39 absolutely iconic photos from India’s past that every Indian must see

India’s past in photos. The events, the men, the times.

We bring you select photos of the rare and iconic images that captures India’s history. Its triumphs and failures. On the 69th Independence Day, we take a look at the India that was.

1. Believe it or not, that is Anna Hazare in his time in the army.

2. A young A P J Abdul Kalam in his college days.

3. Mahatma Gandhi and Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. Did you know that it was Tagore who gave the title of ‘Mahatma” to Gandhiji.

4. This iconic image of Nehru and the Mountbattens  at India’s first independence day on August 15, 1947.

5.The only known photo of Ghalib, the great Urdu-Persian poet. Priceless.

6. What looks like the moon surface is actually the India Gate circle around in the 1940s.

7.  The last known photo of freedom fighter Bhagat Singh before he was executed.

8. Bombay of the 1950s.

9. India’s first Republic Day parade in 1950.

10. Mahatma Gandhi in South Africa with a unidentified friend. Gandhiji was a wealthy lawyer then.

11. Mohammed Ali Jinnah’s last press conference on Indian soil, before he left for the newly-formed state of Pakistan to don the mantle of “Qaid-e-Azam”.

12. Bombay Central in 1940s.

13. The life of the British under the Raj. While they ruled India, lived apart form the Indians – hear of the cantonments dotting the Indian landscape?

14. Every vantage point taken at Mahatma Gandhi’s funeral.

15. Hyderabad’s Charminar in the 1940s.

16. Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi & Charlie Chaplin soak it in, in Switzerland.

17. Would you believe, that is the Churchgate Station in Mumbai, long years ago.

18. The eternal rebel, Che Guvera in India in 1959.

19. Indira Gandhi, Zulfikar Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto in Shimla in 1972, where the famous Shimla Accord was signed.

 20. L K Advani with Pakistani dictator Zia-Ul-Haq in the 1980s.

21. Amitabh Bachchan and family.

22. The Golden Temple at Amritsar in the 1860’s.

 

23. The Imperial Crown of India in 1937.

24. Mohammad Ali Jinnah and Mahatma Gandhi at Jinnah’s house in the 1940s.

25. Jawaharlal Nehru and Edwina Mountbatten in Shimla, 1948.

26. Narayan Murthy at IIT Kanpur  in 1969.

27.  Indian cricket captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni in 1994.

 

28. India’s Apple (yes, Ariane Passenger Payload Experiment) being transported in a bullock cart (?!) at the ISRO centre in Sriharikota in 1981.

29.  An aerial view of Raisina Hill. The Parliament is the circular building to the right. The two buildings in the foreground are the North and South block. Rashtrapathi Bhawan (unseen) is to the left.

30. Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru meeting iconic scientist Albert Einstein in 1949.

 

31. The earliest known photograph of the Taj Mahal taken in the 1850s.

32. A grain merchant displays his wares in Mumbai in the 1880s.

33. Pictures from the 1947-1948 Indo-Pak war fought over Kashmir.

34. Mahatma Gandhi in Lord Mountbatten’s study in Rashtrapathi Bhawan in the days just before Independence in 1947.

35. Jawaharlal Nehru meets the press in New Delhi in August 1947, shortly before Independence.

36. The Kedarnath temple in 1982.

37. The Kumbh Mela in 1954.

38. Poet laureate Rabindranath Tagore and scientist Albert Einstein in a rare photo.

39. Narendra Modi as a boy scout in his school days.

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