains. 10

The provision of public services in India is appallingly poor. Government schools and clinics are underfunded and inadequately supervised, and their workers display low morale and high absenteeism. Yet such public institutions are rarely held accountable for their performance. 11 The middle class has largely opted out of the system in favor of private health care, schools, and transportation so there is little political pressure from them to improve the system. Most middle-class Indians now even own a power generator to cope with everyday power cuts. The poor take the brunt of the derelict public services. Two million children die in India every year from easily preventable diseases, according to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and immunization rates in India are amongst the lowest in the world. Air pollution levels in urban areas pose a severe public health crisis. According to a survey by the World Health Organization (WHO), thirteen out of the twenty most polluted cities in the world are Indian. 12 The country still relies heavily on inexpensive coal to generate power and has shown very little willingness to move toward alternative energy sources.

Given the current policies and state of governance in India, it is hard to see an obvious path into the middle class for the multitudes still remaining in poverty. Global demand for low-wage, low-skill labor to sew T-shirts or assemble TVs is not what it used to be, because production is now becoming increasingly mechanized and some of it is being “reshored” back to the rich countries. For several hundred million poor people in delicate health and with little education, the country will have to find a way to overcome the technical, institutional, and economic barriers to developing the capabilities necessary for functioning in a twenty-first-century economy. It is not a task for the faint-hearted.

The number theory: Imagining India, 10 years from now

India’s first climate change assessment by the ministry of earth sciences (moes), published in 2020. said that the climate change seen in the country since the middle of the 20th century is expected to continue in the future..

Because of the massive disruption caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, most of 2020 was spent tracking very short-term statistics; from daily tests and new cases to monthly, even weekly indicators of economic activity. Important as they were and continue to be, the beginning of a New Year is an opportune time to take a long-term view of what India will be like 10 years from now. Here are five charts that can help give us an idea.

India will overtake China to become the most populous country in 2023, when its population will reach 1.42 billion.(Reuters)

1. India will be the most populous country in the world

According to the World Bank’s projections, India will overtake China to become the most populous country in 2023, when its population will reach 1.42 billion. The United States will continue to be the third most populated country in this decade. There were 1.21 billion people in India according to the 2011 census and there is still uncertainty about whether or not the 2021 census will be completed on time. China’s population will hit a peak of 1.425 billion in 2030 and start declining after that. Most countries experience this phenomenon as fertility rates fall below replacement levels. It will take at least until 2048 for India’s population to start declining after peaking at around 1.6 billion, according to estimates published by The Lancet.

2. This is the last decade to make the best use of demographic dividend in India

Contrary to what is often believed, a large population need not be an economic liability for nations. Countries with a high share of the working-age population – this is not a permanent phenomenon – also have more earning hands. If one takes 20-59 year olds as working-age population, its share in India’s total population will almost peak by the end of this decade. India’s working-age group population is projected to increase from 55.8% this year to 58.8% by 2031. This equals a growth of nearly 97 million people in the workforce, which means the country needs to create employment opportunities for a large number of people. The population of elderly is also projected to increase by 2 million, creating the need for social security measures to support the rising elderly population. To be sure, the growth in the working-age group population will not be the same across states and Union territories. States like Bihar, Jharkhand and Uttar Pradesh are projected to record the highest rise in working-age group population this decade (it will increase by 23% in these three states combined). On the contrary, the three southern states of Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh are projected to record the lowest growth in this population (2.5% combined). This mismatch will mean that northern states will see a very high share of people looking for jobs, compared to those in the south, which may lead to a an increase in north-to-south migration for work.

3. Structure of political representation could veer away from federalism

The uneven growth in population in the northern and southern states will also have political consequences. The current state-wise distribution of parliamentary seats is based on the 1971 census. With the growing gap in the state-wise population, this distribution puts more voters per seat in some states than others. For example, if the latest (2020) electoral roll data is used, Tamil Nadu has 1.56 million voters per Lok Sabha member. This number is 1.8 million for Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. There is a constitutional freeze on the number of Lok Sabha seats from each state up to 2026. The next delimitation may not be conducted until the 2031 Census is completed. This means that the state-wise asymmetry in population will continue to increase. To be sure, there is another view to this story as well, which believes that a simple redistribution of seats by current population levels will penalise the states that have done well to bring down their population growth. Either way, the resolution will put India’s federal structure through a big test.

4. Consequences of climate crisis will make their presence felt

India’s first climate change assessment by the ministry of earth sciences (MoES), published in 2020. said that the climate change seen in the country since the middle of the 20th century is expected to continue in the future. For example, average temperature has risen by around 0.7 degree Celsius during 1901-2018, according to the assessment. By the end of the 21st century (2070-2099), this is expected to rise by around 4.4 degrees Celsius compared to the recent past (1976-2005). The frequency of summer (April-June) heat waves is also projected to increase 3-4 times. While monsoon precipitation (rainfall) has declined, there are more frequent dry spells and more intense wet spells, according to the report. According to a paper published by researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, last year (https://bit.ly/34WQLJ5) while rainfall of higher intensity will increase all over India, the degree of increase will be more in the south Indian region compared to north and central India by the end of the century. According to a 2018 World Bank report, a large part of South Asia would be climate hotspots – where changes in temperature and rainfall affect living standards adversely – by 2030.

5. How well will India’s economy grow?

Thanks to the disruption caused by the pandemic, the Indian economy will witness its first contraction in 41 years in 2020-21. If the 2020-21 gross domestic product (GDP) were to contract by 7.5% (the Reserve Bank of India estimate), 2010-11 to 2020-21 will see the lowest decadal growth in India’s GDP since the 1980s. There are divergent views on the prospects of the Indian economy going forward. The government and a section of economists see a rapid revival in economic activity. Others see a long-term loss of momentum. For example, Oxford economists expect potential growth for Indian economy at 4.5% over the next five years (till 2025) which is lower than 6.5% projected before the viral outbreak. Whether or not the Indian economy can rediscover its mojo will determine how the country deals with the challenges and opportunities presented by a high share of the working-age population.

Climate Change
Uttar Pradesh
United States

Join Hindustan Times

Create free account and unlock exciting features like.

Terms of use
Privacy policy
Weather Today
HT Newsletters
Subscription
Print Ad Rates
Code of Ethics

DC vs SRH Live Score
India vs England
T20 World Cup 2024 Schedule
IPL Live Score
IPL 2024 Auctions
T20 World Cup 2024
Cricket Teams
Cricket Players
ICC Rankings
Cricket Schedule
Other Cities
Income Tax Calculator
Budget 2024
Petrol Prices
Diesel Prices
Silver Rate
Relationships
Art and Culture
Taylor Swift: A Primer
Telugu Cinema
Tamil Cinema
Board Exams
Exam Results
Competitive Exams
BBA Colleges
Engineering Colleges
Medical Colleges
BCA Colleges
Medical Exams
Engineering Exams
Horoscope 2024
Festive Calendar 2024
Compatibility Calculator
The Economist Articles
Lok Sabha States
Lok Sabha Parties
Lok Sabha Candidates
Explainer Video
On The Record
Vikram Chandra Daily Wrap
KKR vs SRH Live Score
EPL 2023-24
ISL 2023-24
Asian Games 2023
Public Health
Economic Policy
International Affairs
Gender Equality
future tech
Daily Sudoku
Daily Crossword
Daily Word Jumble
HT Friday Finance
Explore Hindustan Times
Privacy Policy
Terms of Use
Subscription - Terms of Use

TN Navbharat
Times Drive
ET Now Swadesh

business economy

75 years of India’s independence: A short history of Indian economy

Updated Aug 13, 2022, 07:54 IST

75 years of India’s independence: A short history of Indian economy

Karan Johar Is 'Humbled, Honoured' As He Receives Gold Legend Honor

'Rs 1.25 Lakh Crore and Counting...': PM Modi's Shoutout To ED For Seizing 'Mountain of Cash'

