Tryst with Deny - Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru - Part 1 of 2
14th August, 1947
Tryst with Destiny was a speech made by Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, on the eve of India's Independence, towards midnight on 14 August 1947. It focuses on the aspects that transcend India's history.
It is considered to be one of the greatest speeches of all time and to be a landmark oration that captures the essence of the triumphant culmination of the hundred-year non-violent Indian freedom struggle against the British Empire in India.The phrase Rendezvous with destiny was used by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his 1936 Democratic National Convention speech, inspiring the similar phrase Tryst with destiny by Jawaharlal Nehru.
Here goes the text of the Speech....
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 sorrrow. 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.
(Continued..)
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