It was on August 15, 1947, when India achieved independence after years of struggle, breaking the shackles of the British rule. This year marks the 74th Independence Day of the country. Independence Day honours the sacrifices and dedication of the bravehearts who aimed for one goal -- to be free from slavery of the colonisers. The day is marked throughout India with flag-hoisting ceremonies, drills and singing of the national anthem. Even though the coronavirus pandemic has curtailed our elaborate plans this year, India is unstoppable. With patriotism on our sleeves, we take you to down the road to the utterances of some historic luminaries of the freedom struggle.
- Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge...At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.- Jawaharlal Nehru
- At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. - Jawaharlal Nehru
- You give me your blood and I will give you Independence - Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose
- Freedom is never dear at any price. It is breath of life. What would a man not pay for living? - Mahatma Gandhi Amritsar: A girl with her face and hands painted in tricolour poses for a photograph, on the eve of Independence Day, in Amritsar, Friday, Aug 14, 2020.
- Let new India arise out of peasants' cottage, grasping the plough, out of huts, cobbler and sweeper. - Swami Vivekananda
- One individual may die for an idea, but that idea will, after his death, incarnate itself in a thousand lives - Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose
- Forget not that the grossest crime is to compromise with injustice and wrong. Remember the eternal law: you must give if you want to get - Netaji Subhash Chandra Bose
- If yet your blood does not rage, then it is water that flows in your veins. For what is the flush of youth, if it is not of service to the motherland - Chandra Shekhar Azad New Delhi: NDMC workers decorate a board with flowers to wish people on 74th Independence Day, in New Delhi Friday, Aug. 14 2020.
- So long as you do not achieve social liberty, whatever freedom is provided by the law is of no avail to you - BR Ambedkar
- Freedom is not worth having if it does not connote freedom to err - Mahatma Gandhi
- We have believed, and we do believe now that freedom is indivisible, that peace is indivisible, that economic prosperity is indivisible. - Indira Gandhi
- It is easy to kill individuals but you cannot kill the ideas. Great empires crumbled while the ideas survived - Bhagat Singh
- Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country - Jawaharlal Nehru
- A country's greatness lies in its undying ideals of love and sacrifice that inspire the mothers of the race - Sarojini Naidu
- Don't see others doing better than you beat your own records everyday, because success is a fight between you and yourself -Chandra Shekhar Azad Amritsar: People light earthen lamps on the eve of Independence Day, in Amritsar, Friday, Aug 14, 2020.
