On August 15, 2022, India celebrates its 75th Independence Day. The number 75 is significant, for it alone indicates how many years India has journeyed as an independent nation after driving out the British colonisers. The journey, of course, was not an easy one. When the Britishers came to India, it was a large undivided land filled with wealth and riches. When they left, the land was no longer undivided, as the colonisers had carved it up into India and Pakistan (Present-day Bangladesh was part of Pakistan then). The country was struggling with poverty, chaos and bewilderment, for it was almost 200 years ago since the country last breathed in the air of freedom.

But India decided to fight. First, it took baby steps with its newfound freedom. It stumbled while trying to overcome the obstacles in its way, but never gave up. Then gradually, it understood the ways of the world (quite literally), and one day, it was found to be taking rapid strides towards development in every sphere. India, today, is one of the most prominent and respected nations in the world. From the status of a colony to becoming a country that is playing an increasingly important role in world politics, India has come a long, long way. A journey which we can count by 75 years.

Let us take a look at the iconic and important moments that shaped the narrative and course of Independent India.

1947: Independence and Partition

India gained its Independence from the long British rule on August 15, 1947. Just before the clock struck 12, on August 14, the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru delivered the famous ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech to the Indian Constituent Assembly in the Parliament. On August 15, he raised the Indian national flag above the Lahori Gate of the Red Fort in Delhi. But the Independence of India came at a painful cost in the form of the Partition, and lakhs and lakhs of people were uprooted from their homes. Many died in the confusion and journey from one country to another, and those who lived narrated its horrors to the subsequent generation.

1948: Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated

Mahatama Gandhi, the great freedom fighter who is lovingly considered the Father of the Nation in India, was assassinated on January 30, 1948, by Nathuram Vinayak Godse in New Delhi. Godse was a member of the Hindu Mahasabha and a former member of RSS who was of the view that Gandhi was too accommodating to Muslims during the Partition of India.

1949: Constitution of India was adopted

The Constitution of India is the supreme law of India, a document that simply needs no introduction. The date November 26, 1949, holds a significant place in India’s history, as it was on that day that the Constituent Assembly of India adopted the Constitution of India.

1950: India became a Republic

In order of importance, 1950 is possibly the most important and epoch-making year in independent India’s history after 1947. For it was on January 26, 1950, that the Constitution of India became effective. It replaced the Government of India Act 1935 as the country’s fundamental governing document, and the Dominion of India became the Republic of India. Every year, January 26 is celebrated as Republic Day.

1951: First Five-year Plan was launched

Five-Year Plans (FYPs) are centralised and integrated national economic programs, and it was former Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru who presented the First Five-Year Plan to the Parliament of India. It was launched in 1951 and was based on the Harrod–Domar model with few modifications. Its main focus was to develop the primary sector of the country.

1952:First Lok Sabha election

In India, the Lok Sabha election was held for the first time between October 25, 1951, and February 21, 1952. It was a humungous affair, as 1,949 candidates competed for 489 seats in the Lok Sabha. More than 173 million people out of an overall population of about 360 million were eligible to vote, making it the largest election conducted at the time. The voter turnout was 45.7 per cent. Congress bagged a mammoth 364 seats out of the total 489 seats and 45 per cent of the total votes polled, and Jawaharlal Nehru became the first democratically elected Prime Minister of India.

1953: Air India was nationalised

In 1932, JRD Tata founded Air India as Tata Airlines and himself flew its first single-engine de Havilland Puss Moth, a British three-seater high-wing monoplane aeroplane. After World War II, regular commercial service was restored in India and Tata Airlines became a public limited company in 1946 under the name Air India. In 1953, the Government of India passed the Air Corporations Act and purchased a majority stake in the carrier from Tata Sons JRD Tata remained its Chairman till 1977. The company was renamed Air India International Limited and the domestic services were transferred to Indian Airlines.

1954: India, China signed the Panchsheel

Panchsheel, or the Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence, were first formally enunciated in the Agreement on Trade and Intercourse between the Tibet region of China and India or the Sino-Indian Agreement which was signed on April 29, 1954. It stated, in its preamble, that the two governments resolved to enter into the agreement based on the principles of, mutual respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty,  mutual non-aggression, mutual non-interference, equality and mutual benefit Peaceful co-existence.

1955: SBI was founded

The State Bank of India was formed from the imperial bank of India in 1955. The three Presidency banks in pre-Independent India, the Bank of Bengal, the Bank of Bombay and the Bank of Madras merged to form the Imperial Bank of India on January 27, 1921. On 1 July 1955, the Imperial Bank of India became the State Bank of India. It is the 43rd largest bank in the world and the largest bank in India.

1956: LIC was established

The Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), an Indian statutory insurance and investment corporation was established on September 1, 1956, when the Parliament of India passed the Life Insurance of India Act which nationalised the insurance industry in India. The LIC was created by merging over 245 insurance companies and provident societies.

1957: The decimalisation of the rupee

 India decimalised its rupee 10 years after Independence, in 1957. The Indian Coinage Act was amended in September 1955 for the adoption of a decimal system for coinage, and it came into force with effect on April 1, 1957. The rupee remained unchanged in value and nomenclature, but it was now divided into 100 ‘Paisa’ instead of 16 Annas or 64 Pice. For public recognition, the new decimal Paisa was termed ‘Naya Paisa’ until June 1, 1964, when the term ‘Naya’ was dropped.

1958: Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act was passed

The Armed Forces (Special Powers) Act, commonly known as AFSPA, was passed in 1958. It is an Act that grants special powers to the Indian Armed Forces to maintain public order in “disturbed areas”. According to the Disturbed Areas (Special Courts) Act, 1976, an area, once declared ‘disturbed’, has to maintain the status quo for at least six months.

