India marked the 75th anniversary of independence with Prime Minister Narendra Modi giving a speech from Delhi's historic Red Fort, which was decorated with portraits of freedom fighters and guarded by mechanical elephants. Following a 21-gun salute, reportedly executed using howitzers made domestically for the first time under Modi's "Make In India" industrial strategy, the prime minister said Indians should shed "colonialism in our minds and habits". The "Jewel in the Crown" of the British Empire became independent in 1947 after two centuries of colonial occupation and exploitation. With Britain in dire financial straits at the end of World War II -- in which about 90,000 Indian soldiers died -- the country was hurriedly split in two: Muslim-majority Pakistan and a mostly Hindu India. IMAGES AND SOUNDBITES