Grand laser show at Gateway of India about the journey of India's 70 year of independence, August 15, 2017 in Mumbai.Hindustan Times/SIPA USA/Press Association. This August, India celebrates 70 years of the culmination of its freedom struggle which inspired the world. Powered by individuals from all walks of life and led by social activists who cut across religious and ethnic divides, the country’s freedom struggle was the greatest civil society movement of its time, and led by the world’s pre-eminent civil society activist, Mahatma Gandhi. The struggle’s purpose was not only to win independence but to create a just and equal society where the human rights of everyone including the historically disadvantaged would be respected.
Through their successful struggle, India’s freedom activists paved the way for replacing colonial structures with constitutional democracy in much of the post-colonial global south. They faced regular persecution for acts of peaceful protest. Their writings demanding civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights were often deemed to be ‘seditious’ and against ‘public order’.
Today, India might be an electoral democracy with human rights enshrined in its constitution. Following tradition, Prime Minister Modi paid a floral tribute at Mahatma Gandhi’s memorial and referenced the sacrifices of the men and women who fought for the country’s freedom in his independence day speech.