1959: Dalai Lama was given political asylum by India

The 1959 Tibetan uprising began on March 10, 1959, in Lhasa, the capital of Tibet. Dalai Lama fearing for his life escaped from Tibet with his followers with the help of the CIA Special and crossed into India on March 30, 1959. He reached Tezpur in Assam on April 18, and later, he set up the Government of Tibet in Exile in Dharamshala, which is often referred to as “Little Lhasa”.

1960: Maharashtra was formed

On May 1, 1960, the state of Maharashtra was formed from the division of the erstwhile Bombay State. Since then, May 1 is celebrated every year as Maharashtra Day or Maharashtra Din in the state.

1961: Liberation of Goa

In 1961, India annexed Goa, Daman and Diu, which were then Portuguese Indian territories. From December 17 to December 19, 1961, the Indian Armed Forces carried out Operation Vijay and ended 451 years of rule by Portugal over its remaining exclaves in India, which is also known as the ‘Liberation of Goa’. After Portuguese rule ended, Goa was placed under military administration and on June 9, 1962, military rule was replaced by the civilian government.

1962: India-China War

The India-China War in 1962 began on October 20, and ended when China declared a ceasefire on November 20 and simultaneously announced its withdrawal to its claimed “Line of Actual Control”. The main cause of the war was a dispute over the sovereignty of the widely separated Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh border regions.

1963: India’s first-ever rocket launch

On November 21, 1963, the launch of the first sounding rocket from Thumba near Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, marked the beginning of the Indian Space Programme. Sounding rockets made it possible to probe the atmosphere in situ using rocket-borne instrumentation.

1964: Sirima-Shastri Pact was signed

The Sirima-Shastri Pact or Srimavo-Shastri Pact was an agreement that was signed between Sirimavo Bandaranaike, former Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, and Lal Bahadur Shastri, former Prime Minister of India, on October 30, 1964. It was officially called the Agreement on Persons of Indian Origin in Ceylon and was an important agreement in determining the status and future of people of Indian origin in Sri Lanka.

Also, on May 27, 1964, the first Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru, breathed his last.

1965: India-Pakistan War

The India-Pakistan War of 1965 or the Second Kashmir War took place between August and September of that year. On August 5, 1965, between 26,000 and 33,000 Pakistan soldiers crossed the Line of Control dressed as Kashmiri locals, aiming to precipitate an insurgency against Indian rule. On August 15, Indian forces crossed the cease-fire line. On September 20, the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution, demanding an unconditional ceasefire from both nations within 48 hours. While India immediately accepted the demand, Pakistan accepted it on September 23.

1966: The year of notable events

In 1966, three important events took place that shaped the subsequent course of India’s narrative:

On January 10, 1966, the Tashkent Declaration, a peace agreement between India and Pakistan, was signed. It resolved the India-Pakistan War of 1965. The Soviets, represented by Premier Aleksey Kosygin, moderated between former Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri and former Pakistan President Muhammad Ayub Khan.

On January 11, 1966, the second Prime Minister of India, Lal Bahadur Shastri breathed his last in Tashkent, Uzbekistan (then in the Soviet Union), one day after signing the peace treaty.

After Shastri’s death, Indira Gandhi became the Prime Minister of India on January 24, 1966.

1967: Nathu La, Cho La clashes took place

The Nathu La and Cho La clashes, also referred to as the Sino-Indian War of 1967, was a series of border clashes between India and China alongside the border of the erstwhile Kingdom of Sikkim, then an Indian protectorate. It started on September 11, 1967, when China’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA) attacked Indian posts at Nathu La, and ended on September 15, 1967. In October 1967, another military clash took place at Cho La and ended on the same day.

1968: 3-language formula was introduced

In 1968, the three-language formula, a language learning policy, was formulated by the Union Ministry of Education. It was adopted by the Indian Parliament and was incorporated into the National Education Policy in the same year. It provided for the study of “Hindi, English and modern Indian language (preferably one of the southern languages) in the Hindi speaking states and Hindi, English and the regional language in the non-Hindi speaking states”.

1969: ISRO was formed

The Indian Space Research Organisation, commonly known as the ISRO, was formed on August 15, 1969. ISRO is India’s primary agency performing tasks related to space-based applications, space exploration and the development of related technologies.

1970: The Patents Act was passed

The Patents Act was passed in the Indian Parliament in 1970, and to date, it is the legislation that governs patents in India. The Office of the Controller General of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks (CGPDTM) generally known as the Indian Patent Office, is an agency under the Department for Promotion of Industry and Internal Trade which administers the Indian law of Patents, Designs and Trade Marks.

1971: The India-Pakistan War

The 1971 India-Pakistan War is one of the most significant moments in the history of Independent India. It took place during the Bangladesh Liberation War, from December 3, 1971, to December 16, 1971. On December 3, the Pakistan Air Force carried out Operation Chengiz Khan, the code name assigned to their preemptive strikes on the forward airbases and radar installations of the Indian Air Force. It prompted India to enter into the Bangladesh Liberation War, which was a revolution and armed conflict sparked by the rise of the Bengali nationalist and self-determination movement in erstwhile East Pakistan. India crushed Pakistan in war and forced the Pakistan military to sign the Instrument of Surrender on December 16, 1971, in Dhaka. Pakistan’s defeat resulted in the formation of a new country, Bangladesh, which was earlier known as East Pakistan.

1972: The Simla Agreement was signed

On July 2, 1972, the Simla Agreement was signed by Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and Pakistan President Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Under the Simla Agreement, both India and Pakistan undertook to abjure conflict and confrontation which had marred relations in the past, and to work towards the establishment of durable peace, friendship and cooperation. It had a set of guiding principles, mutually agreed to by India and Pakistan, which both sides would adhere to while managing relations with each other. The Simla Agreement focused on respect for each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty, non-interference in each other’s internal affairs, respect for each other’s unity, political independence, sovereign equality, and abjuring hostile propaganda. It also agreed on the fact that every issue would be resolved peacefully through direct bilateral approaches, building the foundations of a cooperative relationship, and the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir would not be violated.

