August 15th marks the 75th anniversary of the end of British rule in India. The struggle for independence also resulted in the partition of the subcontinent into two countries, India and Pakistan. The division sparked massive unrest that killed up to 1 million, while another 14 million Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims were displaced in one of the world’s largest ever human migrations. Pakistan celebrates its independence from the British Raj on August 14th.

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance.
Excerpt from Jawaharlal Nehru’s “Tryst with Destiny” address to the Constituent Assembly of India in New Delhi, August 14, 1947.

This is a general view showing the traffic congestion on Choeringhee, one of the busiest thoroughfares in Calcutta, India, as the country celebrates its independence from British rule on Aug. 15, 1947. (AP Photo)

India’s 400,000,000 shed the hated role of subject peoples at the clock stroke of a new day today and began a new chapter of two independent dominions with celebrations in oriental pomp and splendor – marred by bloodshed, death and terror in wide sections of the country.

In the high-domed chamber of the constituent assembly, Hindu India’s legislators took over their responsibility promptly at the first minute after midnight, and waited impatiently for Lord Mountbatten to appear at 8 a.m. to relinquish ceremoniously his office of Britain’s last viceroy and assume the duties of India’s first governor general.

The deep-toned chimes announcing midnight in New Delhi made Jawaharlal Nehru, leading Congress party minister, the prime minister of the new dominion. Mahomed Ali Jinnah, Moslem League leader who fathered Pakistan takes the oath as governor general of that dominion later in the day.

With a stirring shout the assembly already in session greeted the new day which turned one of the world’s most ancient countries into the two youngest states and plucked from London’s rule “the jewel of the British empire.”

It was almost 350 years since Queen Elizabeth had given a royal charter to a group of merchants to exploit India’s riches, and two centuries since Britain had begun her rule.

Along gaily bedecked streets, thousands streamed to the assembly chamber to glimpse their national leaders and hear Nehru, imprisoned nine times by the British for his political activities, declare over a loud speaker system:
“Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny. Now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge – not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially.”

His statement was an oblique reference to the fact that India was divided against the wishes of his party.

Excerpt from an August 15, 1947, AP news story by Walter J. Mason, reporting from New Delhi.

Lord and Lady Mountbatten are seen with Mahatma Gandhi, center, in the garden of the Viceregal lodge in New Delhi, India, March 31, 1947. Lord Mountbatten, the last viceroy of India, and Gandhi discuss points in the transfer of government from British to Indian rule. (AP Photo)

Lady Mountbatten, left, wife of the viceroy of India, chats with Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, top-ranking member of the Congress Party high command, in the garden of the viceregal lodge at New Delhi, India, April 17, 1947. Mrs. Naidu is famed in India for her poetry and oratory. (AP Photo/Max Desfor)

From left, Pandit Jawarharlal Nehru, Vice President of India's Interim Government, Earl Mountbatten, Viceroy of India and Muhammad Ali Jinnah, President of the Muslim League discuss Britain's plan for India at the historic India Conference in New Delhi, June 2, 1947. (AP Photo/Max Desfor)

Pathan women observe strict Muslim purdah as they come out to vote at a high school in Peshawar, Pakistan, on July 16, 1947. The Northwest frontier province is voting on whether to join Muslim Pakistan or the Hindu Dominion of India under the partition plan. Extra police and soldiers were on hand during the two days set aside for women to vote. (AP Photo)

Bespectacled Mahatma Gandhi, who eventually led India to its independence, laughs with the man who was to be the nation's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, at the All-India Congress committee meeting in Bombay, India, on July 6, 1946. Nehru took office as president of the Congress during the session. Gandhi's philosophy of non-violent resistance, including civil disobedience and fasts, drove India to independence in 1947 after nearly 200 years of British rule. The father of modern India, the Mahatma, which means great soul, was assassinated in 1948 for his tolerance of other religions. (AP Photo/Max Desfor)

Max Desfor, the AP photographer who covered the India independence and partition story, described the difficulties of photo transmission in a 1997 interview :

“Most of the activities of coverage in those days was around New Delhi during the negotiations between Lord Louis Mountbatten and the Indian officials, Nehru, Gandhi, and eventually Mohammad Ali Jinnah, and we had no problem as far as transportation there or facilities were concerned, simply because we were located right there.
… during those days of the negotiations, I established a dark room in a commercial studio. I was able to, to do my processing and printing in the darkroom there and then I had to send the prints to Bombay, where it was picked up by one of the AP staffers… He would run it to the cable head, it was the only place from which we could transmit photos. New Delhi, or old Delhi, had no facilities for radio transmission of pictures. The film itself, of course, was shipped to London from there.”

(Max Desfor inteviewed by Hal Buell, June 6, 1997. AP Corporate Archives)

His candid photo of Nehru and Gandhi, which appears above, was used on a commemorative stamp issued by the Indian government in 1973.