Today IPL Match, GT Vs KKR: Match Prediction, Squads, Head-To-Head, Pitch And Weather Report

China Surpasses US To Become India's Top Trading Partner: Top 5 Partners Revealed- Check Details

Srikanth Box Office Collection Day 3: Rajkummar Rao's Film Collects Rs 11.85 Crore

Bill Gates Predicted iPod's Decline, Underestimated Apple's Smartphone Dominance

'Surgical Strikes Raised Even In Pak Parliament': PM Modi On Congress's 'Nobody Knows' Remark On 2019 Military Action In PoK

TS TET Hall Ticket 2024 Expected This Week on tstet2024.aptonline.in, Check Exam Date

Bank Holiday Today: Several States Set to Go for Lok Sabha Elections 2024 Phase 4 Polling on May 13

JK Cement Q4 Results 2024: Net Profit Surge By 101 pc, Declares Dividend - Check Dividend Amount And Record Date

Zomato Q4 Quarterly Results Date and Time: Food Tech Giant to Declare Earnings This Week; Check Preview, Expectations

10 Million Registrations And Counting: How PM Surya Ghar Muft Bijli Yojana Is Changing Lives?

Website Inauguration Function.
Vocational Placement Cell Inauguration
Media Coverage.
Certificate & Recommendations
Privacy Policy
Science Project Metric
Social Studies 8 Class
Computer Fundamentals
Introduction to C++
Programming Methodology
Programming in C++
Data structures
Boolean Algebra
Object Oriented Concepts
Database Management Systems
Open Source Software
Operating System
PHP Tutorials
Earth Science
Physical Science
Sets & Functions
Coordinate Geometry
Mathematical Reasoning
Statics and Probability
Accountancy
Business Studies
Political Science
English (Sr. Secondary)

Hindi (Sr. Secondary)

Punjab (Sr. Secondary)
Accountancy and Auditing
Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Technology
Automobile Technology
Electrical Technology
Electronics Technology
Hotel Management and Catering Technology
IT Application
Marketing and Salesmanship
Office Secretaryship
Stenography
Hindi Essays
English Essays

Letter Writing

Shorthand Dictation

Essay on “India after Independence” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

India after Independence

Essay No. 01

There is no doubt that India has made tremendous progress after Independence.

At the time of Independence, most of the Indian people led a miserable life. They lived in huts, slums and shanties. They had no facilities and comforts of life. There was widespread illiteracy and child mortality was high. There was shortage of food grains and famines were common and many people died of starvation.

After independence, the whole scenario has changed. Still a vast majority of people lives in villages. But now the lot of villages has greatly changed. Most of the villages are electrified. They are connected to big cities with pucka roads. The farmers get bumper crops, thanks to the new agricultural and irrigational methods and the fair use of new seeds, fertilizers, pesticides, etc.

There has been a revolution in the medical science. Child mortality has greatly been reduced and life-span has been greatly increased. Nov, there are cures even for those diseases which were previously thought to be incurable such as T.B, cholera, heart trouble, etc.

New education, new machines, skills and courses have made India prosperous and an economic power to be reckoned with in the international arena.

Democracy has taken firm roots in India and a number of elections, by and large free and fair, have been held here over the years.

Heavy industry such as steel, cement, etc. which is so vital for infrastructure has been started on a large-scale.

Means of information and communication and entertainment have been revolutionized and India has become a giant in the fields of information technology and telecommunications.

India has also become a nuclear and space power and envisions to become a developed country by 2020. India has shown her military power a number of times by inflicting crushing defeats on Pakistan in 1948, 1965, 1971 and 1999.

In spite of this, there have been certain setbacks and certain intractable problems. The burgeoning population has nullified much of the progress. Rich-poor disparity in incomes is abnormal. Still there are some acute problems such as poverty, illiteracy, unemployment, corruption, female foieticide , etc. Let us hope all these will be solved sooner rather than later.

( 370 Words )

Essay No. 02

Fifty Years of Indian Independence

August 15, 1997 marked India completing its 50th Year of Independence. This is not a long time in the life of a nation, but it has been long enough to see the dramatic changes in all areas. In 1947, we threw out the British after a unique freedom struggle which gave the world the philosophy of non-violence. Over the years, there have been many things to be proud of, but perhaps as many things to feel let down.

When our independence was in its infancy, it had to face many hard and complex problems. The country was partitioned and millions of people were uprooted. Our Government had to rehabilitate them. At the same time, Pakistan unleased tribals to attack Kashmir, which had acceded to and become a part of India. Razakaars in Hyderabad rebelled against our Government. Other Maharajas tried to form independent States. But, thank God, all these difficulties were overcome with the help of our great leaders like Sardar Patel.

The first goal achieved by free India was to consolidate the various units of the country and to absorb six hundred and odd princely States. This unified the country and its people.

On January 26, 1950, India was declared a ‘Republic’ after adopting a new Constitution. It guaranteed to secure for all its citizens justice, liberty, equality and fraternity. It declared Hindi as the National Language and 18 others as recognised regional languages. It also declared India a secular state and there is no discrimination against any person on grounds of religion, race, caste or creed.

General elections, based on universal adult franchise, have been held thirteen times during the last five decades. As a result of the elections held in 1989, National Front Government came to power at the Centre and in many States. However, in 1991, Congress again captured the power at Centre by virtue of its being the largest single party. But in 1996, the United Front again came to power with the help of Congress. In 1999, BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) came to power at the Centre. The fact in this process lies in the peaceful transfer of power every time which indeed symbolises the true democratic character of polity.

During these years, we have successfully completed eight Five-Year Plans. These have imparted a measure of strength and stability to our economy. Per capita income has been increased from Rs. 466 in 1950-51 to Rs. 9,377 in 1996-97. Both agricultural and industrial productions have increased considerably. The production of food grains increased from 52.2 million tones in 1951-52 to 199.32 million tons in 1996-97.

Encouraged by the success of eight Plans, India has now launched the Ninth Five-Year Plan. The Plan, which covers the period 1997-2002, envisages a total outlay of Rs. 8,59,200 crore. The Plan aims at the growth rate of 6.5 per cent per annum for the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). It assumes the Incremental Capital Output Ratio (ICOR) of 4.3, saving rate of 26.1 per cent, Current Account Deficit of 2.1 per cent. This growth is to be achieved by 3.9 per cent growth in agriculture, 8.2 per cent in industry and 11.8 per cent in exports.

On Economic front, the Liberalised Economic Policy was introduced in 1991. At that time Indian economy was undergoing a serious crisis. Industry and agriculture were stagnant; the financial sector was in doldrums; a huge fiscal deficit was mounting with a massive foreign debt, eating into a major chunk of our resources. The masses had been facing a double-digit rate of inflation. The new policy aimed at the dismantling of controls over the economy with the state yielding to market economy. As a result of new liberalised policy, growth rate during the Eighth Plan was 6.8 per cent. Foreign exchange reserves increased to $ 29.435 billion in Sept. 1997 and rate of inflation fell to all-time lower of about 4 per cent in 1997.

On scientific front, India since Independence has continued to march ahead, pursuing a programme of using modern science and technology for national development. At present, we spend about 0.83 per cent of our GNP on S & T development. We have made laudable achievements in water management, healthcare system, and nuclear power capacity. The space programme has envisaged and achieved the objectives of space-based services in areas of communications, meteorology, resource survey and management and development of Satellite Launch Vehicles (SLV and PSLV) and associated ground system, the GRAM SAT and Remote Sensing Satellites (IRS Series) are testimony to the Indian excellence and endeavours.

