Nehru: The Invention of India

by Shashi Tharoor

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. ‘This is no time . . . for ill-will or blaming others,’ he added. ‘We have to build the noble mansion of free India where all her children may dwell.’ And typically he ended this immortal passage with a sentence that combined both humility and ambition, looking beyond the tragedy besieging his moment of triumph to India’s larger place in the world: ‘It is fitting,’ he said, ‘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.’ There would be challenges enough ahead, but Jawaharlal Nehru would never cease, even at the moment of his greatest victory, to look above the suffering around him and fix his gaze upon a distant dream.