1973: Mysore State renamed Karnataka

Mysore State was a state in Independent India. It was formed in 1947 out of the territories of the Kingdom of Mysore and it existed in that form till 1956, and its capital was Bangalore (currently Bengaluru). In 1956, it was considerably enlarged, when it became a linguistically homogeneous Kannada-speaking state in India. On November 1, 1973, it was renamed Karnataka.

1974: Operation Smiling Buddha took place

Officially known as Pokhran-I, Operation Smiling Buddha was the assigned code name of India’s first successful nuclear bomb test which took place on May 18, 1974. The bomb was detonated in Pokhran Test Range (PTR) in Rajasthan, by the Indian Army under the supervision of several key Indian generals. It was the first confirmed nuclear weapons test by a nation outside the five permanent members of the UNSC. In 1975, Homi Sethna, a chemical engineer and the chairman of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission (AECI), Raja Ramanna of BARC, and Basanti Nagchaudhuri of DRDO, were honoured with the Padma Vibhushan, and five other project members received the Padma Shri.

1975: The Emergency was imposed

To date, the Emergency remains one of the darkest periods of India’s history post-1947. It was officially issued by President Fakhruddin Ali Ahmed upon the advice of the then Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi. It was in effect from June 25, 1975, until its withdrawal on March 21, 1977. Elections were cancelled, civil liberties were suspended, most of Indira Gandhi’s political opponents were imprisoned and the press was censored. Numerous human rights were violated during that period. Sanjay Gandhi, the son of Indira Gandhi, spearheaded a brutal, ruthless mass campaign for vasectomy. As per reports, in 1976-1977, the program led to 8.3 million sterilizations, most of them forced. Many innocent people were imprisoned and tortured as all kinds of fundamental rights were thrown out of the window. To date, the controversies regarding the Emergency and its nightmarish brutality have stayed alive in the mainstream narrative, and in the subsequent years, it has been heavily criticised for all the right reasons.

1976: Sanjay Gandhi’s infamous sterilisation programme

During the period of Emergency in India when fundamental rights did not exist in the country, Sanjay Gandhi, the son of the then Prime Minister of India, allegedly did something heinous. In September 1976, he initiated a widespread compulsory sterilisation programme to limit the growth of the population in India. Experts have debated the exact extent of Gandhi’s role in the implementation of the programme. According to some experts, Gandhi was directly responsible for his authoritarianism, while other experts blame the officials who implemented the programme rather than Gandhi himself. Rukhsana Sultana, one of Gandhi’s close associates, received tremendous criticism for the sterilisation campaign in certain areas of old Delhi. The campaign primarily involved getting males to undergo vasectomy, and allegedly, unwilling candidates were also sterilised. In 1976-1977, the programme led to 8.3 million sterilisations, most of them forced. Later, some spine-chilling incidents were reported that showed the true brutality of the programme.

1977: Lok Sabha election and first

non-Congress government

On January 18, 1977, amid the Emergency, Indira Gandhi called for fresh elections and released some political prisoners. On January 20, four Opposition parties, the Indian National Congress (Organisation), the Bharatiya Jana Sangh, the Bharatiya Lok Dal and the Praja Socialist Party, decided to fight the elections under a single banner called the Janata Alliance. A defeat looked imminent for the Congress and Indira Gandhi, who came under heavy criticism because of the Emergency. The Lok Sabha elections were held between March 16 and March 20, 1977. The Emergency expired on March 21, shortly before the final results were announced. The Janata Alliance crushed Congress, and incumbent Prime Minister Indira Gandhi lost her seat in Rae Bareli. On March 24, Morarji Desai was sworn in as the fourth Prime Minister of India, and the first non-Congress government in independent India was formed. At the age of 81, Desai became the oldest man to be elected PM of India.

1978: Indira Gandhi came back to Parliament and was arrested

In the 1977 Lok Sabha elections, Indira Gandhi lost her seat in Rae Bareli and Congress appointed Yashwantrao Chavan as its Parliamentary party leader. Soon afterwards, the Congress party split again with Gandhi floating her own Congress faction. She won a by-election in the erstwhile Chikkamagaluru Lok Sabha Constituency and took a seat in the Lok Sabha in November 1978. However, the Janata Government’s Home Minister, Choudhary Charan Singh, ordered her arrest along with Sanjay Gandhi. They were arrested on several charges, which would be difficult to prove in court. The arrest automatically expelled Gandhi from Parliament. However, this strategy backfired disastrously, and her arrest and long-running trial helped her to gain sympathy from many people.

1979: The Mandal Commission was established

In 1979, the Janata Party Government led by Prime Minister Morarji Desai established the Mandal Commission. It was established to “identify the socially or educationally backward classes” of India. It was headed by BP Mandal, a parliamentarian, to consider the question of reservations for people to redress caste discrimination and used eleven social, economic, and educational indicators to determine backwardness. The recommendations of the Mandal Commission in its report and its subsequent implementation created widespread controversy in India.

1980: A significant year for Indian politics

The year 1980 is significant in the history of Indian politics.

On April 6, 1980, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) was formed. It is currently the ruling party in the central government led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. As of July 2022, it is the country’s largest political party in terms of representation in Parliament and state legislatures. The BJP is a right-wing party and has close ideological and organisational links to the much older Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Since January 20, 2022, JP has been serving as the president of the BJP.

The 1980 Lok Sabha election witnessed the strong comeback of Indira Gandhi and her Congress (I) to power. It was held due to the fall of the Janata government, which was formed after the 1977 general elections. Morarji Desai lost a vote of confidence in the Parliament and had to resign from the post of Prime Minister. Charan Singh became the PM in June 1979. Even though Congress promised to support him, it backed out just two days before the government was scheduled to prove its majority in Lok Sabha. Charan Singh was forced to resign and called for elections in January 1980. Indira Gandhi once again became the PM with a thumping victory, with Congress winning 353 seats. Janata Party won just 31 seats, and Charan Singh’s Janata Party (Secular) bagged 41 seats.