However, the impact of scientific and technological endeavour is more obvious in some areas than others. Industrial advancement, noteworthy achievements in space applications, defence, advance materials and nuclear research do not quite mitigate the misery of a large sections of our population having to exist in unsanitary conditions, without safe drinking water, with little or no medical facilities to help them overcome health hazards. A large number of our villages are steeped in poverty, still unlit, lacking in schools and easy means of communication.

On the diplomatic front, India has obdurately maintained its commitment since Independence, to genuine disarmament, and has continued its work for attaining on a time-bound basis, a nuclear weapon-free world. India has never accepted discriminating regimes like NPT (Non-Proliferation Treaty) and is always happy to participate in non-discriminatory and fair global treaties like the chemical weapons convention. India feels committed to non-alignment but recognises that certain ennui has developed about it in several of old faithful member-states, and apathy in certain others. India is now experiencing a difficult phase in its relations with the West as they strive to effect fundamental economic, social, and political changes within our own societies. In the broad areas relating to India’s foreign policy, defence and strategic concerns, there is little, if any, disagreement, or difference of perception between and amongst our political parties, regions or states.

However, during the last five decades our failures have been much more than our achievements. Our greatest failure is in the eradication of corruption, which is a bigger threat than even external aggression. It is a fact that India has been listed as the seventh most corrupt country in the world. Corruption has grown because the culprits, especially those in high offices, have discovered that the arm of the law is never long enough to rope them.

If there is one gaping hole in our roster of achievements, 50 years after Independence, it is the number of citizens who continue to be ground down by poverty. By Planning Commission’s own reckoning, nearly 30 per cent of Indians live below poverty line. Poverty not only affects its victims but also acts as a fetter on the overall development and progress of society. It limits the size of the domestic market and hampers economy’s growth prospects in much the same way as deficiencies in physical infrastructure do.

As far as education is concerned, in India about 105 million children in the 6-10 age-group do not go to school. Despite various pronouncements by all the governments and various programmes attempted for this purpose one cannot deny that the situation is grim. India has the dubious record of having half the illiterates of the world by the end of the 20th century. We have failed to implement what has already been laid down in the Constitution. What we need is to ensure our major social and economic changes. The causes of illiteracy are not going to leave us. If a substantial section of population is illiterate, it is because we have continued the colonial system more or less unchanged. Though, some additional inputs have been made and some marginal progress has taken place, yet it will not solve the problem. What we need today is a mass movement, a mass awareness against this malady to better the record apart from some Herculean efforts on the part of the Government.

Child Labour assumes the character of a social problem as it hinders, arrests or distorts the national growth process and prevents the child from attaining manhood. The estimates of working children in India vary from 50 million to a number much higher. The various reasons for the child labour in the country are cited such as poverty, wage structure, employment, illiteracy and so on. To abolish or eliminate this menace from our Indian society, integrated efforts are required. For this attitudinal change and sensitisation of employers, health and welfare personnel’s efforts to encourage small family norms are called for. Also, we will have to improve the economic condition of the adult workers.

An explosive situation is developing on the employment front in the wake of massive backlog in the creation of new jobs. Official figures concede that the country has entered the Ninth Five-Year Plan with a backlog of 7 million jobs that should have been created during the last five years.

Presently we have crossed the one hundred-crore mark of population, which is about three times that of USA and thus acquired the dubious distinction of being the second most populous country in the world. Compared to natural human resources of the country, India is definitely over-populated. Over-population is also due to increase of birth rate. Our annual growth is about 2.11 per cent. Closely related with population is poverty. So long an effective control is not exercised on the population increase, the nation will not get rid of poverty. According to UN projections, India’s population certainly neutralises much of the fruits of development.

At present, India has taken upon itself one of the biggest challenges of modern times, namely, economic independence through peaceful and non-violent methods. The aim set is to conquer hunger and unemployment by the process of bold liberalisation of economic policy. The success of democracy in India depends upon the successful working of new economic policy and removal of poverty.

( 1645 Words )

Essay No. 03

Indian Villages after Independence

India is a country of villages. Nearly five lakh villages exist in India. While only about 28 per cent of the population lives in the cities. 72 per cent of the population lives in the villages. The villages thus occupy a place of great importance in the country. They are the base of India’s development in every sphere of life.

There were many problems in the villages before Independence. The Government was quite aware of the backwardness of the people in the villages. The people in the villages were poor, backward, ignorant and superstitious. Their methods of agricultural operations were primitive. There were no schools, hospitals, banks, etc., for the facilities of the villagers. There were no proper roads, electricity and tube wells. As a matter of fact their life was a hell. The conditions in the villages were so bad that there could not be any social and cultural development of the people. But now the Government is seized of this problem and had drawn many plans and projects to help them and improve the conditions of the rural community.

Since the dawn of Independence, the conditions in the Indian villages are changing very fast. These have changed the face of the Indian villages. There are several types of changes taking place in the whole of the country.

To improve the conditions of Indian villages, our Government has implemented the scheme of Community Development Programme, which was introduced in 1952. These programmes have manifold activities. The activities have made a tremendous change in the socio-economic set up of our villages. There are various changes brought about in our villages. These changes cover all aspects of the community life.

The greatest problem in our villages was that of illiteracy. Due to illiteracy the poor farmers were the victims of superstitions and were also exploited by the money-lenders. The Government has opened night schools for the adults and primary schools for boys and girls. Now every village has its own primary school. High schools and Inter colleges are established at every twenty kilometer of distance. The result is that they are now educated, illiteracy and ignorance are thus fast disappearing.

Another change brought about in the villages is in the field of agricultural methodology. Till recently, most of the farmers were using the old methods of ploughing in their fields, or sowing seed and harvesting. However, the farmers are now using new techniques. They plough their fields with tractors, and irrigate their fields with water from tube-wells. For harvesting also, they use new machines. Now they have switched over to mechanised farming with the help of electricity. Electricity has now illuminated their huts. With the abolition of zamindari, the person who ploughs the fields, is now the real owner of the land. Cooperative societies and banks are the substitute for the money-lenders. These societies and banks lend the money on lower rate of interest and the farmers are now free from the cruel clutches of the money-lenders.

A great change has taken place in the political and social life of the villagers also. Before Independence, they had no say in the affairs of the village. Now Gram Sabha, Gram Panchayat and Panchayati Adalat are there. They are their own bodies manned by their own representatives. Due to the functioning of these bodies, the villagers have now begun to understand their rights and duties. They now take more interest in politics, the transformation being complete with even the ills of politics infesting the village elections. Another great change which occurred in village community is that the outlook towards social problems has become broad. They are now no more superstitious. Litigation has been reduced. There is less thought for untouchability and other social evils. They are now not particular about purdah system. Joint family system is crumbling down here also. Bonded labour has been freed and the recovery of loans given by money-lenders has been waived off. They are not slaves now, but free.

More and more facilities are being given to the villagers in the field of cottage industry. To promote the village industries loans are given to them liberally by the rural banks. The poor farmers can now start their own village industries or such cottage industries as basket-making, the mustard and rape-seed oil, soap and rope-making, poultry, fisheries, piggeries and many other industries to improve their economic conditions.

There are changes in others fields also. Roads are constructed by the villagers. Now every village is linked by roads to other parts of the country. Similarly, sanitary conditions have been improved. Hospitals and government dispensaries have been established to remove the illness and diseases which usually become a curse on community.

In brief, the fact is that the development of villages is in a transitional stage. The villages are changing very rapidly and the main structure of the rural society is in the process of change. The economic programme of the Government has proved a boon to them and thereby an attempt is being made by the Government to convert every village into a heaven provided the village community cooperates with it sincerely.

