Tryst with destiny (New Delhi, August 1947) JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (1889–1964)

Tryst with destiny (New Delhi, August 1947)
JAWAHARLAL NEHRU (1889–1964)

Arguably the most memorable speech of modern India and perhaps the

finest that Nehru ever made. It was at midnight on August 14, that the

Constituent Assembly met to usher in independence. Nehru was to be

sworn in as the first Prime Minister of India by Mountbatten on the

morning of August 15—‘e Appointed Day’, Nehru had noted in his

pocket diary—but in the speech he spoke as the embodiment of the hopes

and aspirations of the Indian people. He had prepared his speech with care.

His special assistant, M.O. Mathai, has said that in the first draft Nehru

had written ‘date with destiny’. Mathai pointed out to Nehru the

inappropriateness of the word ‘date’ given the solemnity of the occasion.

After consulting Roget’s esaurus, Mathai suggested tryst or rendezvous as

replacements. Mathai writes, ‘[I] cautioned that the phrase “rendezvous

with destiny” was used by President Franklin Roosevelt in his famous

wartime speeches. He [Nehru] thought for a moment and changed date to

tryst in the typescript.’ It should be pointed out, however, that many

consider Mathai’s testimony to be unreliable.

main 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.

A h d f h I d d h d d kl

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. rough 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. e 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. e 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 sorrow. Some of those pains

continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that

beckons to us now.

at 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. e 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. e ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to

wipe every tear from every eye. at 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 labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our

dreams. ose 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. is 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.

I beg to move, Sir,

‘at it be resolved that:

(1) After the last stroke of midnight, all members of the Constituent

Assembly present on this occasion do take the following pledge:

“At this solemn moment when the people of India, through suffering and

sacrifice, have secured freedom, I,…,…, a member of the Constituent

Assembly of India, do dedicate myself in all humility to the service of India

and her people to the end that this ancient land attain her rightful place in

the world and make her full and willing contribution to the promotion of

world peace and the welfare of mankind”;

(2) Members who are not present on this occasion do take the pledge (with

such verbal changes as the President may prescribe) at the time they next

attend a session of the Assembly.’