For 17 years before the Tricolour first rose above the Red Fort, Indians already had an Independence Day. It fell on January 26. Before August 15 became India’s Independence Day, Jawaharlal Nehru and the Congress had chosen another date to represent the country’s demand for freedom. (HT Archive) The Indian National Congress (INC) fixed the date in 1930 after resolving that nothing short of Purna Swaraj — complete independence — would satisfy the freedom movement. The date would carry that meaning through the rest of the struggle, and then acquire a second life on January 26, 1950, when the Constitution came into force and made India a republic. Independence Day: Live coverage From ‘dominion’ to complete independence The path to January 26, 1930, ran through a late-1920s argument within the Congress about what independence should mean. One camp was willing to settle for dominion status — considerable self-governance, but with a continuing constitutional link to the British Crown. Others, Jawaharlal Nehru and Subhas Chandra Bose among them, wanted the link cut altogether. The party had …