( 856 Words )

Essay No. 04

Political slogans often overrun reality. When Rajiv Gandhi coined the slogan “Mera Bharat Mahan” (My India is great), people appreciated the sentiment, but very few actually believed in it. Then came along the BJP with its new slogan “India shining” riding tall over the feeling of economic optimism which was backed by the plentiful rains in 2003 and the success of the Indian IT boom. Although the BJP failed miserably at the polls, the truth was and is that India continues to shine on. Sixty years after independence, India has emerged from the shadow of colonialism to position itself as the world’s biggest and rowdiest democracy matching its political freedoms with financial ones, unleashing a surge of growth and wealth creation that is altering the lives of its millions.

Twenty years ago the world equated India with snake charmers, elephants, half—naked fakirs, the rope trick, the holy cow, crowds and pollution. Now it is just as famous for its educated person power, its Bollywood movie stars, literary giants and its steel magnates among other things. Poverty remains, but there is renewed hope. There is a palpable feeling of excitement and promise everywhere. The new slogan is “Mera Bharat Jawan” (My India is young). It is incredible that despite India’s, ‘current’ third world status, she has guarded herself from dictators, military rule, civil war or foreign invasion and she continues to shine as the world’s largest democracy. It is no small achievement that India is now considered amongthe top ten industrial world powers, reflective of the country’s self-sufficiency. It is a matter of great pride that Indians have made it to the Forbes list of richest men in the world. The private health care infrastructure in India is comparable to any of the developed countries in the world. This has led to a boom in medical tourism with patients the world over arriving in India for medical treatments. Yet the challenges faced by young India in healthcare and medicine are many and enormous. Although, the infant mortality rate has been cut down by half the female infanticide rates still loom large. Although increasing numbers of children are receiving vaccination, many Indian infantsstill succumb to malnutrition. Infrastructure strains hard to keep up with the economic boom while corruption, discrimination, religious violence, child labour and female dowry deaths still prevail. Severe disparity is shown by its various states. While states like Kerala, boast of 100 % literacy and health indicators similar to those of developed countries, other states like Bihar and Madhya Pradesh show appalling statistics. One third of the married women and 45% of children under the age ten have nutrition deficiency problems. However, despite this, it remains that India’s massive shift in global perception is not a mere illusion.

India has achieved a lot in the sixty yearspost-independence however; a lot still needs to be done. Population was and remains one of our largest concerns. It also remains the number one reason why our infrastructure is compromised, why corruption is rampant and why our children die due to malnutrition. The emphasis has to be on education of the populace and sincere efforts need to be made towards providing better health care services in the public sector. Nevertheless, six decades after her independence, the world’s eyes are focused on India and it is only a matter of time before we evolve from a developing country into a developed country.

( 571 Words )

About evirtualguru_ajaygour

commentscomments

Awesome essays

Quick Links

Popular Tags

Visitors question & answer.

Bhavika on Essay on “A Model Village” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.
slide on 10 Comprehension Passages Practice examples with Question and Answers for Class 9, 10, 12 and Bachelors Classes
अभिषेक राय on Hindi Essay on “Yadi mein Shikshak Hota” , ”यदि मैं शिक्षक होता” Complete Hindi Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.
Gangadhar Singh on Essay on “A Journey in a Crowded Train” Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes.

Download Our Educational Android Apps

Latest Desk

Bus ki Yatra “बस की यात्रा” Hindi Essay 400 Words for Class 10, 12.
Mere Jeevan ka ek Yadgaar Din “मेरे जीवन का एक यादगार दिन” Hindi Essay 400 Words for Class 10, 12.
Safalta jitna safal koi nahi hota “सफलता जितना सफल कोई नहीं होता” Hindi Essay 400 Words for Class 10, 12.
Kya Manushya ka koi bhavishya hai? “क्या मनुष्य का कोई भविष्य है?” Hindi Essay 300 Words for Class 10, 12.
Example Letter regarding election victory.
Example Letter regarding the award of a Ph.D.
Example Letter regarding the birth of a child.
Example Letter regarding going abroad.
Letter regarding the publishing of a Novel.

Vocational Edu.

English Shorthand Dictation “East and Dwellings” 80 and 100 wpm Legal Matters Dictation 500 Words with Outlines.
English Shorthand Dictation “Haryana General Sales Tax Act” 80 and 100 wpm Legal Matters Dictation 500 Words with Outlines meaning.
English Shorthand Dictation “Deal with Export of Goods” 80 and 100 wpm Legal Matters Dictation 500 Words with Outlines meaning.
English Shorthand Dictation “Interpreting a State Law” 80 and 100 wpm Legal Matters Dictation 500 Words with Outlines meaning.

Talk to our experts

1800-120-456-456

India Independence Day Essay in English: Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav 2023

Short Essay on Independence Day - The Day India Became Independent

The day of 15th August 1947 has been embossed in the golden history of India. It is the day when India got its freedom from 200 years of British rule. It was a hard and long struggle in which many freedom fighters and great men sacrificed their lives for our beloved motherland.

India celebrates its Independence Day on the 15th of August every year. However, this year, the auspicious day is being celebrated as ‘77 Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav 2023’. Independence Day, called the Red-Letter Day in the history of our country, is celebrated as a national holiday throughout India.

Independence Day 2023 helps us remember every one of the penances our political dissidents made to liberate India from British rule. On 15th August 1947, India was announced free from British imperialism and turned into the biggest vote-based system, the largest democracy in the world.

In this essay on Independence Day, students can track down every one of the significant subtleties of India's Independence history. They can allude to it for their exam preparation as papers are generally asked in the CBSE English paper. Additionally, they can utilise this article as study material for the Independence Day essay for kids during the exam.

Essay on Independence Day 2023

15th August is commended as a public celebration with flag hoisting, marches, and social works. Schools, universities, workplaces, society buildings, government, and private associations celebrate this day beautifully. On this day, the Prime Minister of India hoists the National Flag at the Red Fort and addresses the country with a speech. Doordarshan communicates the whole occasion in real-time on TV.

History of Independence Day

In 1947, on 15th August, India became independent. We won freedom from British Raj after a hard struggle. On this day at the stroke of midnight, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, our first Prime Minister, unfurled the National Flag at the Red Fort for the first time. It marked the end of the 200 years old British reign in India. We now breathe air in a free and sovereign nation.

The British have governed India for about 200 years. Under British colonisation, the life of every Indian was dismal and full of struggle. Indians were treated as slaves and had no freedom of speech. Indian rulers were puppets in the possession of British officers. Indian fighters were dealt with cruelty in British camps, and farmers were starving as they couldn't grow crops and needed to pay substantial land taxes.

On this special occasion, the people of India remember the selfless sacrifices and unparalleled contributions of great men and women to achieve the independence of India. Leaders like Mahatma Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhas Chandra Bose, Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad, Sardar Patel, and Gopalbandhu Das are paid reverent homage by one and all in the country.

Great Indian Freedom Fighters

India couldn't have acquired independence without the efforts of numerous extraordinary freedom fighters. Bhagat Singh, Rani of Jhansi, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Subhas Chandra Bose, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Jawaharlal Nehru, Ram Prasad Bismil, and Ashfaqulla Khan are some of the notable names.

Role of Women in India's Independence

Several women have played a significant part in the Indian freedom movement. Savitribai Phule, Mahadevi Verma, Capt Laxmi Sehgal, Rani Laxmibai, and Basanti Devi are just a few crucial names to remember. These women along with many others played a prominent role in leading India towards its independence.

The ‘Good’ British Rulers in India

Not all the British were awful; many started adoring India and did incredible things for it. Some even took part in the Indian Independence struggle. Some of the good British rulers include Warren Hastings who developed court reforms; Freda Bedi who supported Indian nationalism; Allan Octavian Hume who started the Indian National Congress, etc.

Why Do We Celebrate Indian Independence Day?

India accomplished freedom following a 200-year-long battle. India gained complete independence from the British on 15th August 1947. That is why the day holds importance in the heart of each Indian citizen either living in India or abroad. India is celebrating 77 years of freedom on 15th August 2023 as Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav. This day also helps us remember the struggles of freedom fighters and the lives sacrificed in attaining independence.

