" In the odd days I invited you to join the great struggle for independence. That was a great adventure, a joy _giving adventure, because when you ally yourself to a great cause, that act not only increases your stature but it also gives you joy.
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Even apart from the results of it, the act of striving for great causes itself is good, is strengthening, and it makes you grow. Today we have a great adventure ahead, this adventure of building a new India. She has lived for thousands of years.
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She has had many experiences during this long history. She has thousands of years still to live, but not in poverty and dependence."___Jawaharlal Nehru.
Taken from the speech at a public meeting in Madurai, 3 October 1953. AIR tapes, N.M.M.L.. Extracts.
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Reference___Selected Works of Jawaharlal Nehru, 1 October 1953_31 October 1954, Second Series, Volume 24, page number 17.
" We have had in the past great leaders, and the greatest of them all was Mahatma Gandhi. But what we want today is not a few great leaders,
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but we should have hundreds of thousands of leaders in every village and in every town, so that the people should not look up to some great leader.
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These leaders should have the courage and initiative to help the people of that village and cooperate in the larger activities of the nation."__Jawaharlal Nehru.
Taken from the speech at a public meeting in Madurai, 3 October 1953. AIR tapes, N.M.M.L.. Extracts.
" If you go to Kashmir, you will find an extremely beautiful tree called the chinar. Now you cannot grow the chinar in Delhi. However much you may try, there is no way of growing it in any other part of India.
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Therefore it is narrow-mindedness to think that all of us should become identical in our food and dress habits. What will be the result if you do that? You cannot succeed in doing so as the country will come to a standstill.
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Also, you create a spirit of anger among the people of the different provinces and create dissensions when you try to coerce them."~Jawaharlal Nehru.
" In the ancient times, India became great because our ancestors kept their minds open to new ideas and to all new developments in the outside world and showed adventurous spirit when they undertook perilous voyages across the high seas and cultivated great minds.
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In later period, that spirit almost disappeared and India degenerated because she lost contacts with outside world, while internal quarrels weakened the nation marking her a prey to foreign aggression.
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Modern India should derive inspiration from our ancient history as well as learn lessons from the world outside. We cannot grow by closing our doors and shutting ourselves in dark cells. "__ Jawaharlal Nehru.
" Gradually, a change came. We became afraid of others and shrank into ourselves. We did not want either to go out ourselves or to let others come in. We developed narrow grooves of thought and narrow divisions among ourselves, each division keeping apart
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divided into various castes and groups. We practically imposed a ban on our people to go outside India. People were afraid that they would lose their caste or religion if they went out of India .
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We came to attach more importance to what we ate, drank or touched than to other, far more important, aspects of life. The transformation that you see now was gradual __ this shrinking into ourselves, this closing of our eyes to all that and that there was going on
" People talk about a secular State. Some think about it as a silly word and yet, what we simply mean by it is to have a normal and a civilized country. The communal idea is synonymous with an uncivilized idea. It is a primitive idea, a vulgar and a childish idea.
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It does not matter where it exists, whether in the mind of a Hindu, a Muslim, a Sikh, a Parsi or a Christian. It may be in anybody's mind. If it is there, it shows an uncivilized thinking.
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Therefore, if you are to go ahead, you have to get rid of this narrowness of outlook and thinking, which prevents our growth.
Now, it is obvious enough that this narrowness of outlook has been one of the major weakening factors in India.
" We were a small people but we had the privilege of serving under a great leader, Gandhiji, and we learnt much from him and we held aloft the torch of India's freedom and not only held that aloft, we have held aloft also that things which Gandhiji always taught us,
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that we must always pursue peaceful and good methods, that even a good objective does not entitle us to use bad methods. So we have held aloft this torch of freedom and the torch of peace.
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And sometime or other, the time will time will come when this generation will hand over that torch to the younger generation which is preparing for it today. May you be worthy of India and worthy of carrying that torch aloft."~Jawaharlal Nehru.