Comment Discovery of Independence: South Asia at 63

Authors

  • Hassan N. Gardezi

Abstract

Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now time comes when we will redeem our pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but substantially. At the stroke of midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom…. We end today a period of ill fortune, and India discovers itself again. These are the famous words of Jawaharlal Nehru, the first prime minister of India, which he spoke 63 years ago on the eve of India’s Independence. The ‘period of ill fortune’, the end of which he could see, was the long spell of British imperial rule over the South Asian subcontinent. Among the upper class leaders of the mainstream parties that had led India to independence, Nehru was perhaps the most socially conscious politician. He was also a keen student of India’s history and sociology. During his frequent imprisonments for opposing the British rule in India, he sat up long hours in the ‘A class’ wards of colonial jails reflecting upon the type of society India was, writing down his thoughts mostly in the form of letters to daughter Indra. This was his way of ‘discovering’ India – an exercise he found necessary in order to form a proper vision of India’s independence.

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Published

2020-02-18