The Great Speeches of Modern India

by Rudrangshu Mukherjee

  The general effect of these restrictions has been in the right direction. But I doubt if they have been sufficiently co-ordinated, or if they have gone far enough; and one of my last acts at Simla, before I had received or read your memorial, was to invite a re-examination of the subject with the view of deciding whether we might proceed somewhat farther than we have already done. We must be very careful not to devise any too stereotyped or Procrustean form of procedure; since there is probably no matter in which a greater variety of conditions and necessities prevails; and the rules or precautions which would be useful in one place might be positively harmful in another. Among the suggestions which will occur to all of us as deserving of consideration are some greater restriction, by the charge of fees or otherwise, upon the issue of gun licences, the more strict enforcement of a close season for certain animals, the prohibition of the possession or sale of flesh during the breeding season, penalties upon netting and snaring during the same period, restrictions of the facilities given to strangers to shoot unlimited amounts of game, and upon the sale and export of trophies and skins. I dare say that many other ideas will occur to us in the discussion of the matter, or may be put forward in the press and elsewhere by those who are qualified to advise. My own idea would be, if possible, to frame some kind of legislation of a permissive and elastic nature, the provisions of which should be applied to the various provinces of India in so far only as they were adapted to the local conditions. The question of native states somewhat complicates the matter. But I doubt not that the government would, where required, meet with the willing cooperation of the chiefs, many of whom are keen and enthusiastic patrons both of animal life and of sport. The subject is not one that can be hastily taken up or quickly decided, but I have probably said enough to show you that I personally am in close sympathy with your aims, and I need hardly add that, if the Government of India finds itself able, after further study, to proceed with the matter, an opportunity will be given to those who are interested in each province to record their opinions.

  Sisters and brothers of America (Chicago, September 1893)

  SWAMI VIVEKANANDA (1863–1902)

  Swami Vivekananda was an unknown young monk when he travelled to America to attend the Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893. The occasion was historic as it was the first time that so many representatives of all the major religions had gathered together in one place. Vivekananda spoke on the opening day, September 11, and simply mesmerized his audience. His appearance there is best described in a letter he wrote two months after the event. ‘There was a grand procession, and we were all marshalled on to the platform. Imagine a hall below and a huge gallery above, packed with six or seven thousand men and women… And I, who never spoke in public in my life, to address this august assemblage!!… Of course my heart was fl uttering and my tongue nearly dried up; I was so nervous and could not venture to speak in the morning…They were all prepared and came with ready-made speeches. I was a fool and had none, but bowed down to Devi Sarasvati and stepped up. I made a short speech. I addressed the assembly as “Sisters and brothers of America”, a deafening applause of two minutes followed, and then I proceeded, and when it was finished, I sat down, almost exhausted with emotion.’ The news of Vivekananda’s speech and its reception, once it reached India, caused a stir. Jawaharlal Nehru was to write in The Discovery of India that Vivekananda ‘came as a tonic to the depressed and demoralized Hindu mind and gave it self-reliance and some roots in the past.’

  Sisters and brothers of America,

  It fills my heart with joy unspeakable to rise in response to the warm and cordial welcome which you have given us. I thank you in the name of the most ancient order of monks in the world; I thank you in the name of the mother of religions; and I thank you in the name of the millions and millions of Hindu people of all classes and sects.

  My thanks, also, to some of the speakers on this platform who, referring to the delegates from the Orient, have told you that these men from far-off nations may well claim the honour of bearing to different lands the idea of toleration. I am proud to belong to a religion which has taught the world both tolerance and universal acceptance. We believe not only in universal toleration, but we accept all religions as true. I am proud to belong to a nation which has sheltered the persecuted and the refugees of all religions and all nations of the earth. I am proud to tell you that we have gathered in our bosom the purest remnant of the Israelites, who came to the southern India and took refuge with us in the very year in which their holy temple was shattered to pieces by Roman tyranny. I am proud to belong to the religion which has sheltered and is still fostering the remnant of the grand Zoroastrian nation. I will quote to you, brethren, a few lines from a hymn which I remember to have repeated from my earliest boyhood, which is every day repeated by millions of human beings:

  ‘As the different streams having their sources in different places all mingle their water in the sea, so, O Lord, the different paths which men take through different tendencies, various thougb they appear, crooked or straight, all lead to Thee.’

