New Delhi, Oct 15: Congress leader Jairam Ramesh on Wednesday highlighted that before India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru delivered his iconic ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech, he addressed the Constituent Assembly in Hindustani, which the AICC general secretary said is “amongst the greatest Hindustani speeches of the 20th century”.
Ramesh said re-reading the Constituent Assembly debates after quite some time has revealed a virtually unknown fact.
“The Constituent Assembly met at 11 PM on Aug 14, 1947. It has been immortalised by Nehru’s iconic ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech delivered a few minutes before midnight. It is universally known that he rendered this speech after the President of the Constituent Assembly, Dr. Rajendra Prasad, delivered his address,” Ramesh pointed out.
But the records reveal something else that has simply not got the attention and recognition it deserves because of the overpowering impact of the Tryst with Destiny speech, he said.
“After Dr. Rajendra Prasad had spoken, Jawaharlal Nehru started his speech actually in Hindustani and spoke for about 6 minutes. It is only after this that the approximately 8 minute ‘Tryst with Destiny’ followed and became history,” Ramesh said.
“Jawaharlal Nehru’s speech in Hindustani was lyrical and captured the essence of his Tryst with Destiny speech. It is, in its own right, amongst the greatest Hindustani speeches of the 20th century. Fortunately both the text of the Hindustani speech and an audio recording of it are available,” Ramesh said and shared the screenshot of the text of the speech and a link to the audio recording on X.
In his speech in ‘Hindustani’, Nehru had said “Kai varsh hue ki humane kismat se ek bazi lagai thi. Ek ikarar kiya tha, pratigya ki thi, ab waqt aya ki hum ise pura karen. Balki, pura woh shayad abhi bhi nahi hua lekin phir bhi ek badi manzil puri hui (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…)” (Agencies)
