Tryst with Destiny: Summary

Jawaharlal Nehru was the first prime minister of India. He was a great statesman who is responsible for all the progress of India. As the prime minister of India, Nehru shaped the foreign policy of the country and gave gib support for the development of science and technology  Nehru was originally a lawyer but he was also an expert in most other subjects. The people of India respected his vast knowledge and called him 'Pundith Nehru'.

India won Independence from England on the 15th August, 1947. At the very stroke of midnight in the clock, Nehru announced the happy news of the freedom of India to the entire world. During the colorful ceremony held at New Delhi, the flag flag of England was pulled down and the new tricolor national flag was hoisted. After that, Nehru delivered a historic speech which is known as "Tryst with Destiny".

Nehru began his speech by referring to the pledge made by Indians long years ago to win the freedom for the homeland. Freedom has finally come and the long suppressed soul of the nation is liberated. Nehru asks the people of India to dedicate themselves to the service of India and to the service of the whole mankind.

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964)

Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru was born on November 14, 1889, in Allahabad, India. In 1919, he joined the Indian National Congress and joined Indian Nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi’s independence movement. In 1947, Pakistan was created as a new, independent country for Muslims. The British withdrew and Nehru became independent India’s first prime minister. Nehru is considered to be the architect of the modern Indian nation-state; a sovereign, socialist,secular, and democratic republic. He died on May 27, 1964, in New Delhi, India.

The First Prime Minister of Independent India

Domestic Policy:

The importance of Jawaharlal Nehru in the context of Indian history can be distilled to the following points: he imparted modern values and thought, stressed secularism, insisted upon the basic unity of India, and, in the face of ethnic and religious diversity, carried India into the modern age of scientific innovation and technological progress. He also prompted social concern for the marginalized and poor and respect for democratic values.

Tryst with Destiny

By Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru

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 suppressed, finds utterance. 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. 

At the dawn of history India started on her unending quest, and trackless centuries are filled with her striving and the grandeur of her successes, 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. 

Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964)

Jawaharlal Nehru

Jawaharlal Nehru was born on November 14, 1889, in Allahabad, India. In 1919, he joined the Indian National Congress and joined Indian Nationalist leader Mahatma Gandhi’s independence movement. In 1947, Pakistan was created as a new, independent country for Muslims. The British withdrew and Nehru became independent India’s first prime minister. Nehru is considered to be the architect of the modern Indian nation-state; a sovereign, socialist,secular, and democratic republic. He died on May 27, 1964, in New Delhi, India.

Pre-Political Life

Jawaharlal Nehru was born in Allahabad, India in 1889. His father was a renowned lawyer and one of Mahatma Gandhi's notable lieutenants. A series of English governesses and tutors educated Nehru at home until he was 16. He continued his education in England, first at the Harrow School and then at Trinity College, Cambridge, where he earned an honors degree in natural science. He later studied law at the Inner Temple in London before returning home to India in 1912 and practicing law for several years. Four years later, Nehru married Kamala Kaul; their only child, Indira Priyadarshini, was born in 1917. Like her father, Indira would later serve as prime minister of India under her married name: Indira Gandhi. A family of high achievers, one of Nehru's sisters, Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit, later became the first woman president of the UN General Assembly.

Tryst with Destiny: Analysis

Tryst with Destiny was a speech made by Jawaharlal Nehru (1889-1964), the first Prime Minister of independent India. The speech was made to the Indian Constituent Assembly, on the eve of India's Independence, towards midnight on 14 August 1947.

It focuses on the aspects that transcend India's history. It is considered to be one of the greatest speeches of all time and to be a landmark oration that captures the essence of the triumphant culmination of the hundred-year non-violent Indian freedom struggle against the British Empire in India. The phrase "rendezvous with destiny" was used by Franklin D. Roosevelt in his 1936 Democratic National Convention speech, inspiring the similar phrase "tryst with destiny" by Jawaharlal Nehru.

Satyagraha was a major root for success of the seemingly never-ending struggle for freedom in India and this is deeply acknowledged in Nehru’s speech. The reference made to the concept and its pioneer, coupled with particularly effective pathetic appeal would only cause fierce patriotism and love in the heart of any Indian who listened to it because of the fervour with which they respected and idolised the Father of the Nation and his ideas.