My dear friends, you want me to talk to you
in English. I shall obey your command; but take it from me that it will not
be long before you yourselves will have to speak in our national
language. If you do not do that, you will drag the country backward. We
have to exert our maximum effort to go forward. Unless you do that, I am
afraid you will suffer. After a prolonged struggle, the country has secured
freedom, but it is not freedom of the kind that we wanted. It
is not freedom of the kind that the deliverer of the country expected,
and to our shame we have to confess that by our folly we have lost120 him. Now after his going, we must do penance
and try our best to deserve the freedom that he obtained140 for us. Free India is only a child of a year
and a half. It has yet to learn to160 walk. It has to grow, to be strong, and its future depends upon how
we build today. Therefore, we have to nurse it carefully; we have to feed,
clothe and strengthen it properly. It is our good fortune that we have
here a rare opportunity to build our own country in our own fashion.
History will record what we are doing today. The first requisite for building a
strong India is unity and peace. If there is no unity in240 the country, it is bound to go down. Therefore, we
must, first of all, adjust our differences and behave in such a manner that
there is complete harmony and peace in the country. You cannot expect the
Government continuously to280 maintain peace by force. It would be an evil day when in
this country the Government has to use repressive measures permanently.
Today we are passing through a period of crisis and our young men have, in
their impatience, not320 realized that the freedom which has been obtained with great
difficulty is likely to be lost or likely to give no benefit, if we do not
appreciate that our present duty is to unite and consolidate our freedom. We lost360 our leader because we forgot the very
first lesson. If we do not realize even after his going that in unity lies
our strength, then greater misfortune will befall us. For unity, we must
forget differences of caste and creed and remember that we are all
Indians, and all equal. There can be no distinction between man and man
in420 a free country. All must have equal opportunities, equal rights and
equal responsibilities. This is difficult for achievement in practice,
but we must continuously strive towards that end.
There is one other thing that we have
to do to maintain peace and order in this country. For a few years at
least, till we are able to stand on our480 own legs, we must forget that we can every now and then
threaten the Government. We cannot function if the Government is to be
challenged day after day by groups of people who want to have their own
way. What they want may be very good according to their own honest
thinking; but Mahatma Gandhi has put before us the ideal of obtaining what we
want by peaceful methods and through truth and non-violence. If people
begin to threaten and560 challenge Government’s authority and try to overthrow it to gain
their objectives by force, the latter would not be able to do anything
constructive. Forces are existing in this country which would create chaos
and disorder, which would weaken the600 country instead of strengthening it.
We in the Government have been dealing with
the RSS movement. They want that Hindu Rajya or Hindu culture should be imposed
by force. No Government can tolerate this. There are almost as many Muslims640 in this country as in the part that has
been partitioned away. We are not going to drive them away. It
would be an evil day if we started that game, in spite of partition
and whatever happens. We must understand that they are going to stay here and
it is our obligation and our responsibility to make them feel700 that this is their country. On the
other hand, it is their responsibility to discharge their duties as
citizens of720 this country. We must all understand that partition is behind us. It has to
come to stay. I honestly believe that it is good for both the new
nations to be rid of a perpetual source of trouble and quarrels. In two hundred
years of slavery, the administration created a situation in which we began to
drift away from each other. It is good that we have agreed to
partition in spite of all its evils; I have never repented800 my agreeing to partition. From the
experience of one year of joint administration when we have not agreed
to partition, I know we would have erred grievously and repented
if we had not agreed. It would have resulted in a840 partition not into two countries but into
several bits. Therefore, whatever some people may say, I am convinced
that our having agreed to partition has been for the good of the country.
The days of the Indian Civil Service of
the old style are going to be over and in its place we have
brought into being the All India Administrative Service. The change is
both significant and epoch-making. In the first place, it is an unmistakable
symptom of the transfer of power which is taking place from foreign to
Indian hands. Secondly, it marks the inauguration of the All India Service
officered entirely by Indians and subjected completely to Indian control. Thirdly,
the Service will now be free to960 adopt its true role of national service without being restricted by
traditions and habits of the past. I have dwelt980 on the significance of this change mainly in order to
bring home to the minds of the probationers particularly, and to
the outside world incidentally, that the days when the Service could be masters
are over and the officers must be guided by a real spirit of
service in their day-to-day administration, for in no other
manner can they fit the scheme of things. Perhaps you are aware of a saying which is
current in India regarding the past civil service, which is known as
the Indian Civil Service, that it is neither
Indian, nor civil, nor infused with any1080
spirit of service. In a true sense, it is not Indian because the Indian civil
servants are mostly anglicized, their training was in foreign lands,
and they had to serve foreign masters. Therefore, in effect, the whole Service
was known1120 not to be Indian nor to be civil, nor infused with any spirit of
service, and yet it was known as the Indian Civil Service. The thing is
now going to change. To some extent all of you who are undergoing instruction in
this School, are more fortunate than your predecessors. Your
predecessors had to serve as agents of an alien rule and, even against their
better judgment, had sometimes to execute the bidding of their foreign
employers. You will1200 have the
satisfaction that whatever you do, you will be doing under the orders of
your own fellow Indians. Your predecessors were brought up in the
traditions in which they felt out of touch and kept themselves aloof from the
common run of the people. It will be your bounden duty to
treat the common men in India as your1260 own and to feel yourself to be one of them and amongst them, and you
will have to learn not1280 to despise or to disregard them. In other words, you will
have to adopt yourselves to democratic
ways of administration.
Almost all of you have had service in the Army,
and therefore, it should not be necessary for me to stress the
need of discipline in your ranks in whatever
capacity you may be serving India. Along with discipline, you must
cultivate the group spirit without which a Service as such has little
meaning. You should regard it as a proud privilege to belong to the Service and
to uphold throughout your service, its dignity, integrity and incorruptibility. You would do well to examine the conditions which
prevail in India today. The real task in India has just begun.
1400 For the time being
there is a transition to the highest stature of independence. The difficulties
of a transitional period have, therefore, been superimposed over
those of the post-war problems. In these circumstances, we have a right to
expect the1440 best out of every civil servant in India, in whatever position of
responsibility he or she may be. It is not for you to approach you task
from a purely mercenary angle or entirely from
self-interest, howsoever enlightened it may be. Your foremost
consideration must be how best to contribute to the well-being of India as
a whole. You can trust the Government to keep you content and happy so that you
may give your best, but it would be unworthy of you to make that a condition
of service. After all, your Ministers fully appreciate and realize the
importance of your work. They may sometimes appear to you as lacking in
sympathy, but I do not think there is anyone in the highest responsible
positions in India who does not feel that he must take the Service with
him if he has to make the maximum possible contribution to the
well-being of India. 1594