The struggle that our freedom fighters have gone through shows us that the freedom we appreciate today has been attained by shedding the blood of hundreds of individuals. It stirs patriotism inside each Indian. It makes the current generation understand the struggles of individuals around them and familiarise themselves with the freedom fighters of India.

Importance of Independence Day Essay

Independence day is a positive historical event for the country since we were free from British rule on this day. It unites diverse individuals all over the country. Unity in diversity is the fundamental path and strength of India. We feel pleased to be a part of the biggest majority-rule country on the planet, where we live in a democracy.

Independence Day is an important day in the life of every Indian citizen. Year after year, it reminds us of our great freedom fighters who sacrificed and struggled their lives in order to free our Motherland from British rule. It reminds us of the great paragons, which were the foundation of the dream of a free India, envisioned and realised by the founding fathers.

Activities on Independence Day

Independence Day is celebrated with great joy across the country. People hold meetings, fly the tricolour flag, and sing the National Anthem. There is great enthusiasm among all. In the national capital, Delhi, this day is celebrated with great pomp and show. All leaders and common people gather in large numbers on the parade ground in front of the Red Fort and eagerly wait for the arrival of the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister then hoists the National Flag and makes a speech that focuses on the achievements of the government during the past year, mentions the issues that still need to be addressed, and calls upon further developmental efforts. Foreign dignitaries are also invited to this occasion.

Tributes are paid to the freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives during the struggle. The Indian National Anthem – “Jana Gana Mana” is sung. The parade by the Indian Army and the Paramilitary forces is followed by the speech. All state capitals hold events on similar lines with the Chief Minister of the respective states unfurling the National Flag.

Independence Day is observed with great honour at all the government and private institutions, schools, and colleges. Students take part in parades and sing the National Anthem before hoisting the National Flag. Some historical buildings are specially decorated with lights depicting the independence theme. Special programs like planting trees are taken up on this day. The young minds are infused with a sense of patriotism and nationalistic feelings. To celebrate this occasion, sports and cultural competitions are conducted, and prizes are awarded to the winners. Sweets are distributed among everyone. Patriotic songs can be heard at every street corner.

Another interesting feature of the celebration is the kite-flying event that is held all over the country with great zeal. The sky on this day is filled with kites of various colours, shapes, and sizes.

Even television channels and radio programs are charged up with patriotism. The channels telecast movies and documentaries based on patriotic themes in order to let the people and children know about various incidents of our freedom struggle and to inspire a love for our motherland. All the national newspapers also print special editions and cite inspirational stories and excerpts of the life of great men from the great books written about them.

Quotes on Indian Independence Day

"Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge." - Jawaharlal Nehru

"The best road to progress is freedom's road." - Mahatma Gandhi

"India is, the cradle of the human race, the birthplace of human speech, the mother of history, the grandmother of legend, and the great-grandmother of tradition." - Mark Twain

"We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made." - Albert Einstein

Indian Independence Day 2023 is a national occasion and celebrated as a national holiday on which all shops, workplaces, schools and universities remain closed. This day is a token to the freedom fighters and patriots who sacrificed their lives so we could experience and live in a free land. The tricolour is hoisted in schools and other institutions on this day.

A wind of patriotism and national integration blows across the country on this day. The country is celebrating 77 Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav as it completes 76 years of independence to remind the citizens of the sacrifices made by our forefathers. Through Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, India will commemorate its past this Independence Day and will also lay plans for the future. It is now in the hands of India’s youth to shape and form the future of our country.

FAQs on India Independence Day Essay in English: Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav 2023

1. Name a few important freedom fighters who sacrificed their lives for the independence of our motherland.

Some of the great freedom fighters like Mahatma Gandhi, Bhagat Singh, Chandra Shekhar Azad, Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, Subhash Chandra Bose, Sardar Ballabh Patel, Bhagat Singh, Maulana Kalam Azad, etc. were at the forefront of the freedom struggle.

2. What is the importance of Independence Day?

Independence Day is the day when all Indians remember the struggle of the eminent leaders to get freedom from the 200 years of British rule. They went through a long and very hard struggle. Many people sacrificed their lives to give us independence. So we pay tribute to all those freedom fighters and take an oath to carry on the legacy for a better country in the future.

3. Why is Independence Day called a Red-Letter Day?

Independence Day is called a Red-Letter Day because it is a special occasion when India got freedom from the hands of the British who ruled our country for over 200 years.

4. How do schools and colleges celebrate this day?

Most schools and colleges celebrate this day with great pomp and show. They hoist the National Flag and sing the National Anthem. The students conduct various cultural programs. They perform small skits based on the patriotic theme. Sports events are also conducted in many institutions, and awards are given to the winners. Many schools also conduct drawing competitions where the students are expected to draw something based on the theme of independence. Sweets are distributed among the students and the staff of the schools and colleges.

5. Which day is Independence Day in 1947?

India gained independence from the British on 15 August 1947.

6. Who declared freedom for India?

Lord Mountbatten, the last Viceroy of India, declared India's independence on 15 August 1947.

Essay on India For Students and Children

500+ words essay on india.

India is a great country where people speak different languages but the national language is Hindi. India is full of different castes, creeds, religion, and cultures but they live together. That’s the reasons India is famous for the common saying of “ unity in diversity “. India is the seventh-largest country in the whole world.

Geography and Culture

India has the second-largest population in the world. India is also knowns as Bharat, Hindustan and sometimes Aryavart. It is surrounded by oceans from three sides which are Bay Of Bengal in the east, the Arabian Sea in the west and Indian oceans in the south. Tiger is the national animal of India. Peacock is the national bird of India. Mango is the national fruit of India. “ Jana Gana Mana ” is the national anthem of India . “Vande Mataram” is the national song of India. Hockey is the national sport of India. People of different religions such as Hinduism, Buddhism , Jainism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism lives together from ancient times. India is also rich in monuments, tombs, churches, historical buildings, temples, museums, scenic beauty, wildlife sanctuaries , places of architecture and many more. The great leaders and freedom fighters are from India.

F lag of India

The indian flag has tricolors.

The first color that is uppermost color in the flag which is the saffron color, stands for purity. The second color i.e. the middle color in the flag is the white color and it stands for peace. The third color that is the lowest color in the flag is the green color and it stands for fertility. The white color has an Ashoka Chakra of blue color on it. Ashoka Chakra contains twenty-four spokes which are equally divided. India has 29 states and 7 union territories.

Follow this link to get a Physical and state-wise Map of India

My Favorite States from India are as follows –

Rajasthan itself has a glorious history. It is famous for many brave kings, their deeds, and their art and architecture. It has a sandy track that’s why the nuclear test was held here. Rajasthan is full of desert, mountain range, lakes, dense forest, attractive oases, and temples, etc. Rajasthan is also known as “Land Of Sacrifice”. In Rajasthan, you can see heritage things of all the kings who ruled over there and for that, you can visit Udaipur, Jodhpur, Jaisalmer, Chittaurgarh, etc.

Madhya Pradesh

Madhya Pradesh is bigger than a foreign (Italy) country and smaller than Oman. It also has tourists attractions for its places. In Madhya Pradesh, you can see temples, lakes, fort, art and architecture, rivers, jungles, and many things. You can visit in Indore, Jabalpur, Ujjain, Bhopal, Gwalior and many cities. Khajuraho, Sanchi Stupa, Pachmarhi, Kanha national park, Mandu, etc. are the places must visit.

Jammu and Kashmir

Jammu and Kashmir are known as heaven on earth . We can also call Jammu and Kashmir as Tourists Paradise. There are many places to visit Jammu and Kashmir because they have an undisturbed landscape, motorable road, beauty, lying on the banks of river Jhelum, harmony, romance, sceneries, temples and many more.

