As India celebrates 75 years of Independence, Indians will see this as an occasion to recall Jawaharlal Nehru’s immortal speech, “A Tryst with Destiny”, delivered on the night of August 14, 1947, and its haunting poetic expressions — “At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India awakes to life and freedom.” For most, that speech and the man who spoke those words symbolised the spirit of a new nation just born. For them, some of the recent attempts to undermine Nehru’s place in history may seem like a minor distraction.
Vision of a modern nation
Nehru’s luminous legacy is deeply laid in India’s growth story since Independence. In May this year, when the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) launched India’s largest public issue and collected ₹21,000 crore from the market, the nation was aware that this was a Nehruvian institution established in the early years of independent India. Equally, when we look at the celebrated names of global CEOs and corporate leaders, we can recognise many of them as Nehru’s ‘children’, as they were educated at the iconic Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) and Indian Institutes of Management (IIM).
