India’s Independence Day this year has provided the occasion for various assessments in the British Press and on radio and television of where India stands to-day, 20 years after attaining freedom. Indian students and workers are also celebrating the anniversary in their own way in London and the provincial centres, with meetings and cultural shows, especially got up for the occasion. By a happy coincidence, a group of artistes from the Kerala Kalamandalam are here [London], too, giving Londoners an opportunity for the first time to appreciate the Kathakali dance drama in one of the City’s leading theatres. Whatever criticisms one may have of the fragmentary day-to-day reports that filter through from India in the Press and radio here, the broad picture presented to the public in some of the papers to-day [August 14] is by no means an unfriendly one. Likewise, the B.B.C. last night put out a long programme in its Home Service, made up largely of recorded interviews with representative Indian personalities, which turned out to be a reasonably balanced account of India’s problems and prospects as seen by Indians themselves. A point stressed by more than one commentator is that, in spite of the overwhelming practical problems India has had to face, and is still facing, it has managed to maintain a remarkable degree of political stability, and that too without abandoning its democratic institutions. Describing this as an astonishing achievement, the Guardian’s feature-writer says: “The struggle led by Gandhi gave his followers from all parts of India a feeling of being Indians together in their efforts to expel the British. That feeling has survived the removal of its external stimulus, and although Sikhs, for example, have insisted on a State for themselves, and a formerly separatist party (D.M.K.) was this year elected to office in Madras, the fear once frequently expressed that India would fall apart (as it had after previous empires) now looks even less realistic than it did in 1947. Thus Indians seem to be winning the victory in a matter of fundamental importance.” Similarly, the Daily Telegraph’s Special Correspondent in Delhi, after reviewing the economic and political difficulties confronting India, adds: “Withal India somehow works, perhaps thanks to the innate conservatism of the Hindu and Hinduism; thanks to a dedicated civil service – submerged under a morass of paper at the bottom, often displaying brilliance at the top – which keeps the machine running. Despite its awesome internal problems, despite loss of international standing, despite foreign invasions, India has avoided any major political upheaval or coup d’eat. No man on horseback appeared; nor is there any in sight. In this India is practically unique among the post-war crop of independent nations. One’s best wishes on its 20th birthday are that it continues to ride the storm.”