The Nehru Blog

A Tryst with Destiny

From the Red Fort: Nehru’s Independence Day Address, 1963

August 15, 1963

My Fellow Countrymen, Brothers, Sisters, Children and Soldiers, We are assembled here once again, on the sixteenth anniversary of independent India. My greetings to all of you on this auspicious occasion. Many of you may remember that day when sixteen years ago, we met for the first time at the Red Fort and hoisted our…
From the Red Fort: Nehru’s Independence Day Address, 1962

August 15, 1962

Brothers, Sisters, and Children, The children seated here would have no recollection ofthe time when India was not free. The youth oftoday must have been small children then. Fifteen years have gone by since a new age started in our country. Today is the anniversary of our independence and we are assembled here at the…
From the Red Fort: Nehru’s Independence Day Address, 1961

August 15, 1961

Sisters, Brothers and Children, It is the fourteenth anniversary of independent India. I congratulate everyone on this auspicious day. On this day ideas and memories come crowding into the mind. First of all, there is the memory of Gandhiji who led us towards freedom. We must not only think of him but of the lesson…
From the Red Fort: Nehru’s Independence Day Address, 1961

August 15, 1961

Sisters, Brothers and Children, It is the fourteenth anniversary of independent India. I congratulate everyone on this auspicious day. On this day ideas and memories come crowding into the mind. First of all, there is the memory of Gandhiji who led us towards freedom. We must not only think of him but of the lesson…
From the Red Fort: Nehru’s Independence Day Address, 1960

August 15, 1960

Sisters, Brothers, Compatriots, Yesterday you celebrated Janmashtami. Today we are gathered here to celebrate the anniversary of India’s freedom. Thirteen years ago, this beloved flag of ours fluttered from the ramparts of the Red Fort for the first time, heralding to the world the birth of a new nation, of a new star in the…
From the Red Fort: Nehru’s Independence Day Address, 1959

August 15, 1959

Striving for Progress Sisters, Brothers and Comrades, Today we are assembled here once again to celebrate the anniversary of independent India. On this day, we look back a little at our achievements in the past and to the future as well on this day. Twelve years is a very short period in India’s history of…
From the Red Fort: Nehru’s Independence Day Address, 1958

August 15, 1958

Call to Consolidate Freedom Sisters, brothers, children and fellow countrymen. Today is the eleventh anniversary of our Independence and we are assembled here to celebrate it. Greetings to all of you on this auspicious occasion. But are we assembled here merely as a matter of routine or to witness a spectacle or with some other…
Nehru’s Notes on Myrdal’s Book titled “Economic Theory and Underdeveloped Regions”

May 31, 1958

Vast difference between the economic upper class of nations in world society and the lower class which comprises most countries in Asia and Africa. In comparable head the latter is even much smaller than it was in the richer countries when they started to develop rapidly a century or more ago. In highly developed countries, all indices…

Jawaharlal will be my successor…

Do not please go away with the idea that there is a rift in the Congress. The working committee has worked like members of a happy family. Somebody suggested that Pandit Jawaharlal and I were estranged. It will require much more than the differences of opinion to estrange us.

We have had differences from the moment we became co-workers, and yet I have said for some years and say now that not Rajaji but Jawaharlal will be my successor.

He says he does not understand my language, and that he speaks a language foreign to me. This may or may not be true. But language is no bar to a union of hearts. And I know this that when I am gone, he will speak my language.

Mahatma Gandhi, AICC Meet, Wardha, 1942