The Meaning of India’s Independence

“India in the late twentieth century still seems so much itself, so rooted in its own civilization, it takes time to understand that its independence has meant more than the going away of the British; that the India to which Independence came was a land of far older defeat.” ~ V. S. Naipaul in his 1976 book, India: A Wounded Civilization

Naipaul has made a good point. We, the people of India, celebrate 15 August 1947 as the day when our country became independent of the British. But before the British, the traditional seat of power in India, Delhi, was in control of a succession of Islamic imperialist regimes: the Mamluk dynasty (1206–1290), the Khalji dynasty (1290–1320), the Tughlaq dynasty (1320–1414), the Sayyid dynasty (1414–1451), the Lodi dynasty (1451–1526), and the Timurid dynasty (1526–1707). These Islamic regimes were much more deadly, decadent, and destructive than the British.

15 August 1947 is the day when a significant part of the Indian subcontinent became liberated from not only the British imperialists but also the Islamic imperialists. The people of this country should start acknowledging the fact that national independence means freedom from all kinds of imperialism, including Islamic imperialism.