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Speech
Delivered August 14th,
1947.
Speech in the
Constituent Assembly of India, on the eve of India's Independence
Long
years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we
shall redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very
substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world
sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which
comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new,
when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed,
finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment, we take the
pledge of dedication to the service of India and her people and to the
still larger cause of humanity.
At the dawn of history,
India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are
filled with her striving and grandeur of her success and failures.
Through good and ill fortune alike, she has never lost sight of that
quest, forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a
period of misfortunes and India discovers herself again. The
achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of
opportunity to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us.
Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and
accept the challenge of the future?
Freedom and power bring
responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this Assembly, a
sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Before the
birth of freedom, we have endured all the pains of labour and our
hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains
continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future
that beckons us now.
That future is not one
of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfill
the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today.
The service of India means, the service of the millions who suffer. It
means the ending of poverty and ignorance and poverty and disease and
inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest men of our
generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be
beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our
work will not be over.
And so we have to labour
and to work, and to work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those
dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all the
nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of
them to imagine that it can live apart. Peace is said to be
indivisible, so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and also is disaster
in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments.
To the people of India,
whose representatives we are, we make an appeal to join us with faith
and confidence in this great adventure. This is no time for petty and
destructive criticism, no time for ill-will or blaming others. We have
to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may
dwell.
The appointed day has
come -the day appointed by destiny- and India stands forth again,
after long slumber and struggle, awake, vital, free and independent.
The past clings on to us still in some measure and we have to do much
before we redeem the pledges we have so often taken. Yet the
turning-point is past, and history begins anew for us, the history
which we shall live and act and others will write about.
It is a fateful moment
for us in India, for all Asia and for the world. A new star rises, the
star of freedom in the East, a new hope comes into being, a vision
long cherished materializes. May the star never set and that hope
never be betrayed!
We rejoice in that
freedom, even though clouds surround us, and many of our people are
sorrow-stricken and difficult problems encompass us. But freedom
brings responsibilities and burdens and we have to face them in the
spirit of a free and disciplined people.
On this day our first
thoughts go to the architect of this freedom, the Father of our
Nation, who, embodying the old spirit of India, held aloft the torch
of freedom and lighted up the darkness that surrounded us. We have
often been unworthy followers of his and have strayed from his
message, but not only we but succeeding generations will remember this
message and bear the imprint in their hearts of this great son of
India, magnificent in his faith and strength and courage and humility.
We shall never allow that torch of freedom to be blown out, however
high the wind or stormy the tempest.
Our next thoughts must
be of the unknown volunteers and soldiers of freedom who, without
praise or reward, have served India even unto death.
We think also of our
brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political
boundaries and who unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom
that has come. They are of us and will remain of us whatever may
happen, and we shall be sharers in their good [or] ill fortune alike.
The future beckons to
us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom
and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of
India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease; to build up
a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social,
economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and
fullness of life to every man and woman.
We have hard work ahead.
There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in
full, till we make all the people of India what destiny intended them
to be. We are citizens of a great country on the verge of bold
advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. All of us, to
whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India
with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage
communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose
people are narrow in thought or in action.
To the nations and
peoples of the world we send greetings and pledge ourselves to
cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy.
And to India, our
much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever-new, we
pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service.
JAI HIND.
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