Summarize this "Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge,
not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world
sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom. A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when
we step out from the old to the new, when an age ends, and when the soul of a nation, long supressed,
finds utterance. It is fitting that at this solemn moment we take the pledge of dedication to the service of
Inida and her people and to the still larger cause of humanity.
At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her
striving and the grandeur of her success and her failures. Through good and ill fortune alike she has never
lost sight of that quest or forgotten the ideals which gave her strength. We end today a period of ill
fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of
opportunity, to the greater triumphs and achievements that await us. Are we brave enough and wise
enough to grasp this opportunity and accept the challenge of the future?
Freedom and power bring responsibility. The responsibility rests upon this Assembly, a sovereign body
representing the sovereign people of India. Before the birth of freedom we have endured all the pains of
labour and our hearts are heavy with the memory of this sorrow. Some of those pains continue even now.
Nevertheless, the past is over and it is the future that beckons to us now.
That future is not one of ease or resting but of incessant striving so that we may fulfil the pledges we have
so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of the millions who
suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The
ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to wipe every tear from every eye. That may be
beyond us, but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over.
And so we have to labour and to work, and work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for
India, but they are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for
any one of them to imagine that it can live apart Peace has been said to be indivisible; so is freedom, so is
prosperity now, and so also is disaster in this One World that can no longer be split into isolated
fragments.
To the people of India, whose representatives we are, we make an 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.

II

The appointed day has come-the day appointed by destiny-and India stands forth again, after long slumber
and struggle, awake, vital, free and independent. The past clings on to us still in some measure and we
have to do much before we redeem the pledges we have so often taken. Yet the turning-point is past, and
history begins anew for us, the history which we shall live and act and others will write about.
It is a fateful moment for us in India, for all Asia and for the world. A new star rises, the star of freedom
in the East, a new hope comes into being, a vision long cherished materializes. May the star never set and
that hope never be betrayed!

We rejoice in that freedom, even though clouds surround us, and many of our people are sorrowstricken
and difficult problems encompass us. But freedom brings responsibilities and burdens and we have to face
them in the spirit of a free and disciplined people
.On this day our first thoughts go to the architect of this freedom, the Father of our Nation [Gandhi], who,
embodying the old spirit of India, held aloft the torch of freedom and lighted up the darkness that
surrounded us. We have often been unworthy followers of his and have strayed from his message, but not
only we but succeeding generations will remember this message and bear the imprint in their hearts of
this great son of India, magnificent in his faith and strength and courage and humility. We shall never
allow that torch of freedom to be blown out, however high the wind or stormy the tempest.
Our next thoughts must be of the unknown volunteers and soldiers of freedom who, without praise or
reward, have served India even unto death.
We think also of our brothers and sisters who have been cut off from us by political boundaries and who
unhappily cannot share at present in the freedom that has come. They are of us and will remain of us
whatever may happen, and we shall be sharers in their good [or] ill fortune alike.
The future beckons to us. Whither do we go and what shall be our endeavour? To bring freedom and
opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and
ignorance and disease; to build up a prosperous, democratic and progressive nation, and to create social,
economic and political institutions which will ensure justice and fullness of life to every man and woman.
We have hard work ahead. There is no resting for any one of us till we redeem our pledge in full, till we
make all the people of India what destiny intended them to be. We are citizens of a great country on the
verge of bold advance, and we have to live up to that high standard. 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.