The Great Speeches of Modern India Read online

  By the same author

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  The Penguin Gandhi Reader (editor)

  India: Then and Now (co-author)

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  of Ashin Das Gupta (co-editor)

  RANDOM HOUSE INDIA

  Published by Random House India in 2011

  Introduction and introductory notes © Rudrangshu Mukherjee 2007

  Introductory notes to speeches by Mani Shankar Aiyar,

  André Béteille, Somnath Chatterjee, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan

  and Aruna Roy © Rudrangshu Mukherjee 2011

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  EPUB ISBN 9788184002348

  For

  Shobita

  ‘To talk and laugh, and to do each other kindnesses; to read pleasant books together; to pass from lightest jesting to talk of deepest things and back again: to differ without rancour, to teach each other and to learn from each other; these proceeding from our hearts as we gave affection and received it back, and shown by face, by voice, by the eyes, and by a thousand other pleasing ways, kindled a flame.’

  Contents

  Introduction

  Part One

  1880s–1947

  1. The opening of the Indian National Congress (1885)

  WOMESH CHANDRA BONERJEE

  2. One country, two nations (1888)

  SYED AHMED KHAN

  3. On the inauguration of the Muslim League (1906)

  MUSHTAQ HUSSAIN

  4. On conserving ancient monuments (1900)

  LORD CURZON

  5. Game preservation in India (1901)

  LORD CURZON

  6. Sisters and brothers of America (1893)

  SWAMI VIVEKANANDA

  7. How and why I adopted the Hindu religion (1902)

  SISTER NIVEDITA (1867–1911)

  8. At Benares Hindu University (1916)

  MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI

  9. Freedom is my birthright (1917)

  BAL GANGADHAR TILAK

  10. The trial speech (1922)

  MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI

  11. The dangerous cult of absolute non-violence (1940)

  V.D. SAVARKAR

  12. Purna Swaraj (1929)

  JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

  13. At the second Round Table Conference (1931)

  MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI

  14. The Muslims of India (1930)

  MUHAMMAD IQBAL

  15. The death of God (1933)

  M. SINGARAVELU

  16. Crisis of civilization (1941)

  RABINDRANATH TAGORE

  17. Give me blood and I promise you freedom! (1944)

  SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE

  18. The great Calcutta killings (1946)

  SHYAMAPROSAD MOOKERJEA

  19. Opening address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan (1947)

  MUHAMMAD ALI JINNAH

  20. The dawn of freedom (1947)

  SARVEPALLI RADHAKRISHNAN

  21. Tryst with destiny (1947)

  JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

  Part Two

  1947–2007

  22. The light has gone out (1948)

  JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

  23. My father, do not rest (1948)

  SAROJINI NAIDU

  24. Why I killed Gandhi (1949)

  NATHURAM GODSE

  25. Closing speech of the first Constituent Assembly of India (1949)

  B.R. AMBEDKAR

  26. Temples of the new age (1954)

  JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

  27. Power (Calcutta, November 1954)

  S.N. BOSE

  28. On the Five-Year Plans (1955)

  JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

  29. The Hindu Code Bill (1955)

  J.B. KRIPALANI

  30. The Kashmir issue (1952)

  SHYAMAPROSAD MOOKERJEA

  31. Tibet (1959)

  ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE

  32. A myth (1968)

  J.R.D. TATA

  33. The presidential system (1968)

  J.R.D. TATA

  34. Importance of NGOs (1969)

  JAYAPRAKASH NARAYAN

  35. I have come to serve you (1969)

  KHAN ABDUL GHAFFAR KHAN

  36. Tragedy in Bangladesh (1971)

  INDIRA GANDHI

  37. Proclamation of Emergency (1975)

  INDIRA GANDHI

  38. Speech in the Lok Sabha on the President’s address (1976)

  SOMNATH CHATTERJEE

  39. The education of a filmmaker (1982)

  SATYAJIT RAY

  40. Lowering the voting age to eighteen (1988)

  RAJIV GANDHI

  41. Panchayati raj (1989)

  RAJIV GANDHI

  42. Present economic situation (1991)

  MANMOHAN SINGH

  43. The future of Indo-US relations (1994)

  P.V. NARASIMHA RAO

  44. Why Ayodhya is a setback (1992)

  L.K. ADVANI

  45. The fatwa (1993)

  SALMAN RUSHDIE

  46. Survival and Right to Information (1996)

  ARUNA ROY

  47. On Founder’s Day (1992)

  VIKRAM SETH

  48. Doon School Founder’s Day address (2007)

  MANI SHANKAR AIYAR

  49. Our culture, their culture (1995)

  AMARTYA SEN

  50. Renunciation (2004)

  SONIA GANDHI

  51. On Jinnah (2005)

  L.K. ADVANI

  52. In Lahore (1999)

  ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE

  53. The viable university (2010)

  ANDRÉ BÉTEILLE

  54. Rekindling a spark of enthusiasm (1982)

  J.R.D. TATA

  Sources

  Acknowledgements

  Preface to the Paperback Edition

  The fact that this book is going in for a paperback edition is ample proof that people are interested in reading speeches. One reason for this is that the text of a speech helps to capture a slice of history even though the speech-making aspects are lost in the written word. For this edition, I have corrected a few errors that were brought to my notice. More importantly, I have added five more speeches to the original. Two out of the five that have been added are previously unpublished and I am deeply grateful to Aruna Roy and Mani Shankar Aiyar for allowing me to read these speeches and for the permission to print them.

