IMAGES
The Nation

Photographs are double-edged swords. They can be kind to a country, or unkind. They can flatter people, or they can flatten them. Usually, though, they show us up for what we are. The 50 years since India became independent have been some of the most turbulent in modern world history and yet, among the most triumphant. We present some of the most moving and telling images of that time, images that go beyond mechanically recording events or profiling rulers or rabble-rousers. They are nostalgia unlimited. They define India. They define us.

Pic: Homai Vyarawala

BY the time India celebrated its inauguration as a republic in 1950, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was already a memory. Actually, it happened three years before, as Jawaharlal Nehru delivered the inaugural Independence Day address on an overcast day on August 15, 1947. The Father of the Nation stood by, his work done, his place assumed by the rulers of New India. Overnight, Gandhi was the past. Nehru was the future.

Photographs researched and compiled by Satish Sharma

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