In Jammu and Kashmir, u can enjoy boating, skiing, skating, mountaineering, horse riding, fishing, snowfall, etc. In Jammu and Kashmir, you can see a variety of places such as Srinagar, Vaishnav Devi, Gulmarg, Amarnath, Patnitop, Pahalgam, Sonamarg, Lamayuru, Nubra Valley, Hemis, Sanasar, Anantnag, Kargil, Dachigam National Park, Pulwama, Khilanmarg, Dras, Baltal, Bhaderwah, Pangong Lake, Magnetic Hill, Tso Moriri, Khardung La, Aru Valley, Suru Basin,Chadar Trek, Zanskar Valley, Alchi Monastery, Darcha Padum Trek, Kishtwar National Park, Changthang Wildlife Sanctuary, Nyoma, Dha Hanu, Uleytokpo, Yusmarg, Tarsar Marsar Trek and many more.

It is known as the ‘God’s Own Country’, Kerala is a state in India, situated in the southwest region, it is bordered by a number of beaches; covered by hills of Western Ghats and filled with backwaters, it is a tourist destination attracting people by its natural beauty. The most important destinations which you can see in Kerela are the museum, sanctuary, temples, backwaters, and beaches. Munnar, Kovalam, Kumarakom, and Alappad.

India is a great country having different cultures, castes, creed, religions but still, they live together. India is known for its heritage, spices, and of course, for people who live here. That’s the reasons India is famous for the common saying of “unity in diversity”. India is also well known as the land of spirituality , philosophy, science, and technology.

Customize your course in 30 seconds

Which class are you in.

Travelling Essay
Picnic Essay
Our Country Essay
My Parents Essay
Essay on Favourite Personality
Essay on Memorable Day of My Life
Essay on Knowledge is Power
Essay on Gurpurab
Essay on My Favourite Season
Essay on Types of Sports

Download the App

India 100 Years Ago A...

India 100 Years Ago: A Photo Essay

In a country like India, which is home to one of the world’s oldest civilizations, every corner and piece of land has its own history. Every monument and city has a tale to tell. This photo essay takes readers back in time 100 years.

Chandni chowk (in the 1860s and 2008).

This photograph shows Chandni Chowk (in around 1863-67), the principal street of Shahjahanabad, the seventh city of the seven historical cities of Delhi. The sides of the road are lined with shops and artisans selling their wares. The road was built in 1650 by Jahanara Begum, the daughter of the emperor Shah Jahan. It led from the Red Fort, Shah Jahan’s fortified palace.

The Delhi Gate at the Red Fort (in the 1890s and 2013)

The Delhi Gate is one of two main entrances to the Lal Qila or Red Fort, the palace citadel built in the 1640s by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan as the headquarters of his new capital, Shahjahanabad. The palace apartments are contained within a fortified wall made from red sandstone, surrounded on three sides by a moat and on the fourth by the river Yamuna. This is a general view of the gate from outside the fort, showing the bastions, battlements, chhatris and turrets that crown the walls.

Delhi Gate of the Red Fort in the 1890s/

Humayun’s Tomb (in 1860 and 2005)

The Kashmiri Gate (in the 1890s and 2012)

The Kashmiri Gate was built in 1835 by Major Robert Smith and was made into a double gateway in 1857 at the time of the Indian Uprising. This gate was blown up when the British retook Delhi during the Indian Uprising of 1857.

A street in Delhi

The Howrah Bridge (in 1945 and 2012)

A picture of the Howrah Bridge at Kolkata 1945/

The Victoria Memorial (in the 1940s and 2012)

The Victoria Memorial, is a building dedicated to Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India, and located in Kolkata, India – the capital of West Bengal and a former capital of British India.

Victoria Memorial- construction in progress, Kolkata 1940s/

The Town Hall ( in the 1860s and 2011)

Photograph of the Town Hall from ‘Views of Calcutta and Barrakpore’, taken by Samuel Bourne in the 1860s. Located on the Esplanade, the Town Hall was built in 1813, east of the High Court, by Colonel John Garstin. This view of the main facade shows the classical style and the Doric portico. The Town Hall overlooks Eden Gardens in the Maidan.

Park Street (in the 1930s and 2011)

Esplanade and Metropolitan Building (in 1945 and present)

The building’s clock tower can be seen at the end of the photo taken in the Esplanade, Calcutta in 1945.

The Gateway of India (in 1911 and 2011)

The Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus (in 1850 and 2011)

Victoria Terminus in Mumbai in the late 1930s

Times of India Building, corner of Elphinstone Circle (1880 and 2009)

Times of India’s first office was opposite the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai, where it was founded.

The Bangalore Fort (in 1860 and 2013)

In 1791, the British army, led by Lord Cornwallis, laid siege to the fort of Bangalore, during which part of the fort was damaged.

Amber Fort (in 1858 and 2006)

View of Amber Fort, across Maotha Lake, Amber Jaipur, 1858.

The Hawa Mahal (in 1875 and 2013)

The structure was built in 1799 by Maharaja Sawai Pratap Singh. Its unique, five-storey exterior is akin to the honeycomb of a beehive, with its 953 small windows called jharokhas decorated with intricate latticework.

The Taj Mahal, Agra (in 1890 and 2010)

Varanasi or Banaras Ghats (in 1922 and 2009)

Group of silver and copper smiths in a workshop in Jammu and Kashmir in 1895

British Raj in India- British men on horse

British men on horse during British Raj in India/

British India, One Mohur (1862),depicting Queen Victoria

One Mohur, 1862 used during British Raj in India/

Since you are here, we would like to share our vision for the future of travel - and the direction Culture Trip is moving in.

Culture Trip launched in 2011 with a simple yet passionate mission: to inspire people to go beyond their boundaries and experience what makes a place, its people and its culture special and meaningful — and this is still in our DNA today. We are proud that, for more than a decade, millions like you have trusted our award-winning recommendations by people who deeply understand what makes certain places and communities so special.

Increasingly we believe the world needs more meaningful, real-life connections between curious travellers keen to explore the world in a more responsible way. That is why we have intensively curated a collection of premium small-group trips as an invitation to meet and connect with new, like-minded people for once-in-a-lifetime experiences in three categories: Culture Trips, Rail Trips and Private Trips. Our Trips are suitable for both solo travelers, couples and friends who want to explore the world together.

Culture Trips are deeply immersive 5 to 16 days itineraries, that combine authentic local experiences, exciting activities and 4-5* accommodation to look forward to at the end of each day. Our Rail Trips are our most planet-friendly itineraries that invite you to take the scenic route, relax whilst getting under the skin of a destination. Our Private Trips are fully tailored itineraries, curated by our Travel Experts specifically for you, your friends or your family.

We know that many of you worry about the environmental impact of travel and are looking for ways of expanding horizons in ways that do minimal harm - and may even bring benefits. We are committed to go as far as possible in curating our trips with care for the planet. That is why all of our trips are flightless in destination, fully carbon offset - and we have ambitious plans to be net zero in the very near future.

Simran Lal, Founder of Nicobar, On How She Launched Her Lifestyle Brand and Tips On Travelling to India

See & Do

How to spend a week in maharashtra.

Photo Journal: 10 Photos From Jaipur's Ganguar Festival

This Homestay Could Help Save Rajasthan’s Nomadic Camel Pastoralists

Guides & Tips

The best places to travel in november.

The Top Things To Do And See In Jaipur

Top Tips for Travelling in India

Film & TV

Embrace the barbie spirit by visiting the world's most colourful cities.

A Guide To Madhya Pradesh’s Tiger Reserves

How to spend 10 days in Madhya Pradesh, India

Fun-Filled Travel Experiences to Boost Your Serotonin Levels

5 Delicious Indian Dry Bean and Lentil Recipes

Culture trip spring sale, save up to $1,100 on our unique small-group trips limited spots..

