India has many national festivals that are celebrated to glorify the historical event that holds significance on that day.
Most important national festivals of India include the Independence Day, Republic day, Gandhi Jayanti and many more. Here, we discuss republic day in detail.
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Significance of Republic Day
Republic day is celebrated on the 26th of January every year. It is on this day that our country was declared a democratic country in the year 1950.
The proud nation of India got its own constitution on this day in the year 1950. Every country has its own framework of legal operation in terms of acts, enactments, rules and regulations. Our country was governed under the British rule and therefore by default their doctrines were enforced into being.
Later, when the country got independence from British rule, there came a necessary situation when the country had to be brought into the legal framework constituted according to the very essence of the Indian land.
So, there had to be creations, re-creations and modifications to existing doctrines to come up with an exclusive, tailor made framework for the Indian nation.
This task had to be undertaken by the leaders of our country, for the welfare of its citizens and most importantly to find a global stand with other similar nations.
So to keep moving forward, the next step right after independence was to create our own sovereign democratic republic. Thus the republic of India came into existence on the 26th of January, 1950.
Historical Basis
India was confined to British rule for almost 150 years. India was governed by their rules and regulations. Everything happened under the dictatorship of the British rule, right from imposing taxes to basic rights of citizens.
On the whole, every step and every movement of the countrymen came under their clutches and the country lost all its glory and sheen.
The vibrantly rich and culturally enriched nation saw no rights left on its own. The British took advantage of the mild nature of the country’s inhabitants and took monopoly over their industries, trade routes and business operations.
Small businessmen came under the clutches of British monopolization. They made India a supplier of raw materials to the British land in the far east.
They took the raw materials to their land in the east, prepared goods from them and then brought it back here to India again.
So, basically they snatched the raw materials at a lesser rate than the actual, exported to their country, sent back the finished goods to India and sold it in India at a much higher price than the actual rate.
In this way, the British exploited the Indian land for more than a century and brought every bit of trade practice and industrial establishment under their clutches.
The Indians soon realized their folly and understood that their disunity mainly caused the external trouble from the British. India was mainly a country of provincial states.
Each provincial state had its own king, official language, rules and regulations. So, it was more like the country was a jigsaw puzzle of provincial states, where in each state had its own set of nativity and no similarity with the neighboring province.
So, the kings were usually at war with each other and hardly had any understanding between them.
The British put into use this very fact of unlikely unity among the rulers and kings and made them fight all the more to gain severe advantage.
So, this led to the country breaking down further into bits and pieces and the British took total advantage of the situation.
These shortcomings were slowly realized by common men who later became great leaders of the nation.
Our nation was guided into freedom by these freedom fighters that helped bring in lots of people under them and encouraged people to participate in the freedom struggle movement.
Common men were made to realize that they need to be liberated from the slavery of the British rule and hence the freedom struggle movement gathered momentum under their guidance.
Slowly, it became a widespread movement and the country saw total participation in the struggle for freedom movement.
Many campaigns, movements and sacrifices on a large scale led to the attainment of freedom on the 15th of august, 1947.
Right after independence, a drafting commission was set up by the leaders of independent India, who chose to put in place a legal constitution that looked into the working aspects of the democratic republic of our country.
The Chairman of the drafting commission was unanimously chosen as Dr. B. R. Ambedkar. He and his team worked day and night, with all their likely efforts to draft the constitution of our country and presented it to the government in the November of 1947 itself.
It took almost a couple of years later, when the government officially presented the constitution of India and declared our nation a sovereign democratic republic on the 26th of January 1950.
Celebrations
Celebrations take place on a grand scale every year near the Red fort, in the capital city of Delhi.
The Indian Army, the naval forces and the air force display their prestigious holdings to the country in the honorable presence of the president of India.
The celebrations then move on to the processions carried out by all the different states of India.
Every state of India prepares its own exclusive troupe which includes display of its uniqueness and vibrancy and colors them with relevant cut-outs and gallery exhibits.
The public display of procession leads on to wonder about the rich cultural heritage that we are a part of.
Conclusion
Our country is the only one in the history of the world that has not gone ahead to conquer any other nation in the last 10,000 years.
We own a rich cultural and traditional past, together with uniqueness in our value systems, wisdom, knowledge and heritage.
National festivals are declared national holidays according to the gazette of Indian constitution and it is the duty of every citizen of this country to observe the days of national importance with great respect and dignity for our motherland.
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