Independence Day 2024: Know why Independence Day celebrated on 15th Of August

In 1929, when Jawaharlal Nehru as Congress President gave the call for ‘Poorna Swaraj’ or total independence from British colonial rule, January 26 was chosen as the Independence Day. In fact, Congress party continued to celebrate it 1930 onwards, till India attained independence and January 26, 1950, was chosen as the Republic Day – the day India formally became a sovereign country and was no longer a British Dominion.

Lord Mountbatten had been given a mandate by the British parliament to transfer the power by June 30, 1948. If he had waited till June 1948, in C Rajagopalachari’s memorable words, there would have been no power left to transfer. Mountbatten thus advanced the date to August 1947.

Based on Mountbatten’s inputs the Indian Independence Bill was introduced in the British House of Commons on July 4, 1947, and passed within a fortnight. It provided for the end of the British rule in India, on August 15, 1947, and the establishment of the Dominions of India and Pakistan, which were allowed to secede from the British Commonwealth.

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Mountbatten later claimed, as quoted in Freedom at Midnight, that “The date I chose came out of the blue. I chose it in reply to a question. I was determined to show I was master of the whole event. When they asked had we set a date, I knew it had to be soon. I hadn’t worked it out exactly then — I thought it had to be about August or September and I then went out to the 15th August. Why? Because it was the second anniversary of Japan’s surrender.”

On August 15, 1945, Japanese Emperor Hirohito gave a recorded radio address, which later came to be known as the Jewel Voice Broadcast. In the radio address, he announced the surrender of Japan to the Allies. Mountbatten remembered hearing the news of Japanese surrender that day sitting in Churchill’s room, and as the Supreme Allied Commander of South East Asia Command signed the formal Japanese surrender of Singapore on September 4, 1945.