Address To The Nation

Fellow citizens,

On the eve of the 54^th anniversary of ourIndependence, and the first Independence Day of the twenty-first century, I havegreat pleasure to offer to my fellow citizens, whether in India or abroad, mygreetings and salutations.

I extend a special word of gratitude to the brave men of ourdefence and para-military forces who guard our frontiers, to our kisans,mazdoors, artisans and entrepreneurs, our teachers, doctors, engineers,scientists and technologists, and the youth and the women of India, whose toiland hard work have put India among the front rank of the nations in the world,preserving the values of our ancient civilization.

My fellow citizens, on this anniversary eve let us rememberwith gratitude and pride the freedom fighters and the founding fathers of ourRepublic who sacrificed so much to gain our independence. We particularlyremember Mahatma Gandhi who pitted his soul-force and organized the power of our"dumb millions" against the mighty empire that ruled over us. It isthey who laid the moral foundations and the political framework that made Indiaa resurgent nation and enabled all of us to hold our heads high in the world. 

Onany reckoning the independence of India was a landmark event in history.Speaking in the Constituent Assembly on January 22, 1947, our first PrimeMinister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru said and I quote his words, "On thatoccasion, I felt the past crowding upon me, and I felt also the future takingshape. We stand on the razor’s edge of the present. I felt that we are comingto the end of an age. I had a sense of our forbears watching this undertaking ofours and possibly blessing us. It was a great responsibility to be trustees ofthe future and it is also some responsibility to be the inheritors of our greatpast." My fellow citizens, may I greet you on this anniversary as theinheritors of a great past and the trustees, I believe, of a greater future.

Friends, the last 54 years of our independence despite allour shortcomings and frustrations, have been perhaps the single longest periodin our long history, when relative peace, progress and a sense of unityprevailed in this vast country of ours with hope for the future rising in theminds of the millions of our people. It is possible to find a hundred faults andfailures, during the over fifty post-independence years, but the fact of ourhaving made forward strides during this period has to be recognized, because itis then only we can build a better and brighter India. 

We are today a unitednation. This unity has not been brought about by blood and iron but by thesofter and by the more enduring methods of tolerance and the human approach, inshort through the gentle and genuine method of democracy. The biggestachievement of ours since independence has been this, the patient building up ofa democracy and of unity in the midst of all our bewildering diversities andoverwhelming difficulties. This achievement of unity and democracy has beenhitched to an unprecedented experiment in social democracy, all our endeavoursand our arms stretching constantly to human freedom and social justice. It isimperative that we should strive to maintain this balance between freedom andjustice. 

It is this essential and basic balance at the heart of our system thathas enabled us to continue to serve our poverty-stricken people in the face ofthe tidal wave of globalisation that is sweeping the world today. It mightsound an impossible thing to do. But I have great faith in our people, themillions of our ordinary people, what Gandhiji called the "dumbmillions" who are becoming to-day more and more articulate and impatient.Let the better off amongst us ask themselves what they can do for our people andfor our country, to be the inheritors of our great past and trustees of ourfuture. Our future is in our own hands.

Let me on this anniversary greet youonce again with the challenging victory cry, ‘Jai Hind’.