  October 2010

  Rudrangshu Mukherjee

  Introduction

  ‘For last year’s words belong to last year’s language

  And next year’s words await another voice…

  …Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us

  To purify the dialect of the tribe

  And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight�
��’

  T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding

  Speeches are meant to be spoken—and heard. For this reason, a speech is fundamentally different from other forms of written text, for it is not simply dependent on the words alone—though they are the vital components of a good speech—but on certain other skills to do with voice and even gesture. A good orator brings to a speech something more persuasive and moving than the power of the written word and these qualities often prove to be ephemeral, losing something of themselves in printed form. But there are certain speeches that retain their emotive charge. Think of Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address and those words—‘government of the people, by the people and for the people’—which have become the most quoted definition of democracy. Or think of Winston Churchill’s memorable speeches during the Second World War. At the time they were made, Churchill’s speeches roused the British people and sustained their morale during their darkest hour. Even today, they make stirring reading and so many of the phrases and sentences that he used have become part of the English language. This book brings together some of the speeches made in India, from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first, which retain their power as written texts.

  One reason these speeches speak to us across time and without the oratorical skills of their authors is that most of them were actually written up before they were delivered. There are exceptions, of course. Witness the speech that Jawaharlal Nehru made in the evening of January 30, 1948, immediately after Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination. He was totally unprepared but his heart dictated the right words. It was one of the great impromptu speeches of modern Indian history. But for most of the speeches in this collection, the words were carefully chosen and the cadences of sentences measured to achieve maximum effect. The most famous example of this is another of Nehru’s speeches, the one he made at midnight August 14–15, 1947. The phrase, ‘tryst with destiny’, which Nehru coined has earned for itself an undying quality.

  There are some speeches, however, that have a charge not because of their language but because of the sheer enormity of the occasion on which they were made. The speech made in 1885 by W.C. Bonerjee, as the first president of the Indian National Congress on its opening session is enshrined in India’s historical memory. Similarly, Indira Gandhi’s short and severe announcement in June 1975—that India has been put under Emergency—is a speech that stands as a reminder of the only period in which democracy was suspended in independent India. In these cases the occasion made history; the speech is an expression of the making.

  The finest speeches in this anthology marry style and context: they are beautiful and capture a mood or a moment of history. A good example is the statement Mahatma Gandhi made from the dock at his trial in 1923. It was a speech made in court and Gandhi did not allow his passion to overrun the restraint that the location naturally imposed on him. Even today the speech can be read as a perfect summary of Gandhi’s creed of non-violence. But there are also a few speeches which have been included in the anthology simply because they read so well. I didn’t have to include the final speech in this anthology—made by J.R.D. Tata on the occasion of his solo flight from Karachi to Bombay in 1982—but have done so because of its great charm, style and poignancy. Here is a sprightly seventy-eight year old admonishing the younger generation for being too preoccupied with their careers and hoping ‘that when they are seventy-eight…they will feel like I do, that despite all the difficulties, all the frustrations, there is a joy in having done something as well as you could and better than others thought you could.’

  This book is split into two sections with August 15, 1947, acting as the dividing line. The first part begins in the late nineteenth century and ends with India’s independence. The second includes speeches made after independence right up to present times. Within these two broad divisions, the chronological sequence has been broken and the speeches have been arranged to enable a retelling of the history of modern India with the speeches as a convenient, if unusual, access to that story.

  The first section recounts India’s struggle for independence. The great turning point in this struggle was the establishment of the Indian National Congress, the political party that was at the forefront of the Indian national movement. The anthology, thus, opens with the inaugural speech of the INC. The journey towards freedom was marked by many such milestone speeches. One of the most memorable of these was the declaration made by Bal Gangadhar Tilak on behalf of all subject people: ‘Swaraj is my birthright.’ Tilak spoke as an old man to the youth of India at a time when the Swadeshi movement was failing and Extremists and Moderates in the Congress party had split. Tilak articulated the desire of all subjugated people and his words, imbued with rare power, transcended all factions.

