NEW DELHI, Aug. 15 -- "Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, 'It might have been'" -- Kurt Vonnegut

Call it, if you will, the gripe of dotage but as one who is very nearly a midnight's child, the seventy-fifth anniversary of our Independence is not an occasion for celebration but for critical reminiscence. In fact, ever since I learnt the particulars of the culminating final stretch of our freedom struggle, I have felt that this historic day should be observed as a day of sombre remembrance and not one of joyous festivities, for the simple reason that our freedom came alongside a horrific man-made tragedy.

Three score and fifteen years ago, a traumatic caesarean parturition sundered one geographical entity and brought forth...