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News India Times August 21, 2015
Independence Special
ong years ago we
made a tryst with
destiny, and now
the time comes
when we shall
redeem our
pledge, not whol-
ly or in full meas-
ure, but very sub-
stantially. 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 sup-
pressed, 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 with
some pride
At the dawn of history India
started on her unending quest,
and trackless centuries which are
filled with her striving and the
grandeur of her success and her
failures. Through good and ill
fortunes alike she has never lost
sight of that quest or forgotten
the ideals which gave her
strength.We end today a period
of ill fortunes and India discovers
herself again.
The achievement we celebrate
today is but a step, an opening of
opportunity, to the greater tri-
umphs and achievements that
await us. Are we brave enough
and wise enough to grasp this
opportunity and accept the chal-
lenge of the future?
Freedom and power bring
responsibility. The responsibility
rests upon this assembly, a sover-
eign body representing the sov-
ereign people of India. Before the
birth of freedomwe 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 striv-
ing so that we might 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 suf-
fer. It means the ending of pover-
ty 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 suf-
fering, 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
anyone 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 isolat-
ed fragments.
To the people of India,
whose representatives we
are, we make an appeal to
join us with faith and confi-
dence in this great adven-
ture. 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 independ-
ent. 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 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 sor-
row-stricken and difficult prob-
lems encompass us. But freedom
brings responsibilities and bur-
dens and we have to face them
in the spirit of a free
and disciplined peo-
ple.
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, magnif-
icent in his faith and strength
and courage and humility.We
shall never allow that torch of
freedom to be blown out, howev-
er high the wind or stormy the
tempest.
Our next thoughts must be of
the unknown volunteers and sol-
diers of freedomwho, 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 shar-
ers in their good and ill for-
tune alike.
The future beckons to
us.Whither do we go
and what shall be our
endeavour? To bring
freedom and oppor-
tunity to the com-
mon man, to the peasants and
workers of India; to fight and end
poverty and ignorance and dis-
ease; to build up a prosperous,
democratic and progressive
nation, and to create social, eco-
nomic 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, privi-
leges and obligations.We cannot
encourage communalism or nar-
row-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 serv-
ice. Jai Hind.
L
Freedom At Midnight
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s Speech on August 15, 1947
I-Day
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