On June 23, 1980, Sanjay Gandhi, who was widely expected to succeed her mother as the leader of Congress, died in a plane crash near Safdarjung Airport in New Delhi. He was flying a new aircraft of the Delhi Flying Club, and, while performing an aerobatic manoeuvre over his office, lost control and crashed. He died instantly, it reportedly took eight surgeons four hours to stitch up his mutilated body.

1981: Infosys was founded

On July 2, 1981, Infosys, an Indian multinational information technology company that provides business consulting, information technology and outsourcing services was founded. It is one of the largest Indian IT companies in India, and according to Forbes Global 2000 ranking, it was the 602nd largest public company in the world back then. It was founded by seven engineers, NR Narayana Murthy, Nandan Nilekani, S Gopalakrishnan, SD Shibulal, K Dinesh, NS Raghavan and Ashok Arora in 1981 in Pune. On July 2, 1981, it was registered as Infosys Consultants Private Limited, its office was relocated to Bengaluru in 1983. Later, it was renamed Infosys Limited in June 2011. On August 24, 2021, it became the fourth Indian company to cross $100 billion in market capitalization.

1982: Color television began its

journey in India

On August 15, 1982, Doordarshan introduced a national telecast service (DD National) from its own TV studio in Mandi House, New Delhi. In India, colour television began its journey with the live telecast of the Independence Day speech by former PM Indira Gandhi on August 15 that year, followed by the colour telecast of the 1982 Asian Games in Delhi.

1983: India won the cricket World Cup for the first time

Nobody gave India any real chance of winning the 1983 Cricket World Cup (then known as Prudential Cup) and expected them to be a pushover. But India, led by Kapil Dev and having players like Mohinder Amarnath, Kirti Azad, Roger Binny, Balwinder Sandhu, Krishnamachari Srikkanth and Yashpal Sharma among others, defied all odds to win the World Cup for the first time. In the final of the tournament, India defeated West Indies by 43 runs and scripted one of the most stunning upsets in cricket history. It would change the history of cricket forever and would result in India becoming a powerhouse in the sport.

1984: Indira Gandhi assassination and Bhopal gas tragedy

On October 31, 1984, former Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was assassinated at her residence in Safdarjung Road, New Delhi by her Sikh bodyguards, Satwant Singh and Beant Singh. It took place after Operation Blue Star, an Indian military action which was carried out between June 1 and 8, 1984, on the orders of Gandhi to remove Jarnail Singh Bhindranwale and his followers from the Golden Temple in Amritsar. The assailants had fired 33 bullets at her, of which 30 had hit; 23 had passed through her body, while seven remained inside.

In the same year, arguably the worst industrial disaster in the world took place in India. The Bhopal disaster, also known as the Bhopal gas tragedy, was a chemical accident that occurred on the night of December 2-3, 1984, at the Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) pesticide plant in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh. The official immediate death toll was 2,259. In 2006, a government affidavit stated that the leak caused 558,125 injuries, including 38,478 temporary partial injuries and approximately 3,900 severely and permanently disabling injuries.

1985: TADA came into effect

In 1985, the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act, commonly known as TADA, came into effect. On May 23, 1985, the President of India gave assent to Act, and on May 24, 1985, it came into effect. TADA was an anti-terrorism law in India which was in force between 1985 and 1995 (modified in 1987). The Act was implemented to thwart the Khalistani Movement, an armed Sikh separatist movement in Punjab, and the Act later expanded to encompass other states as well. It was allowed to lapse in 1995 due to increasing unpopularity after widespread allegations of abuse. TADA was the first anti-terrorism law legislated by the government to define and counter the activities of terrorists.

1986: First Operation Black Thunder

Operation Black Thunder was the name given to two operations that took place in India in the late 1980s to flush out remaining pro-Khalistan Sikh militants from the Golden Temple. On April 30, 1986, the first Operation Black Thunder took place, and it was commanded by Julio Ribeiro, who was the DGP of Punjab. For three months before the operation took place, about 200 radical Sikh militants had been occupying the temple premises. About 300 National Security Guards commandos stormed the Golden Temple along with 700 Border Security Force troops and captured about 200 Sikh militants. The operation lasted for eight hours and was approved by former Punjab CM Surjit Singh Barnala.

1987: Goa became a state of India

On December 19, 1961, the Indian Army conducted Operation Vijay and annexed Goa, and Daman and Diu islands, ending the Portuguese rule there. Goa, along with Daman and Diu, was organised as a Union Territory of India. On January 16, 1967, a referendum was held in Goa, to decide the future of the Union Territory of Goa, Daman and Diu. On May 30, 1987, the union territory was split, and Goa became the 25th state of India, and Daman and Diu remained a Union Territory.

1988: The SEBI was established

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is the regulatory body for the securities and commodity market in India. It is owned by the Union Ministry of Finance and was established on April 12, 1988. Later, it was given Statutory Powers on January 30, 1992, through the SEBI Act, 1992.

1989: Agni was successfully launched

The Agni missile is a family of medium to intercontinental range ballistic missiles developed by India. Agni missiles are long-range, nuclear weapons capable, surface-to-surface ballistic missiles. The first missile of the series, Agni-I was tested at the Interim Test Range in Chandipur in 1989. It was India’s first intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM), and at that time, elevated India into a prestigious league of only five nations in the world with IRBM strategic capability.

1990: Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus

The Exodus of Kashmiri Hindus or the Exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990 is one of the most significant events in independent India. The migration or flight took place in early 1990 from the Kashmir valley following an extreme rise in violence and insurgency by extremist groups. A series of gruesome high-profile murders and threats by the terrorists pushed the Kashmiri Pandits into a corner, and lawlessness and chaos took over the Valley. Numerous violent incidents forced thousands of Pandits to flee the Valley for safety. According to Kashmiri Pandit Sangharsh Samiti (KPSS), the local organisation of Hindus in Kashmir, 357 Hindus were killed in Kashmir in 1990.

