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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 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.
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 sorrowstricken 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 [Gandhi], 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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