Every year the whole nation of India fathoms the patriotic feeling with the tricolor of saffron, white and dark green on 15 August, which is celebrated as the Independence Day in India.
Here are some interesting facts about India’s Independence day:
• India had no national anthem when it became an independent country on 15th August, 1947. It was adopted as India’s national anthem later in the 1950s. The Bengali version of Jana Gana Mana was written by Rabindranath Tagore in 1911 which was first sung during the Calcutta session of the Indian National Congress.
• Although India became independent on July 18, 1947, Lord Mountbatten declared 15th August as the date of Independence because this date observed the second anniversary of the surrendering of Japan to the Allied Forces during World War II.
• The National Flag was first hoisted at the Parsee Bagan Square in Calcutta on August 7, 1906. The flag had three horizontal strips of red, yellow and green color. The red strip at the top consisted of 8 white lotuses imprinted on the flag in a line. On the yellow strip, Vande Mataram was written in Hindi. There was a white sun on the left and a white crescent and star on the right imprinted on the green strip.
• The first variant of the national flag was designed by Pingali Venkayya in 1921. It consisted of two colors-red and green which represented the two significant communities. But Gandhiji later recommended to add a white strip in the middle with a spinning wheel. The white color represented the remaining Indian communities and the spinning wheel signified the progress of the country.
• Our country got its name ‘India’ from the River Indus, a place which was a home to the country’s first inhabitants.
• No country had ever been invaded by India in the last thousand centuries of its history.
• India shares its Independence Day with five more countries on August 15, but with different years. The countries are Bahrain, North Korea, South Korea, Congo, and Liechtenstein.
• Even after India became independent in 1947, Goa still remained a Portuguese colony. Portugal made amendments in its constitution stating Goa as a Portuguese state. It was made a part of India in 1961 after Indian troops annexed the state to India.
• The Khadi Development and Village Industries Commission is the only licenced company engaged in the production and supply of Indian flag. The Karnataka Khadi Gramodyog Samyukta Sangha located in Dharwad is the only manufacturer of the flag made with cotton.
• Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first Prime Minister, featured on the famous Vogue magazine because of his unique dressing sense. His jacket became a popular fashion trend in the West and came to be known as the ‘Nehru jacket’.
• Mahatma Gandhi was absent from the celebrations of the country’s first Independence Day. He was there to be a part of a hunger strike that was conducted to impede the communal killings that were triggered due to partition.
• There was a controversy relating to the Indian national anthem, Jana Gana Mana that it was written by Rabindranath Tagore for the British emperor. He refused these claims on the basis that the song talked about the victory of Bhagya Vidhata of India and not of the British king.
• The price of 10 grams of gold was Rs 88.62 at the time of independence.