A Pat to my Thought...
The World with INDIA
...Contd.

A pat to my thought, an imaginative idea to write a series of columns on World with India had a good response for our inaugural issue from our reader’s flock and it is an article, definitely worth a read. This edition shares with you the other side of inspirational story of many nations And world leaders who drew the spirit from our independence struggle. It’s a Significant achievement, which we can cherish, and India can be a universal neighbor to all in principle, sharing, encouraging and bonding and support. Let this be curtain raiser for new venues to understand and our effort here is through SCOOP to rest of the world.

The real Initiative…

In his "tryst with destiny" speech at midnight on August 14/15, 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru used the phrase "not wholly or in full measure" to describe India's attainment of freedom.

"Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny," said the first prime minister of India, "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, while the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom."

Fifty-nine years later, the significance of that day has become clearer with every passing year with many countries around the world living with the changes that began on August 15, 1947.

It is the day that heralded the beginning of the end of centuries of colonial exploitation in Asia and Africa.

After India and Pakistan, both Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and Burma (now Myanmar) won their independence in 1948, followed by Indonesia in 1949 and Malaysia in 1957.

In Africa, too, the "winds of change", as mentioned by then British prime minister Harold Macmillan in 1960, had started blowing. While South Africa had to wait till the nineties for the end of apartheid, Ghana became independent in 1957, Nigeria in 1960, Uganda in 1962, Kenya in 1963 and Tanganyika and Zanzibar (now Tanzania) in 1964.

Further a field, in the West Indies, Jamaica and Trinidad & Tobago became independent in 1962.

Undeniably, it is the Indian independence movement that had inspired the people in all the other colonies to fight for and secure their freedom from their European colonialism. As a British historian noted, "more than any other single individual, Gandhi brought about the fall of the British Empire in particular and European rule in general".

In South Africa, the African National Congress took its name from the Indian National Congress though not the latter's policy of non-violence because, as Nelson Mandela said: "In India, Gandhi had been dealing with a foreign power that ultimately was more realistic and far-sighted. That was not the case with the Afrikaners in South Africa".

Martin Luther King, however, adopted the Gandhian method to oppose racial fanatism in US. Inspired by Gandhi's words - "through our pain we will make them see their injustice" - King launched his non-violent civil rights movement, saying that from his background "I gained my Christian ideals; from Gandhi I learned my operational technique."

India can be proud, therefore, that it acted as an agent of monumental historical change in the last century. Now, its multicultural democracy can act as a similar source of inspiration to all as a model of governance.

Contd....



From the Team SCOOP
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