  A key actor—many would argue the principal one—in the theatre of swaraj was Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi who brought to the freedom movement the message of nonviolence and transformed the Congress to enable it to become a mass-based party capable of mobilizing millions. Gandhi was not an orator in the traditional sense of the term, but he was a persuasive speaker with a gift for words. His speeches drew their power from the depth of his commitment. But Gandhi’s commitment to non-violence was not without opposition. V.D. Savarkar—a powerful orator—expressed his disagreement with Gandhi’s doctrine of non-violence. It was a speech later to be used by Nathuram Godse, Gandhi’s assassin, in his trial. There was opposition to the Congress and to Gandhi from other quarters as well. Subhas Chandra Bose, like Savarkar, could not accept Gandhi’s overwhelming emphasis on nonviolence. He left the Congress fold and tried to force the British out of India during World War II through an armed invasion with the aid of the Japanese. Opposition to the Congress also grew out of the perception among certain sections of educated Indian Muslims that the Congress spoke only for the Hindus. The idea that Muslims in India represented a nation within a nation was expressed in many speeches—from Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan’s in the late nineteenth century to Iqbal’s in the 1930s, to the speeches of Muhammad Ali Jinnah. These ideas led to the creation of Pakistan and Jinnah’s opening speech to the Pakistan Constituent Assembly is its apotheosis. It remains a memorable speech, remarkable in the vision of a secular state that it presented.

  The growth of nationalism is never a mere political phenomenon. Political self-assertion is predicated upon cultural pride. Some of the speeches presented here capture India’s cultural awakening, a process that was integral to India’s attaining freedom and nationhood. As an expression of this pride, Vivekananda’s speech in Chicago has seldom been excelled. Here was an unknown monk, dressed in saffron robes, who rose to speak of the universal values of faith and tolerance against the rising tide of bigotry and fanaticism. He spoke as the representative of a proud and ancient civilization ‘which has taught the world tolerance and universal acceptance.’ There was more than a hint of self-confidence and superiority in Vivekananda’s address. It epitomized the spirit of resurgent India. Romain Rolland was to compare his stirring words to the music of Beethoven and Handel.

  Inspiration for this pride could come from unusual quarters. Lord Curzon made Indians aware of their archaeological heritage and, more importantly, gave it institutional form. Jawaharlal Nehru would say of him that, ‘after every other Viceroy has been forgotten, Curzon will be remembered because he restored all that was beautiful in India.’ The speeches of Curzon included here show him to be a man of foresight. In a country that had little or no awareness of conservation, Curzon spoke of India’s rich architectural heritage and the need to preserve her ancient monuments. It is ironic that the most imperial of the Indian viceroys unwittingly contributed to India’s cultural—and thus political—awakening. Margaret Noble, known as Sister Nivedita, spoke to Indian women of their unique lineage. Hers was an unusual speech since she spoke to Indian women self-consciously as a white woman who had embraced India and Hinduism. She appealed to her Indian sisters to reject the lure of western fashion and extravagance and to cul
tivate the ‘reverential humility’ which she said was an essential part of Indian femininity.

  Implicit in Sister Nivedita’s autobiographical speech was the bigger theme concerning the cultural encounter between India and the West. This theme became the subject of Rabindranath Tagore’s last public statement in 1941, The Crisis of Civilization. The initial enthusiasm for Western culture and civilization that had inspired and formed India’s growing intelligentsia during the nineteenth century had dwindled by the outbreak of the Second World War. There was the increasing awareness that the cultural exchange between India and the West could not be seen as being unrelated to questions of power and colonial domination. While Tagore voiced the anguish as early as 1941, one of his admirers, the economist Amartya Sen confronted the issue of power in this context in his Satyajit Ray Memorial Lecture delivered in Calcutta in the late 1990s. Ray himself came to these problems almost instinctively when he spoke of his own craft of film-making in the early 1980s. Ray was a wonderful speaker. His voice was a rich baritone and his English accent—picked up from the BBC radio, which he listened to as a young man—was impeccable. But even without the aid of his voice and accent, the speech remains a superb one. Elegantly written, it explains complex ideas about cinema and Ray’s vision with deceptive simplicity.

  One individual who had in his own unique way resolved the problems surrounding the cultural interaction between India and Europe, had been Gandhi. When asked what he thought of European civilization, he had retorted that it would be a very good idea. His vision of India was based on a complete rejection of all that was modern and therefore derived from the West. Perhaps it was fitting that he died soon after India attained independence since the free state of India turned its back on most of Gandhi’s ideals while paying lip service to him as father of the nation. While Nehru made his ‘tryst with destiny’ speech, Gandhi, shunning the celebrations, fasted in a slum in east Calcutta. August 15, 1947, was not the tryst Gandhi had made with destiny. He was murdered by a Hindu fanatic, Nathuram Godse, who believed that India should become a powerful and modern state. Godse has become a pariah in Indian history. What this has obscured is the eloquent speech he had made as a condemned man at his trial. The second section of this book begins with Gandhi’s death since it inaugurated, in many ways, a new era for India.