While India's Independence Day isn't until August 15, I thought July 4th would be the perfect occasion to call attention to some of the most important events that occurred along the road to freedom for the world's largest democracy--and to take you on a journey along that road, of course!

British India was partitioned into Muslim Pakistan and secular India on August 15, 1947 with an official handover ceremony in New Delhi. While the seeds of revolution had been planted for nearly as long as Westerners had been in control, the action truly began on April 13, 1919. In response to the passing of the British Rowlatt Act, which bestowed upon the Viceroy's government nearly limitless power including censorship of the press, imprisonment of political activits and the authority to arrest with or without a warrant, a nationwide cession of work (also known as hartal) was called. A group of 5,000 unarmed men, women and children had assembled at Jallianwala Bagh, a courtyard in Amritsar, Punjab. These innocent people were fired upon by British soliders under the command of Brigadier General Reginald Dyer, leaving now fewer than 379 (but as many as 1,499 by unofficial estimates) dead. The spritual center of the Sikh religion and home to the stunning Harmandir Sahib (or Golden Temple), Amritsar also has a large memorial to commemorate the massacre. Amritsar can be reached by many trains from New Delhi, including the Paschim Express (#2925), which departs New Delhi Railway Station at 11:10 and arrives at Amritsar at 19:15.

Just 20 miles to the west, Lahore (which is now part of Pakistan) was the birthplace of the legislation that began the Indian independence movement. Moved by eventual Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru, the Declaration of the Independence of India was passed unanimously on December 31, 1929 at the meeting of the Indian Congress in Lahore, an occasion which also saw the first appearance of India's flag. A city of more than seven million people, Lahore is home to, among other attractions, the Bahshahi Mosque, the fifth largest such venue in the world. Lahore later played an important role in the creation of the Pakistani state, with the All India Muslim League demanding its creation at its annual meeting there in 1940. The easiest way to Lahore from Amristar is by taxi. Your taxi driver may have to drop you off at the border to cross on foot, depending on what paperwork he has available, at which point you can take another taxi to your destination in Pakistan.
When you're finished exploring Lahore, hop back over to Amritsar and take a cheap Jet Airways flight to Ahmedabad, a bustling city of nearly six million, home to the beautiful Shri Swaminaryan Temple of the Hindu religion. The city center is just a short cab ride away from the Sabarmati Ashram, the peaceful retreat where Gandhi rested to forumlate many of his ideas and was, more notably, the origination point of the Salt March. The protest saw Gandhi and 78 of his companions march more than 400 km from the Ashram to Dandi, on the coast of Gujarat, where they harvested their own salt from the sea in protest of the British Salt Law, which taxed Indian salt in order to encourage the sale of British salt. I wouldn't recommend you and your companions march this journey, though it had been done again since Gandhi. Instead, take the AII BCT Express train (#2990) from Ahmedabad to the Gujarat city of Navsari, from which you can take a taxi to serene Dandi.

Once you're done frolicking on the peaceful beaches where Gandhi and his followers made their salt, hail a cab to Surat, about 30 km away, and take a cross-country flight to Kolkata (once known as Calcutta), which was the site of a violent police-crowd crash in April 1930, at the height of the civil disobedience movement. Calcutta served as the capital of the British Raj until 1911 and is also famous for having been the center of Mother Theresa's charitable activities. After hitting up one Kolkata's many flower markets, take a flight back to New Delhi, home of the Birla House, where Gandhi lived the final days of his life before being gunned down on January 30, 1948.