Post ID: 702872
Sponsored? No
View Payload

India Essay

India is the seventh-largest country and most populous democracy in the world. It is located in South Asia and was officially declared as the Republic of India after its independence from British rule. India has unique topographical features – plains of central India, rain forests of the north east, icy cold Himalayan region and dry arid desert in west, among others. The cultural, linguistic and religious diversity of India is as much diverse as its geography.

Indian culture differs from place to place and is a union of several different cultures, spread across the length and breadth of the continent. Although there are 22 Languages imbibed in the Constitution of India, there are more than 1900 dialects or mother tongues are spoken throughout the nation. This huge cultural and linguistic diversity of India is one of its most distinguished features.

Long and Short Essay on India in English

India is one of the famous countries of the world. Every citizen of India must know about it means its history, struggle, culture and other important things.

Students are generally given this topic in their schools to write some paragraphs or full essay in the class tests or main exams.

Here we have given below long and short essay on India, which are well written essay on India to help students under various word limits.

They can select anyone of these India essay according to the words limit:

India Essay 1 (100 words)

India is a famous country all over the world. Geographically, our country is located to the south of Asia continent. India is a high population country and well protected from all directions naturally. It is a famous country for its great cultural and traditional values all across the world. It contains a mountain called Himalaya which is biggest in the world.

It is surrounded by the three big oceans from three directions such as in south with Indian Ocean, in east with Bay of Bengal and in west with Arabic sea. India is a democratic country ranks second for its population. The national language of India is Hindi however almost fourteen nationally recognized languages are spoken here.

India Essay 2 (150 words)

India is a beautiful country and famous all over the world for its unique cultures and traditions. It is famous for its historical heritages and monuments. Citizens here are very polite and understanding in nature. It was a slave country earlier to the 1947 under the British rule.

However, after many years of hard struggles and sacrifices of the great Indian freedom fighters, India got freedom from the British rule in 1947. Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru became the first Prime Minister of India and hoisted the Indian flag when India got freedom and he proclaimed that “When the world sleeps, India will wake to life and freedom”.

India is a democratic country where its public are authorized to take decisions for the betterment of the country. India is a famous country for the saying “Unity in Diversity” because people of many religions, castes, culture and tradition live together with unity. Most of the Indian heritages and monuments have been added to the world heritage sites.

India Essay 3 (200 words)

India is my mother country and I love it very much. People of India are very honest and truthful in nature. People of various unique traditions and culture live here together without any problem. The mother-tongue of my country is Hindi however many languages are spoken here by the people of different religions without any boundation. India is a great country of natural beauty where great people took birth from time to time and did great works. Indians are very heart-touching in nature and they heartily welcome their guests from other countries.

In India Indian philosophy of life is followed which is called as Sanatan Dharma and has become the main factor to maintain unity in diversity here. India is a republic country where its citizens have power to take decision about country.

There are many natural sceneries, places, monuments, historical heritage of the ancient time, etc which attracts people’s mind from every corner of the world. India is very famous for its spiritual works, Yoga, martial arts, etc. A huge crowd of pilgrims and devotees come here to see and enjoy the beauty of famous places, temples and other world heritage sites in India.

India Essay 4 (250 words)

My country India is a land of Shiva, Parvati, Krishna, Hanuman, Buddha, Mahatma Gandhi, Swami Vivekananda, Kabir, etc. It is a country where great people took birth and did great works. I love my country very much and salute it. It is famous for its biggest democracy and oldest civilization of the world. It is the second most populous country of the world after the chain.

It is a country where courteous people of many religions and cultures lives together. It is a country of great warriors such as Rana Pratap, Shivaji, Lal Bahadur Shashtri, Jawaharlal Nehru, Mahatma Gandhi, Sardar Patel, Subhash Chandra Bose, Bagat Singh, Lala Lajpet Rai and so many.

It is a rich country where great people took birth in the field of literature, art and science such as Rabindranath Tagore, Sara Chandra, Premchand, C.V. Raman, Jagadish Chandra Bose, APJ Abdul Kalama, Kabir Das, etc. Such great people of India were the proud of my country. All the great leaders of the country came from villages and led the country to go ahead.

They fought for many years and sacrificed their lives to make India an independent country from the British rule. It is a country where famous rivers and oceans are run regularly such as Ganges, Yamuna, Godavari, Narmada, Brahmaputra, Krishna, Kavery, Bay of Bengal, Arabic sea, etc. India is a beautiful country surrounded by the oceans from three sides. It is a country where people are very intellectual and spiritual and believe in God and Goddess.

India Essay 5 (300 words)

India is my motherland country where I took birth. I love India and have proud of it. India is a big democratic country which ranks second in population after China. It has rich and glorious past. It is considered as the country of old civilization of the world. It is a land of learning where students from many corners of the world come to study in the big universities.

It is famous for its various unique and diverse culture and tradition of people of many religions. Some people in the abroad as well follow the Indian culture and tradition because of being attractive in nature. Various invaders came and steal the glory and precious things of India. Some of them made it a slave country however various great leaders of the country became successful in making my motherland free of biritshers in 1947.

The day our country got freedom means 15 th of August is celebrated every year as Independence Day. Pt. Nehru became the first prime minister of India. It is a country rich in natural resources yet inhabitants here are poor. It is growing continuously in the field of technology, science and literature because of the eminent people like Rabindra Nath Tagore, Sir Jagdish Chandra Bose, Sir C.V.Raman, Shri H. N. Bhabha, etc. It is a peace loving country where people of many religions follow their own culture and tradition as well as celebrate their festivals without any interference.

There are many glorious historical buildings, heritages, monuments and sceneries which attracts people’s mind from different countries every year. Taj Mahal is a great monument in India and symbol of eternal love and Kashmir as the heaven on the earth. It is a country of famous temples, mosques, churches, Gurudwaras, rivers, valleys, fertile plains, highest mountain, etc.

India Essay 6 (400 words)

India is my country and I proud to be an Indian. It ranks as the seventh largest country of the world as well as second most populated country of the world. It is also known as Bharat, Hindustan and Aryavart. It is a peninsula means surrounded by oceans from three sides such as Bay of Bengal in east, Arabian Sea in west and Indian Ocean in south. The national animal of India is tiger, national bird is peacock, national flower is lotus and national fruit is mango.

The flag of India has tricolor, saffron means purity (the uppermost), white means peace (the middle one having an Ashok Chakra) and green means fertility (the lowest one). Ashok Chakra contains equally divided 24 spokes. The national anthem of India is “Jana Gana Mana”, the national song is “Vande Mataram” and national sport is Hockey.

India is a country where people speak many languages and people of different castes, creeds, religions and cultures live together. That’s why India is famous for common saying of “unity in diversity”. It is well known as the land of spirituality, philosophy, science and technology. People of various religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism, Islam, Christianity and Judaism lives here together from the ancient time.

It is famous country for its agriculture and farming which are the backbones of it from the ancient time. It uses it own produced food grains and fruits. It is a famous tourist’s paradise because it attracts people’s mind from all over the world. It is rich in monuments, tombs, churches, historical buildings, temples, museums, scenic beauty, wild life sanctuaries, places of architecture, etc are the source of revenue to it.

It is the place where Taj Mahal, Fatehpur Sikri, golden temple, Qutab Minar, Red Fort, Ooty, Nilgiris, Kashmir, Kajuraho, Ajanta and Ellora caves, etc wonders exist. It is the country of great rivers, mountains, valleys, lakes and oceans. The national language of India is Hindi. It is a country where 29 states and UTs. It has 28 states which again have many small villages.

