Now Reading: Why midnight of August 14-15 became India’s freedom moment
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Why midnight of August 14-15 became India’s freedom moment
India's independence was transferred at midnight on August 14-15, 1947, as a compromise after astrologers warned that August 15 was a day cursed by Saturn and Rahu. Swami Madmanand from Calcutta wrote…
The Story in Brief
India's independence was transferred at midnight on August 14-15, 1947, as a compromise after astrologers warned that August 15 was a day cursed by Saturn and Rahu. Swami Madmanand from Calcutta wrote to Viceroy Mountbatten predicting famine, floods and bloodshed if independence came on that day. Mountbatten had chosen August 15 to mark his own wartime triumph as Allied commander in Southeast Asia, and refused to change the date. So Jawaharlal Nehru agreed to the midnight hour, which satisfied both Indian beliefs (a new day starts at sunrise) and the Gregorian calendar (midnight begins a new day). Nehru delivered his 'Tryst with Destiny' speech extempore in the Constituent Assembly, just as the clock struck 12.
The Indian Opinion
The story of the midnight hour is often told as a romantic tryst, but the real driver was astrological fear and Mountbatten's vanity. India's first prime minister, a self-proclaimed rationalist, bent to the superstition of holy men. That irony is worth sitting with. The real test of independence, however, was not the hour of delivery but what followed: the blood-soaked Partition and the long task of nation-building. Does the midnight symbolism still matter, or has it become a convenient myth that spares us a harder reckoning with the actual cost of freedom?
Source: rediff.com
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above.