1991: Assassination of Rajiv Gandhi

On May 21, 1991, a suicide bombing in Sriperumbudur in Tamil Nadu killed former Prime Minister of India Rajiv Gandhi. Apart from Gandhi, at least 14 others were killed in the blast and 43 people were grievously injured. The name of the suicide bomber was Thenmozhi Rajaratnam, also known as Dhanu. She was a member of the Sri Lankan Tamil separatist organisation Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The incident sent shockwaves across India and was mourned by prominent personalities all over the world.

1992: Demolition of the Babri Masjid

The demolition of the Babri Masjid is one of the most controversial incidents in the history of independent India. Situated in Uttar Pradesh’s Ayodhya, the Babri Masjid was the subject of a lengthy socio-political dispute and was targeted after a political rally organised by Hindu nationalist organisations turned violent. On December 6, 1992, the Vishva Hindu Parishad and the BJP organised a rally at the site involving 1,50,000 volunteers, known as ‘kar sevaks’. The rally turned violent, and the infuriated crowd overpowered the security forces and razed the mosque to the ground. This demolition led to communal riots in India, causing the death of at least 2,000 people.

1993: Bombay blasts

On March 12, 1993, Bombay (currently Mumbai), the capital of Maharashtra, was rocked by a series of 12 deadly bombings. The single-day attacks killed 257 people and injured 1,400. The attacks were coordinated by Dawood Ibrahim, the leader of the international organised crime syndicate D-Company. He ordered and organised the bombings through his subordinates, Tiger Memon and Yakub Memon. On March 21, 2013, the Supreme Court of India upheld the death sentence against suspected ringleader Yakub and reduced the previous death sentences against 10 others to life in prison. However, two of the main suspects in the case, Ibrahim and Tiger, are yet to be arrested or tried.

1994: Prithvi missile inducted into the Indian Army

Prithvi is a tactical surface-to-surface short-range ballistic missile (SRBM) developed by the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) of India. Prithvi I class was a single-stage liquid-fueled surface-to-surface ballistic missile having a maximum warhead mounting capability of 1,000 kg, with a range of 150 km (93 mi). This class of Prithvi missiles was inducted into the Indian Army in 1994.

1995: Delhi Metro Rail Corporation

Limited was founded

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Limited (DMRC) is a centre-state joint venture that operates the Delhi Metro, and it was founded on May 3, 1995. The DMRC also plans and implements metro rail, monorail, and high-speed rail projects in India and abroad. Elattuvalapil Sreedharan, also known as the ‘Metro Man’, was the first managing director of DMRC.

1996: Atal Bihari Vajpayee became

PM for the first time

Ahead of the 1996 Lok Sabha elections, the then BJP president LK Advani declared that Atal Bihari Vajpayee would be the party’s prime ministerial candidate. After the election results were declared, the BJP, with 161 seats, became the single largest party in Parliament. President of India Shankar Dayal Sharma invited Vajpayee to form the government, and he was sworn in as the 10th prime minister of India. But the BJP failed to muster a majority among members of the Lok Sabha, and Vajpayee resigned after a few days when it became clear that he did not have enough support to form a government. His first tenure as the Prime Minister of India lasted from May 16, 1996, to June 1, 1996.

1997: The year of RJD, KR Narayanan

and a sorrowful incident

On July 5, 1997, the political spectrum of Bihar changed forever. It was on that day that Lalu Prasad Yadav founded the Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD), a socialist political party. The RJD was formed as a breakaway of the Janata Dal, and Lalu Prasad was elected as the first president of the party.

On July 17, 1997, KR Narayanan was elected to become the President of India with 95 per cent of the votes in the electoral college. It is the only presidential election to have been held with a minority government holding power at the Centre. He was sworn in on July 25 and became the first person from the Dalit community to hold the post.

On September 5, 1997, Mother Teresa, also known as Saint Teresa of Calcutta, passed away in Calcutta (present-day Kolkata) in West Bengal. She was an Albanian-Indian Roman Catholic nun who in 1950 founded the Missionaries of Charity. In 1979, she received the Nobel Peace Prize for the works she undertook in the struggle to overcome poverty and distress in our society.

1998: India conducted Pokhran-II tests

In May 1998, India conducted a series of five nuclear bomb test explosions at the Army’s Pokhran Test Range, and it is known as the Pokhran-II tests. It was the second instance of nuclear testing conducted by India, after the Smiling Buddha in May 1974. The tests achieved their main objective of giving India the capability to build fission and thermonuclear weapons with yields up to 200 kilotons.

1999: Atal Bihari Vajpayee became PM for the third time, Kargil War and Air India flight hijacked

In the 1999 Lok Sabha elections, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 303 seats out of the 543 seats in the Lok Sabha, securing a comfortable and stable majority. On October 13, 1999, Vajpayee took oath as the Prime Minister of India for the third time. By the time he left the office in 2004, he had become the first non-Congress Prime Minister to serve a full five-year term.

The Kargil War, a significant moment in the history of bilateral relations between India and Pakistan, was an armed conflict between the two countries that took place from May to July 1999 in the Kargil district of Jammu and Kashmir and elsewhere along the Line of Control (LoC). It was caused by the infiltration of Pakistan troops, disguised as Kashmiri militants, into positions on the Indian side of the LoC. The Indian Armed Forces recaptured a majority of the positions on the Indian side of the LoC, and Pakistan, under international political pressure, withdrew its forces from the remaining Indian positions along the LoC.

On December 24, 1999, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen terrorists hijacked Indian Airlines Flight 814 (IC 814). The abducted hostages were released only after the Indian government agreed to the demand of the terrorist group to release jailed terrorists. The flight was travelling from Nepal to Delhi on that day. There were 176 passengers and 15 crew members on the flight.

