This year India will be celebrating its 73rd Republic Day. The day is celebrated to mark India’s complete independence or Poorna Swaraj that took a long time to finally achieve. Freedom fighters like Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, Mahatma Gandhi, Subhash Chandra Bose, Bhagat Singh and a plethora more, fought courageously for the country to attain autonomy. Complete and absolute autonomy, however, remained a distant dream that the British government was not ready to fulfil. It was on January 26, 1950 that the Constitution designed by the drafting committee headed by Dr. B.R. Ambedkar. The Congress Session at Lahore on December 29, 1929, had passed a resolution declaring Purna Swaraj or complete, absolute autonomy as India’s goal. It was also decided that the 26th of January should be observed all over India as Purna Swaraj Day.
The complete Independence Day was celebrated on January 26, 1930 for the first time. It continued to be observed until 1947. On achieving Independence, August 15 began to be celebrated as our Independence Day. The constitution laid out the exact principles and mannerisms that would be followed in governing the country. The concept of Poorna Swaraj or absolute autonomy was precisely the idea that formed the base for the governance of the country. When the Constitution was finally established officially, the day was declared as ‘Republic Day’.
