#Nehru speech at the stroke of midnight full
#Nehru speech at the stroke of midnight free

But freedom brings responsibilities and burdens and we have to face them in the spirit of a free and disciplined people. We rejoice in that freedom, even though clouds surround us, and many of our people are sorrow-stricken and difficult problems encompass us. May the star never set and that hope never be betrayed! A new star rises, the star of freedom in the East, a new hope comes into being, a vision long cherished materializes. It is a fateful moment for us in India, for all Asia and for the world. 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. 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. 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. We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell. This is no time for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill-will or blaming others. To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. 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. That may be beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.Īnd so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. It means the ending of poverty, ignorance, disease and inequality of opportunity. The service of India means the service of the millions who suffer. 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.

Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now. Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. The responsibility rests upon this Assembly, a sovereign body representing the sovereign people of India. Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?įreedom and power bring responsibility. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. 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.Īt 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. 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. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.

#Nehru speech at the stroke of midnight full

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.

As we celebrate Independence Day, listen to and read Tryst with Destiny, the speech that marked India’s independence, by Jawaharlal Nehru, the country’s first prime minister.