2000: Jharkhand became India’s 26th state and Bill Clinton visited India

Jharkhand is a state in eastern India that shares its border with West Bengal to the east, Chhattisgarh to the west, Uttar Pradesh to the northwest, Bihar to the north and Odisha to the south. The state was formed on November 15, 2000, after carving out what was previously the southern half of Bihar.

On March 20, 2000, US President Bill Clinton arrived in New Delhi to a warm welcome amidst unprecedented security. It was the first India visit by a US President in 22 years. The visit was immensely important as it rekindled India-US relations, after the slide in the wake of the Pokhran II nuclear tests in May 1998. While the US described the trip as the turning of a new leaf in India-US relations, India described it as the harbinger of “a qualitatively new” relationship.

2001: Gujarat, Narendra Modi and Parliament attack

On January 26, 2001, on India’s 52nd Republic Day, tragedy struck Gujarat. An earthquake, known as the Gujarat earthquake or the Bhuj earthquake, shattered the state and destroyed the lives of thousands of people. The epicentre of the earthquake was about 9 km south-southwest of the Chobari village in the Kutch District of Gujarat. The massive earthquake resulted in the death of 13,805 to 20,023 people (including 18 in southeastern Pakistan), injured another 1,67,000 and destroyed nearly 3,40,000 buildings.

It was in 2001 that Narendra Modi truly announced himself in the national political arena for the first time. On October 3, 2001, he replaced a weary Keshubhai Patel as the Chief Minister of Gujarat and was entrusted with the responsibility of preparing the BJP for the 2002 state Assembly elections. He was sworn in as the CM on October 7, 2001.

On December 13, 2001, terrorists belonging to Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) attacked the Parliament of India in New Delhi. The attack led to the deaths of six Delhi Police personnel, two Parliament Security Service personnel, and a gardener, and increased the tensions between India and Pakistan, resulting in the 2001-2002 India-Pakistan standoff. The five terrorists who perpetrated the attack were killed outside the Parliament.

2002: Prevention of Terrorism Act,

Gujarat riots

The Prevention of Terrorism Act, 2002 (POTA) was an Act passed by the Parliament of India in 2002, to strengthen the anti-terrorism operations of India’s security forces. It replaced the Prevention of Terrorism Ordinance (POTO) of 2001 and the Terrorist and Disruptive Activities (Prevention) Act (TADA). In 2004, the Act was repealed by the United Progressive Alliance coalition in the Centre.

The 2002 Gujarat riots, also known as the 2002 Gujarat violence was three-day communal violence in Gujarat. Reportedly, the riot was a result of the burning of a train in Godhra on February 27, 2002, which caused the deaths of 58 Hindu pilgrims and ‘kar sevaks’ returning from Ayodhya. According to official figures, 1,044 people died and 2,500 were injured in the riots.

2003: Mumbai bombings

On August 25, 2003, two car bombings took place in Mumbai, that killed 54, and injured 244 people. One of the explosions took place at the Gateway of India and another one took place in a jewellery market Zaveri Bazaar near the Mumba Devi Temple in central Mumbai. Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba was blamed for the attack.

2004: Congress came back to power

The 2004 Lok Sabha elections in India were held between April 20 and May 10, 2004, and they were the first elections in India fully carried out with electronic voting machines. The Congress came back to power after eight years, and it led the United Progressive Alliance in forming the government. Congress leader and former Finance Minister Manmohan Singh became the 13th Prime Minister of India.

2005: Delhi bombings, and a

landmark judgement

On October 29, 2005, three terrorist-orchestrated explosions took place in Delhi, killing 62 people and injuring at least 210 others. The bombings happened two days before Diwali and were triggered in two markets in central and south Delhi and in a bus in the south of the city. The terrorist outfit Lashkar-e-Taiba was blamed for the attack.

On April 25, 2005, the National Consumer Disputes Redressal Commission, in a landmark judgement, ruled that hospitals are duty bound to accept accident victims, patients in critical condition and that doctors cannot demand fees before agreeing to treat the patient and that a relative’s consent is not necessary if there is no family member present at the time.

2006: Former US President

George W Bush visited India

In March 2006, former US President George W Bush visited India, and the trip left behind a significant legacy in the narrative of the India-US relationship. Bush reversed decades of US policy during the trip as he focused particularly on areas of nuclear energy, counter-terrorism cooperation, and discussions that would eventually lead to the India-United States Civil Nuclear Agreement. It was in stark contrast to the stance taken by his predecessor Bill Clinton, whose approach to India after the 1998 nuclear tests have been characterised as “sanctions and hectoring”.

2007: Female President and World Cup win

In 2007, India got its first-ever female President in the form of Pratibha Patil. An Indian politician and lawyer, Patil served as the 12th President of India from July 2007 to July 2012.

Against all odds, India won the 2007 ICC World Twenty20, the inaugural T20I world championship which was contested in South Africa from September 11 to 24, 2007. The Men in Blue defeated arch-rivals Pakistan by five runs in the final to clinch the trophy.

2008: Chandrayaan-1 launch and the heinous 26/11 attacks

Chandrayaan-1 was the first Indian lunar probe under the Chandrayaan program which was launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on October 22, 2008. The mission was a major boost to India’s space program, as our country researched and developed its own technology to explore the Moon.

The 2008 Mumbai attacks, also known as 26/11, are possibly the most significant and deadly terrorist attacks carried out on Indian soil. A series of terrorist attacks took place in November 2008, when 10 members of the terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba carried out 12 coordinated shooting and bombing attacks for four days across Mumbai. The attacks, which drew widespread global condemnation, began on November 26 (Wednesday) and lasted until November 29 (Saturday), 2008. A total of 175 people died, including nine attackers, and more than 300 were wounded.

2009: The NIA was formed

The National Investigation Agency (NIA), the primary counter-terrorist task force in India, was formed in 2009. It came into existence with the enactment of the National Investigation Agency Act, 2008 by the Indian Parliament on December 31, 2008. The founding Director-General of NIA was Radha Vinod Raju.

