Independence Day celebrations are held at the Red Fort because it is a symbol of the people’s resistance to colonial power. That Shah Jahan built the fort is well known. During the Mughal reign, it represented everything that was grand and powerful about the Mughal Empire. The British started taking control of Delhi and the Red Fort in the early 1800s. When the Sepoy Mutiny broke out, the Red Fort and the last Mughal emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar, came to represent the essence of the rebellion. The British managed to quell the mutiny, deported the Mughal emperor, killed his descendants and captured the Fort. They looted the wealth inside the Fort, destroyed several sections of it and converted some others for their use. In short, they heal taken over something essentially Indian and scared it. Years later, Subhas Chandra Bose and his slogan ‘Chalo Dilli’ was a clarion call to ‘recapture the fort’. Therefore, it was only fitting that independent India would pick the site where colonial resistance began.
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