71 years after India gained independence, the ideas
put forth by some of the most enterprising leaders remain both relevant, and
important for understanding the story of independent India. EPIC Channel
presents “Bharat Ki Awaaz” series that showcase India’s most iconic and
independent voices that literally moved a nation.
[Speech delivered in the Constituent Assembly, New
Delhi, August 14, 1947, on the eve of the
attainment of 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 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 speech was delivered to the Constituent
Assembly of India in New Delhi on August 14th 1947 and
EPIC will run the speech along with important unknown facts 71 years
later on EPIC Channel on 15th August at 10 pm.
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