Here is a short video clip excerpt of Nehru's speech. See
below for the full transcript.
It follows the full text transcript of
Jawaharlal Nehru's A Tryst With Destiny speech, delivered at
New Delhi, India - August 14, 1947.
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 labor 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 labor 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 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
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 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 and ill
fortune alike.
The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and
what shall be our endeavor? 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.
