On this Day in History

The beautiful north-eastern mountainous state of Nagaland came into being on December 1, 1963. A complicated (and at times contested) series of events over 150 years culminated in Nagaland becoming the 16th state of the Indian union. Much of the area that is currently Nagaland and Assam came under Burmese rule in 1816. Ten years later the British East India... Read More →

Inder Kumar Gujral, who left a mark on India’s foreign policy and served as the country’s 12th prime minister, was born on December 4, 1919, in Jhelum (in present-day Pakistan). He died on November 30, 2012. Gujral’s parents Avtar Narain and Pushpa Gujral took an active part in the Indian freedom struggle. The young Gujral took an early liking to... Read More →

An industrialist, an aviator, a philanthropist and a legend, Jehangir Ratanji Dadabhoy (JRD) Tata headed the Tata Group, India’s largest business empire, for half a century at a time when India was mostly under what is known as the licence permit quota raj. When he died on November 29, 1993, in an India that had just opened up its economy... Read More →

Social activist, writer, educationist and radical intellectual, Jyotirao Phule was born on April 11, 1827, in Maharashtra’s Satara district. A stanch critic of the Brahmin domination of Hindu society, he robustly analysed the caste system and its appalling effects on the lower castes. He died on November 28, 1890. Phule’s father, Govindrao, was a vegetable vendor. Since Phule’s father and... Read More →

India’s seventh prime minister, Vishwanath Pratap Singh, who championed the cause of backward castes, was born in a landlord’s family on June 25, 1931, in Allahabad (now in Uttar Pradesh). He died on November 27, 2008, after suffering from multiple ailments for several years. In 1936, he was adopted by Raja Bahadur Ram Gopal Singh of Manda; after Ram Gopal’s... Read More →

The Constitution of India, which made India a sovereign, democratic republic, was adopted on November 26, 1949, and it came into effect on January 26, 1950, which is celebrated as Republic Day. From that day, India was no longer a dominion of the British crown.   Laws meant to govern India were first framed in Britain in the 19th century.... Read More →

One of the most renowned leaders from Maharashtra, Yashwantrao Balwantrao Chavan was born on March 12, 1913, in Devrashtre village (now in the Maharashtra’s Sangli District). Chavan, who was the first Chief Minister of Maharashtra and later held several important portfolios in the union cabinet, died on November 25, 1984, in Delhi after suffering a heart attack.   His father... Read More →

Man Booker Prize-winning author and political activist Arundhati Roy was born on November 24, 1961, in Shillong, Meghalaya. Her father, Ranjit Roy, was a tea planter, and mother, Mary, a women’s rights activist from Kerala. Roy spent her childhood in Kerala’s Aymanam village, a place which she would revisit in her acclaimed debut novel, The God of Small Things. Speaking... Read More →

A Bengali physicist who did pioneering research in wireless wave technology, Jagadish Chandra Bose was born on November 30, 1858. When he died on November 23, 1937, he left behind a rich and diverse legacy, not only as a founding father of experimental science in India, but also as a botanist, biologist and thinker. Add to this the fact that... Read More →

Mulayam Singh Yadav, a leading player in Indian politics and former defence minister of India, was born on November 22, 1939, in Saifai village of Uttar Pradesh’s Etawah district. The Samajwadi Party founder, known for his shrewd political skills, has served as Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh several times. Trained as a teacher and wrestler, he plunged into politics as... Read More →