HVK Archives: Dream of a new India - Tryst with destiny reaffirmed
Dream of a new India - Tryst with destiny reaffirmed - The Times of India
Jawaharlal Nehru
()
15 August 1997
Title: Dream of a new India - Tryst with destiny reaffirmed
Author: Jawaharlal Nehru
Publication: The Times of India
Date: August 15, 1997
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.
Unending Quest
At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless
centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her success and
her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight
of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today
a period of ill fortune 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 to us now.
That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that
we may fulfil 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 disease and inequality of
opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man 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 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 has been said to be
indivisible; so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and so 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.
I beg to move, Sir,
"That it be resolved that:
(1) After the last stroke of midnight, all members of the Constituent
Assembly present on this occasion, do take the following pledge:
'At this solemn moment when the people of India, through suffering and
sacrifice, have secured freedom, I,....., a member of the Constituent
Assembly of India, do dedicate myself in all humility to the service of
India and her people to the end that this ancient land attain her rightful
place in the world and make her full and willing contribution to the
promotion of world peace and the welfare of mankind'......"
***
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.
Fateful Moment
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 materialises. 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 he 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 and ill fortune alike.
Justice for All
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 co-operate 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.
(Time of India Editor's Note : This is the text of Jawaharlal Nehru's
famous 'Tryst with Destiny' speech delivered in the Constituent Assembly on
August 14, 1947. The second part is his message to the press on
Independence bay, 1947)
Back
Top
|
