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Stop behaving like old womenBy proclaiming the Republic of India on 26 January, we shall get a great sense of fulfilment in our hearts. Bu...

Stop behaving like old women
By proclaiming the Republic of India on 26 January, we shall get a great sense of fulfilment in our hearts. But we have a feeling that we have somehow not come up to that expectation which we ourselves had. While, perhaps, we have fulfilled our promises in the sense of keeping to the letter of the word, how far have we fulfilled them in spirit? This doubt creeps upon my mind, and the same doubt will now create in your minds a want of fulfilment, which otherwise you would not have.

And that is perfectly true, because we never envisaged freedom as something legal, only constitutional or just great phrases, but we thought always in terms of raising the standard of living of hundreds of millions of our people, of giving them the necessities of life as well as those other equalities and opportunities that should be provided to every human being.

We have adopted a Constitution, one of whose virtues perhaps is that it is said to be the biggest Constitution in the world.Yet, constitutions are needed; for the people, and if we fail to supply the needs of the people, where shall they find relief? The Constitution has a way of functioning, but we have also to function and we have to decide how to function.

If you look at India today, India is a land of the most magnificent opportunity, not merely in a physical sense, of having all kinds of resources and potential material and having large numbers of human beings, competent and trained, with capacity to do. I use the expression, magnificent opportunity, in another sense also, or in more than one sense.

One is that situated as we are, by virtue of geography and of the historical forces that have been working and are working today, inevitably a great burden and a great responsibility is thrust upon India. If you look at the world, there are powerful forces and powerful urges at work, pulling in different directions. Some people blame this group or that, but none tries to think and face the problems objectively. Instead ofgetting angry with this or that, we have to understand the problems objectively and try to solve them in the way which we consider right.

In some ways, historically or otherwise, India is so situated at the present moment when it might help in the solution of larger problems. I say this not in any spirit of vainglory or pride because, frankly speaking, I have little pride for any movement in my country. I have a basic or fundamental pride for my country, but for the moment, when I feel what is being done and what is not being done in the country, I have little pride in my country, because I feel that the people are engaging themselves in small issues most of the time, forgetting the great destiny of this country and the great responsibilities that freedom has thrust upon them, of quarrelling among themselves, complaining all the time and blaming somebody or other but not thinking of their own duties and responsibilities.

If we are to be great, we have to function as men and women of some stature. We donot become great by merely shouting, cursing or blaming each other. If we are to be really free, it is not the Constitution framed in Delhi that is going to ensure our freedom. It is the spirit of freedom in you and the sense of responsibility that comes with freedom that is going to keep India free.

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I wonder how far you are thinking in these terms. I often wonder when I see young men and young women, and for that matter older men and older women, behaving, if I may say so, all the time as very old women.

Excerpted from a speech delivered on January 1, 1950