  The present convention, which is one of the most august assemblies ever held, is in itself a vindication, a declaration to the world, of the wonderful doctrine preached in the Gita:

  ‘Whosoever comes to Me, through whatsoever form, I reach him; all men are struggling through paths which in the end lead to Me.’

  Sectarianism, bigotry, and its horrible descendant, fanaticism, have long possessed this beautiful earth. They have filled the earth with violence, drenched it often and often with human blood, destroyed civilization, and sent whole nations to despair. Had it not been for these horrible demons, human society would be far more advanced than it is now. But their time has come; and I fervently hope that the bell that tolled this morning in honour of this convention may be the death-knell of all fanaticism, of all persecutions with the sword or with the pen, and of all uncharitable feelings between persons wending their way to the same goal.

  How and why I adopted the Hindu religion (Bombay, October 1902)

  SISTER NIVEDITA (1867–1911)

  Sister Nivedita, who was born Margaret Noble, came to India inspired by Swami Vivekananda. She devoted herself to the cause of education of women and to Hinduism. On October 2, 1902, she was invited to speak to the Hindu Ladies’ Social Club in Bombay. The organizers had requested her to speak on ‘The Virtues of Indian Womanhood’. Sister Nivedita met the members of the audience before her talk and decided to change the subject of her speech. In her own words, ‘at the sight of the large assemblages of Hindu ladies, I feel it would be presumption on my part to speak to you on the subject because Indian womanhood is better understood and practised by each and everyone of you than by me.’ She was requested, instead, to speak on what induced her to change her religion. This speech was the account of her conversion to Hinduism. Many of the values about Indian womanhood that Sister Nivedita upheld are utterly unacceptable today but the speech is an unusual one as it provides a moving account of an Englishwoman’s conversion to Hinduism.

  I am a born and bred Englishwoman and unto the age of eighteen, I was trained and educated as English girls are. Christian religious doctrines were of course early instilled into me. I was even from my girlhood inclined to venerate all religious teachings and I devotedly worshipped the child Jesus and loved Him with my whole heart for the self-sacrifices He always willingly underwent, while I felt I could not worship Him enough for His crucifying Himself to bestow salvation on the human race. But after the age of eighteen, I began to harbour doubts as to the truth of the Christian doctrines. Many of them began to seem to me false and incompatible with truth. These doubts grew stronger and stronger and at the same time my faith in Christianity tottered more and more. For seven years I was in this wavering state of mind, very unhappy, and yet, very very eager to seek the Truth. I shunned going to Church and yet sometimes my longing to bring restfulness to my spirit impelled me to rush into Church and be absorbed in the service t
o feel at peace within, as I had hitherto done, and as others around me were doing. But alas! No peace, no rest was there for my troubled soul all eager to know the truth.

  During the seven years of wavering it occurred to me that in the study of natural science I should surely find the truth I was seeking. So, ardently I began to study how this world was created and all things in it and I discovered that in the laws of Nature at least there was consistency, but it made the doctrines of the Christian religion seem all the more inconsistent. Just then I happened to get a life of Buddha and in it I found that here, alas, also was there a child who lived ever so many centuries before the child Christ, but whose sacrifices were no less self-abnegating than those of the other. This dear child Gautama took a strong hold on me and for three more years I plunged myself into the study of the religion of Buddha; and I became more and more convinced that the salvation he preached was decidedly more consistent with the truth than the preachings of the Christian religion.

  And now came the turning point for my faith. A cousin of your great Viceroy Lord Ripon invited me to have tea with him and to meet there a great Swami from India who, he said, might perhaps help the search my soul was longing for. The Swami I met here was none other than Swami Vivekananda who afterwards became my Guru and whose teachings have given relief my doubting spirit had been longing for so long. Yet it was not during one visit or two that my doubts were dispelled. Oh no! I had several warm discussions with him and I pondered on his teachings for more than a year. Then he asked me to visit India, to see the Yogis and to study the subject in the very country of its birth, and I found, at last, a faith I could lean upon and obtain my Mukti through the uplifting of the spirit till it is merged into Ananda. Now I have told you how and why I have adopted this religion of yours. If you care to hear more, I would gladly go on.

