Tryst with Destiny

“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 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.” 

The above words from the rhetorical but very meaningful speech of Jawaharlal Nehru at the stroke of independence on August 15, 1947 were not heard by us, yet ring in our ears and stir our hearts as if we were present at the historic moment in time and space. I was not even born and Goa was not a part of independent India, but the words have touched us and survived from the corridors of school and college as few other words have. And every year, as the Independence Day approaches, Nehru’s words take precedence over every other speech and message given on that day. 

The words were not mere rhetoric but based on reality and measured by pragmatism. It was not going to be Rabindranath Tagore’s “heaven of freedom”, at least not immediately and perhaps for a long time, but a slow realization, “not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially”. What would be immediate was the fact of independence from the British Empire, and the rule over India by Indians. Democracy would have to flower in the face of tremendous difficulties that the transfer of power and the division of the country would entail. Riots would follow, killings would continue, trains to Pakistan from India and vice versa would be the last resort for many as described by Kushwant Singh in his novel, Train to Pakistan. The turmoil of Europe in the early nineteen-forties would in some way be ours in the mid nineteen-forties. The Indian apostle of peace, Mahatma Gandhi, would soon be the victim of assassination at the hands of the forces of darkness. Nehru would then once again capture the sentiment of the young nation with his immortal words in less than six months of independence: “the light has gone out of our lives and there is darkness everywhere”. Today, it is sad to hear people, with hardly any knowledge of history but full of misinformation from the pages of propaganda, talk about Gandhi and Nehru in unutterable language. Unutterable, therefore unquotable.

The tryst, Nehru spoke of, evokes not just a sense of duty but has an element of love and dedicated pursuit of an ideal, the ideal of “life and freedom” to which “India will awake”. Someday. Until then we have to keep aspiring, struggling, defeating the forces of darkness whose narrow philosophy can only destroy the India that we love. The darkness of Gandhi’s assassination brought despair and doom, but the leaders of young India did not succumb to pessimism, and gallantly moved on with the torch of life and freedom. Else we would not be the India we are today. It is our sacred duty to pass on the torch of liberty to generations to come. The struggle may take its toll but the ideal must and will prevail. It has prevailed in the past in India and over the world, and will do so in the future. The ideology of fascism was defeated in the world once; and a great and free nation, that India is, will defeat it in the future. The Indian freedom struggle and Gandhi’s philosophy have inspired the world and its leaders in the past and present. Our determining action for democracy, freedom and life will inspire the world once again. Not the monotonous uniformity and narrow outlook which is mistaken for unity and strength, but the vibrant diversity of all forms of life, languages, regional peculiarities, cuisines, forms of art, cultures and religions, castes, classes and even races. It is the diversity that is our strength, and we will have to shape our future respecting the same.

The tryst with destiny is an ongoing process which requires continual engagement. It requires vision. It is a mission. It is not just about the present, but should include corrective action while avoiding future dangers. Let us not throw out the baby with the bath water. The act of cleaning the political system is a must. But the preservation of a democratic way of life in all its diversity, in liberty, with dignity, and with inclusive economic growth is a mission.

Published in The Navhind Times, Panorama 11.08.2013