Other events in 2009

The Satyam Computer Services scandal is one of India’s largest corporate frauds that erupted in 2009. It all began on January 7, 2009, when the chairman of Satyam, Byrraju Ramalinga Raju, resigned and confessed in a letter to the SEBI that he had manipulated the accounts of Rs 7,000 crore in several forms.

After the 2009 Lok Sabha elections, the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) led by Congress formed the government after winning a majority of seats, and Manmohan Singh became the first Prime Minister of India since Jawaharlal Nehru in 1962 to be re-elected after completing a full five-year term.

On July 26, 2009, India launched its first nuclear submarine, the INS Arihant.

2010: Education became a fundamental right of children

The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act or Right to Education Act (RTE) is an Act of the Indian Parliament that was enacted on August 4, 2009. It describes the modalities of the importance of free and compulsory education for children between the age of 6 to 14 years in India under Article 21A of the Indian Constitution. When the Act came into force on April 1, 2010, India became one of the countries in the world to make education a fundamental right.

The 2011 Census of India or the 15th Indian Census was conducted in two phases, house listing and population enumeration. The house listing phase began on April 1, 2010, and involved the collection of information about all buildings.

The 2010 Commonwealth Games were held in Delhi from October 3 to 14, 2010. A total of 4,352 athletes from 71 Commonwealth nations and dependencies competed in 21 sports and 272 events, making it the largest Commonwealth Games to date. It was also the largest international multi-sport event to be staged in India, eclipsing the Asian Games in 1951 and 1982. It was the first time that the Commonwealth Games were held in India and the second time they were held in Asia after Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in 1998.

2011: India won the World Cup

India won the ICC ODI World Cup for the second time in 2011. On April 2, India won the tournament by defeating Sri Lanka by 6 wickets in the final at Wankhede Stadium in Mumbai. Thus, India became the first country to win the ODI World Cup final on home soil. Mahendra Singh Dhoni was the Man of the Match in the final and Yuvraj Singh was declared the Man of the Tournament.

On April 5, 2011, social activist Anna Hazare started a hunger strike to pressurise the Indian government in enacting a stringent anti-corruption law, The Lokpal Bill, 2011 as envisaged in the Jan Lokpal Bill. His hunger strike garnered tremendous support from all over the country. It ended on April 9, a day after the government accepted Hazare’s demands. The government issued a gazette notification on the formation of a joint committee, consisting of government and civil society representatives, to draft the legislation.

In the 2011 West Bengal Assembly elections, Mamata Banerjee and her party All India Trinamool Congress ended the 34-year-old Left Front regime in the state. She was sworn in as the Chief Minister of West Bengal on May 20, 2011. Thus, she became the first female Chief Minister of the state.

2012: Delhi gangrape and murder

On December 16, 2012, in Delhi, a 22-year-old woman was beaten, gang-raped, and tortured in a private bus in which she was travelling with her friend. Apart from the woman and her friend, there were six other people on the bus, including the driver. The six people raped the woman and beat her friend. Eleven days after the assault, she was transferred to a hospital in Singapore for emergency treatment but died two days later. The incident garnered tremendous coverage and criticism both in India and foreign countries, the victim came to be known as ‘Nirbhaya’ (fearless). Out of the six perpetrators, one died during the trial period, and four others were executed by hanging on March 20, 2020. Among the six people was a juvenile, who was convicted of rape and murder and given the maximum sentence of three years of imprisonment in a reform facility.

The fourth annual BRICS summit was held at Taj Hotel in New Delhi on March 29, 2012. It was the first time that India had hosted a BRICS summit, and the other member states, Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa took part in it.

After leading a very successful and distinguished political career, Pranab Mukherjee became the President of India on July 25, 2012, becoming the first Bengali to serve in that post.

Ajmal Kasab was a Pakistan terrorist and a member of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist organization, was one of those who executed the 2008 terrorist attacks in Mumbai. He was the only attacker captured alive by police. He was sentenced to death and was hanged on November 21, 2012.

2013: Criminal Law (Amendment) Act was passed

The Criminal Law (Amendment) Act, 2013 (also known as the Nirbhaya Act) is legislation that was passed by the Lok Sabha on March 19, 2013, and by the Rajya Sabha on March 21, 2013. It provides for amendment of the Indian Penal Code, Indian Evidence Act, and Code of Criminal Procedure, 1973 on laws related to sexual offences. On April 2, it received Presidential assent and was deemed to be effective from April 3.

The National Food Security Act (NFSA) 2013 is an Act that aims to provide subsidised food grains to approximately two-thirds of the country’s entire population. It converts into legal entitlements for existing food security programmes of the Government of India, including the Midday Meal Scheme, Integrated Child Development Services scheme and the Public Distribution System. Further, the NFSA 2013 recognises maternity entitlements.

The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM), also called Mangalyaan, is a space probe orbiting Mars since September 24, 2014. It was launched by ISRO on November 5, 2013, and it is India’s first interplanetary mission. It made ISRO the fourth space agency to achieve Mars orbit, made India the first Asian nation to reach Martian orbit and the first nation in the world to do so on its maiden attempt.

On October 10, 2013, Sachin Tendulkar announced that he would retire from all cricket after the two-Test series against West Indies in November that year.

The Sexual Harassment of Women at Workplace (Prevention, Prohibition and Redressal) Act, 2013 is an Act that seeks to protect women from sexual harassment at their workplace. It aims to provide protection against sexual harassment of women in the workplace and for the prevention and redressal of complaints of sexual harassment and for matters connected therewith or incidental thereto. The Bill, after being passed by the two Houses of Parliament and getting the Presidential assent, came into force as an Act on December 9, 2013.

2014: Narendra Modi became the

PM of India for the first time

In September 2013, Narendra Modi was named the BJP’s prime ministerial candidate ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha election, despite opposition from several BJP leaders, including LK Advani. But Modi led BJP superbly during the election campaign, and the saffron party rode on his charisma to win 282 seats in the election, while its National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won a total of 336 seats. BJP became the first party to win a majority of seats on its own in the general elections since 1984. Modi was sworn in as the Prime Minister of India on May 26, 2014, and he is the first Indian PM to be born after India’s Independence in 1947.

