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Publisher’s Note
Tryst with Destiny
Congratulations to Indians for nurturing the pains of labor, and our hearts are heavy with
democracy in India for 75 years. Many did not the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains
believe that we could survive as a nation. Not only continue even now. Nevertheless, the past is over,
have we survived but we have survived well. As a and it is the future that beckons to us now.
tribute to our founding fathers, I have reproduced That future is not one of ease or resting but of
here Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru’s iconic ‘Tryst with incessant striving so that we might fulfill the
Destiny’ speech. pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall
take today. The service of India means the service
Here it is: of the millions who suffer. It means the ending of
Long years ago, we made a tryst with destiny; and poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality
now the time comes when we shall redeem our of opportunity.
pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very The ambition of the greatest man of our
substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, generation has been to wipe “every tear from every
when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and eye.” That may be beyond us, but so long as there
freedom. are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be
A moment comes, which comes but rarely in over.
history, when we step out from the old to the new And so we have to labour and to work, and work
-- when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, hard, to -- give reality to our dreams. Those dreams
long suppressed, finds utterance. It is fitting that are for India, but they are also for the world, for
at this solemn moment we take the pledge of all the nations and peoples are too closely knit
dedication to the service of India, and her people, together today for any one of them to imagine that
and to the still larger cause of humanity. it can live apart.
At the dawn of history, India started on her Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is
unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled freedom; so is prosperity now; and so also is
with her striving and the grandeur of her successes disaster in this one world that can no longer be split
and her failures. Through good and ill fortune into isolated fragments.
alike, she has never lost sight of that quest or To the people of India, whose representatives
forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We we are, we make appeal to join us with faith and
end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers confidence in this great adventure. This is no time
herself again. for petty and destructive criticism, no time for ill
The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, will or blaming others. We have to build the noble
an opening of opportunity, to the greater triumphs mansion of free India where all her children may
and achievements that await us. Are we brave dwell.
enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity God bless India.
and accept the challenge of the future?
Freedom and power bring responsibility. That
responsibility rests upon this assembly, a sovereign
body representing the sovereign people of India. Vickram Sethi
Before the birth of freedom we have endured all Publisher and Editor-in-Chief
SENIORS TODAY | ISSUE #38 | AUGUST 2022 3
