Mechanical elephants, homemade howitzers as India turns 75
A man flies a kite from the roof of his house during the celebrations to mark India's 75th Independence Day in New Delhi on 15 August 2022. Photo: AFP/ Sajjad Hussain
“Hundreds of years of colonialism has restricted our sentiments, distorted our thoughts. When we see even the smallest thing related to colonialism in us or around us, we have to be rid of it,” Modi said in a 90-minute speech from the ramparts of the fort in the Indian capital. With Britain in dire financial straits at the end of World War II – in which about 90,000 Indian soldiers died – the country was hurriedly split in two: Muslim-majority Pakistan and a mostly Hindu India.This precipitated one of the biggest-ever movements of humanity as millions of people, uprooted from areas their families had inhabited for generations, rushed to be on the right side of the new border.
At Partition, the disputed region of Kashmir was also split between India and Pakistan, with the Himalayan territory the spark for two of the nuclear-armed rivals’ three wars and numerous skirmishes since. But while the economy is one of the world’s largest – and fastest-growing – millions remain mired in poverty and Modi’s government is struggling to create jobs for its booming population.
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