A Tryst with Destiny —India’s Independence Day

a story of a “Tryst with destiny” — a page from my family history book

Today, is 15th of August, India’s Independence day.

Life takes turns. Some doors shut, and some doors open. One decides to go one way but then something comes up and changes the course of one’s life. We can say it is destiny, but then if we try to understand the “how, what and why” of these changes, we can see that it is also one’s own effort/one’s doing that brings these changes. It is the change in our own self that creates differences and distances. If one believes that one cannot do something, it doesn’t happen, but on the other hand, if one believes that he or she can do it, it usually happens, as one puts effort to do that thing! That is our Karam! So, what happens, as a result, we may call it destiny or karma!

It is as true for individuals, as for countries, and nations, as they also have a destiny/Karam. (That is what on 15th August 1947, the first prime minister of independent India, Pt. Nehru had said about India’s “tryst with destiny”).

India got its independence from the British 75 years ago, in 1947, when the British decided to finally leave India.

India, which was known as the golden bird till the 16th century, by the time, the British rule of more than two centuries ended, was not golden anymore!

Its foreign rulers had squeezed the country dry, to fill their own coffers, taking away the riches that India had been known for, and leaving a poor, deprived country in its wake, with drought and famine-ridden starving population, an underdeveloped country, with no industry of its own. It was also a divided country.

As per the negotiations for its independence, it was decided that India was to be divided into two parts, giving birth to a new India, and a new country Pakistan, on the bases of religion.

At that time, how this partition of a country, so intricately woven with the diverse religious and cultural coloured threads, would pan out, had not been envisioned by the British, or by anyone else, even those who had decided to divide their own country*.

So, is that destiny or karma?

Well, 15th August, the day of independence arrived, amid celebrations, people all over India were ready to meet their destiny.

Those who couldn’t be in New Delhi to witness the flag hoisting, like my parents, who were in Punjab, had remained glued to the radio, waiting for the clock to strike 12 on the night of 14th August, as at the stroke of midnight, a new nation was going to be born for its ‘Tryst with destiny’!

At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom.

Pt. Jawahar Lal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of an independent India, opened his famous speech with this line and said:

A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new… 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.

… We end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again…

Are we brave enough and wise enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?

….To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make appeal to join us with faith and confidence in this great adventure. This 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.

…All of us, to whatever religion we may belong, are equally the children of India with equal rights, privileges and obligations. We cannot encourage communalism or narrow-mindedness, for no nation can be great whose people are narrow in thought or in action.

To the nations and peoples of the world we send greetings and pledge ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy.

And to India, our much-loved motherland, the ancient, the eternal and the ever-new, we pay our reverent homage and we bind ourselves afresh to her service. Jai Hind.

In this speech, Nehru, the first Prime Minister of independent India, gave a signal to thousands of Indians to get up and start the good work, building the nation and serving the bigger cause of humanity. He asked for communal harmony, and peace, so everyone walked together to a bright future.

Everyone who heard the speech knew it to be a message of hope, a call and an invitation to get up, to build their future, their nation’s future, to go on an adventure, their tryst with destiny!

It was not just meeting with the destiny, but it was about making destiny, just as they wished, making it their karma, through their actions.

And many young men and women, like my parents, decided, not to stay behind, to stagnate in their zone of comfort, but to throw away the shackles of the past, and to go on an adventure. They were ready to make their own destiny.

And as a nation, what destiny, or karma, India has created for itself, is a result of its own karam, what it has done to achieve its dreams, to fulfil or to break these promises from this famous “Tryst with Destiny” speech!

* The birth of two new countries from the division of one country, was not only as simple as a woman giving birth, it was the amputation of various parts of her body. The mass movement of people running or being driven from one part of India to the other, and vice versa, and the blood shed that accompanied it, tarnishing India’s history and the future of the both new nations, could never have been envisaged by anyone.

Tryst with destiny — extracts from Nehru’s speech on the birth of independent India Tryst with Destiny by Jawaharlal Nehru (Full Text) (thefreshreads.com)