The Lokpal and Lokayuktas Act, 2013, commonly known as The Lokpal Act, is an anti-corruption Act in India that “seeks to provide for the establishment of the institution of Lokpal to inquire into allegations of corruption against certain important public functionaries, including the Prime Minister, cabinet ministers, members of parliament, Group A officials of the Central Government and for matters connecting them”. It came into force on January 16, 2014.

On June 2, 2014, Telangana was formed by carving out a portion of Andhra Pradesh and became the 29th state of India with Hyderabad.

2015: NITI Aayog was formed

The NITI Aayog, the apex public policy think tank of the Indian government, and the nodal agency tasked with catalyzing economic development, and fostering cooperative federalism through the involvement of state governments of the country in the economic policy-making process, was established on January 1, 2015.

2016: Uri attack and India’s surgical strikes in Pakistan

On September 18, 2016, the Uri attack was carried out by four Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists against an Indian Army brigade headquarters near the town of Uri in Jammu and Kashmir. The attack led to the death of 19 Indian soldiers, and 19 to 30 others were injured.

On September 29, 2016, India announced that it had conducted surgical strikes against terror launch pads across the Line of Control in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), and inflicted “significant casualties”.

2017: GST was launched by the

Indian government

The Goods and Services Tax, popularly known as GST, was launched at midnight on July 1, 2017, by the President of India, and the Government of India. It was marked by a historic midnight (June 30- July 1) session of both the Houses of Parliament convened at the Central Hall, and it was attended by high-profile guests from the business and the entertainment industry.

In 2017, the Supreme Court of India ruled that the practice of instant triple talaq is unconstitutional and a divorce pronounced by uttering talaq three times in one sitting is void and illegal. Following that, the government introduced The Muslim Women (Protection of Rights on Marriage) Bill, 2017.

2018: Supreme Court decriminalised

Section 377 Section 377 is a section of the Indian Penal Code which was introduced in 1861 during the British rule of India. According to the section, sexual activities “against the order of nature” are illegal. On September 6, 2018, the Supreme Court of India ruled that the application of Section 377 to consensual homosexual sex between adults was “unconstitutional, irrational, indefensible and manifestly arbitrary”. But it remains in force relating to sex with minors, non-consensual sexual acts, and bestiality.

The Statue of Unity is 597 feet tall and is the highest statue in the world. It is located in Gujarat and depicts Indian statesman and independence activist Vallabhbhai Patel. It was designed by Indian sculptor Ram V Sutar and was inaugurated by PM Modi on October 31, 2018, on the 143rd birth anniversary of Patel.

Atal Bihari Vajpayee was an Indian politician and founder of the BJP who served three terms as the Prime Minister of India. One of the greatest names in the history of Indian politics, Vajpayee passed away on August 16, 2018, at the age of 93.

2019: Pulwama attack, Balakot airstrike

On February 14, 2019, a convoy of vehicles carrying Indian security personnel on the Jammu-Srinagar National Highway was attacked by a vehicle-borne suicide bomber at Lethapora in the Pulwama district of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir. The attack, known as the Pulwama attack, killed 40 personnel of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) as well as the perpetrator, Adil Ahmad Dar, who was a local Kashmiri youth from Pulwama. The terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility for the attack.

On February 26, 2019, the Indian warplanes conducted a bombing raid conducted in Balakot, Pakistan against a terrorist training camp. The airstrike, popularly known as the Balakot airstrike, was conducted by India in the early morning hours of February 26. Its warplanes dropped bombs in the vicinity of the town of Balakot in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan.

On August 5, 2019, Article 370 and Article 35A, which gave special status to Jammu and Kashmir, were revoked from the Indian Constitution. Also, the Government of India bifurcated Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh into separate Union Territories.

In the 2019 Lok Sabha election, the BJP received 37.36 per cent of the total valid votes polled, the highest vote share by a political party since the 1989 general election, and won 303 seats. Overall, the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance (NDA) won 353 seats and Narendra Modi started his second term as the Prime Minister of India.

2020: The nightmare of COVID-19 and lockdown

The year 2020 was sort of a nightmare for the majority of Indians, as the COVID-19 pandemic ravaged the country and people were confined to their homes because of the resultant lockdown. The tale of lockdown began on the evening of March 24, 2020, when the Government of India ordered a nationwide lockdown for 21 days, limiting the movement of the entire population to thwart the outbreak of the pandemic. It came after a 14-hour voluntary public curfew on March 22, followed by enforcement of a series of regulations in the COVID-19-affected regions in the country. When the lockdown was imposed, the number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in India was approximately 500.

2021: Controversy over 3 farm laws

The three new farm laws, which were introduced by the Government of India in 2020, created a great stir in many parts of the country, especially in Punjab. Scores of farmers went to Delhi to protest against the laws and demanded that the government must withdraw the laws. As per reports, the new laws would have deregulated a system of government-run wholesale markets and hence, allowed farmers to sell directly to food processors. But farmers feared that it would lead to an end of the government-guaranteed price floors, thereby reducing the prices they would receive for their crops. On January 12, 2021, the Supreme Court stayed the implementation of the farm laws. On November 19, 2021, PM Narendra Modi announced that the government would repeal the laws in the upcoming Parliamentary session in December. On December 1, 2021, the laws were formally repealed.

2022: India gets its first tribal President

On July 21, 2022, Droupadi Murmu created history by becoming the first tribal person to be elected to the office of President of India. Murmu contested the presidential election as a candidate for the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance and defeated the Opposition’s candidate Yashwant Sinha. Also, Murmu is only the second female President of India after Pratibha Patil (2007-2012). Murmu has also served as the ninth Governor of Jharkhand from 2015 to 2021.            Source: News9live