It is a chief agricultural country famous for producing sugarcane, cotton, jute, rice, wheat, cereals etc crops. It is a country where great leaders (Shivaji, Gandhiji, Nehru, Dr. Ambedkar, etc), great scientists (Dr. Jagadeeshchandra Bose, Dr Homi Bhabha, Dr. C. V Raman, Dr. Naralikar, etc) and great reformers (Mother Teresa, Pandurangashastri Alhavale, T. N. Sheshan) took birth. It is a country where diversity exists with strong unity and peace.

More Essays Related to India:

Related Information:

India’s Independence Day

Speech on India

Slogans on India

Money essay, music essay, importance of education essay, education essay, newspaper essay, my hobby essay, leave a comment cancel reply.

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

IMAGES

Essay on India for Students from Class 6 to 12
Essay on Development of India after independence |Development of India After Independence
Essay on India in 650-700 words, Free PDF, For 5-12 Students
Importance of Independence Day in India Essay
Essay On Independence Day Of India
Write A Short Essay On Our Country India

VIDEO

Maruthi Suzuki Jimny a Crazy Budget offroader || Jimny finally comes to India after 50 years
essay on India after independence
Khatron Ke Khiladi 13 Top 2 Contestant Shiv Thakare arrives Back in India After 50 Days Shoot
India After 50 Years: Exploring the Country's Transformations and Developments
Unexpected Visit to India After 50 Days || Irbazaniac
പുരുഷ വിവാഹം മുതൽ കാണാതാകുന്ന നഗരങ്ങൾ വരെ 😨😨| INDIA IN 2050

COMMENTS

75 Years of Independence: The Changing Landscape of India
The Landscape of Education and Health. In 1947, India had a population of 340 million with a literacy rate of just 12%, today it has a population of nearly 1.4 billion and a literacy rate of 74.04%. The average life expectancy has also risen from 32 years to 70 years in 2022. Though India has shown remarkable progress In terms of literacy rate ...
India's achievements after 75 years of Independence
India's achievements after 75 years of Independence. India's achievements after 75 Years of India's Independence: India's achivement after August 15th, 1947, has become a prime illustration of a remarkable growth tale.The journey demonstrates India's development in areas such as agricultural production, nuclear and space technology, world-class educational institutions, Ayurveda ...
75 Years Of Independence Of India And The Future Of Our ...
India, home to many traditions and the largest and most vibrant democracy, has won the most medals in 121 years of Olympic participation. India will launch a one-year celebration of 75 years of ...
History of India (1947-present)
India is a nuclear-weapon state, having conducted its first nuclear test in 1974, followed by another five tests in 1998. From the 1950s to the 1980s, India followed socialist-inspired policies.The economy was influenced by extensive regulation, protectionism and public ownership, leading to pervasive corruption and slow economic growth. Since 1991, India has pursued more economic liberalisation.
What India's extraordinary growth and future can teach global leaders
With its GDP growth projected to again increase by 7.5% in the next few years, India continues to be one of the world's fastest-growing major economies. India's has been a dramatic rise, deserving of the global attention that it has commanded. The stage is set for India to realize its vision of becoming a $10-trillion economy in the next ...
75 Years After Independence, a Changing 'Idea of India'
August 15, 2022, 3:33 PM. The evening before he was sworn in as newly independent India's first prime minister 75 years ago on Aug. 15, Jawaharlal Nehru addressed the Indian nation. There was ...
India at 75 years: progress, challenges, and opportunities
On Aug 15, 2022, India will commemorate its 75th year of independence from British rule. In this week's issue, a Comment by Vikram Patel and commissioners of The Lancet's Citizens' Commission on Reimagining India's Health System reflects on the country's journey to achieving universal health coverage. The authors outline that although India has seen substantial improvements in many health ...
The History of Economic Development in India since Independence
The country's per capita income grew by an average of less than 1 percent a year between 1966 and 1980, a rate that was too low to make a dent in the country's massive poverty. Thirty-five years after independence, India's leadership had yet to achieve, to any significant degree, its pledge of lifting living standards.
India After Independence: Phases from 1947-1984, Problems, Examples
While India found itself independent from the British, it was still to find independence from social, economic and political problems that had started to become a rock in the way of its growth. The problems that India faced right after independence can be divided into three phases: Phase 1: 1947-1967. Phase 2: 1967-1977.
India at 75: Part III
Increasing Budget for R&D: India shall aspire to make the next 75 years an enviable era with a higher standard of living for every citizen. Achieving this goal is possible provided there is a shift in focus to science and technology. However, this is not possible given a meagre expenditure of 0.7% of India's GDP on research and development (R ...
The number theory: Imagining India, 10 years from now
India's working-age group population is projected to increase from 55.8% this year to 58.8% by 2031. This equals a growth of nearly 97 million people in the workforce, which means the country ...
75 years of India's independence: A short history of Indian economy
India gained independence from British rule on August 15, 1947. Having attained political freedom, India's founding fathers had a path before them full of challenges both on social and economic fronts. The political leadership started the journey with hopes of making the country self-reliant in economic and political terms.
10 Ways India Has Changed Over The Last Decade
Some of these changes affect not just the country's 1.3 billion people - but the rest of the world too. On the occasion of 10 years of Control Risks in India, we have selected what we consider ...
Essay on "India after Independence" Complete Essay ...
Essay on "India after Independence" Complete Essay for Class 10, Class 12 and Graduation and other classes. About. Vision; ... 50 years after Independence, it is the number of citizens who continue to be ground down by poverty. By Planning Commission's own reckoning, nearly 30 per cent of Indians live below poverty line. ...
Explained: 50 Years From Now, What Will Be Impact of ...
The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) states that wheat yield in low latitude areas of India could fall by as much as 50 percent, if temperatures continue to rise. Per capita ...
India Independence Day Essay in English: Azadi Ka Amrit ...
It is the day when India got its freedom from 200 years of British rule. It was a hard and long struggle in which many freedom fighters and great men sacrificed their lives for our beloved motherland. India celebrates its Independence Day on the 15th of August every year. However, this year, the auspicious day is being celebrated as '77 Azadi ...
India's Transformation Through to 2040 Overview of the Metrics of
US$115bn increase in FDI outflows - Increasing FDI outflows to US$115bn by 2040 would make India the 4th largest overseas foreign investor globally. 5.8% share of global trade - Growing its share of global trade from currently 2.3% to 5.8% by 2040 would make India the world's second largest trading nation, behind China. Insights.
Essay on India For Students and Children
500+ Words Essay on India. India is a great country where people speak different languages but the national language is Hindi. India is full of different castes, creeds, religion, and cultures but they live together. That's the reasons India is famous for the common saying of " unity in diversity ". India is the seventh-largest country in ...
India 100 Years Ago: A Photo Essay
Vidushi Trivedi 08 June 2020. In a country like India, which is home to one of the world's oldest civilizations, every corner and piece of land has its own history. Every monument and city has a tale to tell. This photo essay takes readers back in time 100 years.
2061: Eco-Tech Society and Controlled Living Free Essay Example
2061: Eco-Tech Society and Controlled Living. Categories: Future World. Download. Essay, Pages 2 (338 words) Views. 27968. Life in fifty years will be a lot different then it is now. In most people's eyes they see the world having flying cars and floating houses but I believe the world will be more eco-friendly and organic. Lives will be saved ...
Long and Short Essay on India in English for Children and Students
India Essay 1 (100 words) India is a famous country all over the world. Geographically, our country is located to the south of Asia continent. India is a high population country and well protected from all directions naturally. It is a famous country for its great cultural and traditional values all across the world.
essay on india after 50 years
India expected to become a developed nation instead of what it now is i.e. a developing one; it may become one of the superpowers in the world; more economic stability; more technologically advanced (health, transportation, warfare, etc) however, it needs to take care of the environment, so that after 50 years the country's climate is still ...