An extract from ‘The Discovery of India’ by Jawaharlal Nehru (1944)
Hyderabad, Aug 2006

“The independence of the United States of America is more or less contemporaneous with the loss of freedom of India. Surveying the past century and a half, an Indian looks somewhat wistfully and longingly at the vast progress made by the United States during this period, and compares with what has been done and what has not been done in his own country. It is true no doubt that the Americans have many virtues and we have many failings, that America offered a virgin field and an almost clean slate to write upon while we were cluttered up with ancient memories and traditions. And yet perhaps it is not inconceivable that if Britain had not undertaken this great burden in India and, as she tells us, endeavored for so long to teach us the difficult art of self-government, of which we had been so ignorant, India might not only have been freer and more prosperous, but also far more advanced in science and art and all that makes life worth living.”
I was really touched by this longing for things to have been different, for India not to be subjugated, for her to be free of colonialism, and become prosperous. This longing was shared, I am sure, by many people born in pre-independence India who strived for her freedom, and who in their passing have left their dreams for us to live. 59 years since our independence from British colonialism, I wonder if we are living this dream of a free-India, striving for prosperity and happiness of our people. Or have we long abandoned them, stashed away at the bottom of our bourgeois existence.