  I love India as the birth place of the highest and best of all religions; as the country that has the grandest mountains, the Himalayas; as the place where the sublimest of mountains are located. The country where the homes are simple; where domestic happiness is most to be found; where the woman unselfishly, unobtrusively, ungrudgingly, serves the dear ones from early morn to dewy eve; where the mother and the grandmother studies, foresees and contributes to the comfort of her belongings, regardless of her own happiness, and in the unselfishness raises womanhood to its highest eminence.

  You, my sisters, each of whom I dearly love for being the daughter of this lovely land of India, each of you I urge to study the grand literatures of your East in preference to the literatures of theWest. Your literature will uplift you. Cling to it. Cling to the simplicity and sobriety of your domestic lives. Keep its purity as it was in the ancient times and as it is still existing in your simple homes.

  Do not let modern fashions and extravagances of the West and its modern English education spoil your reverential humility, your lovable domestic ties consisting in the loving forethought the elders display for the beloved ones, depending on them, and the resulting respectful deference filially and dutifully accorded by the young to the aged. I make this appeal not to my Hindu sisters only but also to Mohammedan and other sisters of mine too. All are my sisters being the daughters of my land of adoption and where I hope to continue the work of my revered Guru Vivekananda.

  At Benares Hindu University (Benares, February 1916)

  MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI (1869–1948)

  Mahatma Gandhi was invited to speak at the opening of the Benares Hindu University in February 1916. It was around the same time that his vow not to express views on the Indian political situation came to an end. He arrived in Benares to find that the place was under siege. Lord Hardinge, the Viceroy, was in the city to lay the foundation stone of the university, and every house on his route was guarded. At the function, on the dais many eminent personalities were seated including Annie Besant and a galaxy of princes dressed in their finery. Gandhi, in contrast, was clad in a short coarse dhoti, a Kathiawadi cloak and turban. Gandhi’s words, directed to the youth in the audience, shocked many and he was repeatedly interrupted by persons sitting on the dais (Annie Besant’s interruptions are noted in the text). The clamour on the dais was so great that the president left, and Gandhi was unable to finish his speech. He later wrote to a friend, ‘I have seen audiences going away from boredom; I have seen speakers made to sit down; but I have never seen the president himself abandon the meeting.’ Among the many who were struck by the speech, two individuals deserve special mention because of their lifelong devotion to Gandhi—G.D. Birla, then a young businessman, and Vinoba Bhave, a twenty-one-year-old student, later to become an eminent Gandhian. It was Gandhi’s forthrightness that affected his listeners so greatly; very rarely had anyone spoken with his directness and simplicity in Indian public life. Nehru described his effect aptly when he wrote, ‘and then Gandhi came…like a powerful current of fresh air…like a whirlwind that upset many things but most of all the working of people’s minds.’

  I wish to tender my humble apology for the long delay that took place before I was able to reach this place. And you will readily accept the apology when I tell you that I am not responsible for the delay nor is any human agency responsible for it. The fact is that I am like an animal on show, and my keepers in their over kindness always manage to neglect a necessary chapter in this life, and, that is, pure accident. In this case, they did not provide for the series of accidents that happened to us—to me, keepers, and my carriers. Hence this delay.

  Friends, under the influence of the matchless eloquence of Mrs Besant who has just sat down, pray, do not believe that our University has become a finished product, and that all the young men who are to come to the University, that has yet to rise and come into existence, have also come and returned from it finished citizens of a great empire. Do not go away with any such impression, and if you, the student world to which my remarks are supposed to be addressed this evening, consider for one moment that the spiritual life, for which this country is noted and for which this country has no rival, can be transmitted through the lip, pray, believe me, you are wrong. You will never be able merely through the lip, to give the message that India, I hope, will one day deliver to the world. I myself have been fed up with speeches and lectures. I accept the lectures that have been delivered here during the last two days from this category, because they are necessary. But I do venture to suggest to you that we have now reached almost the end of our resources in speech-making; it is not enough that our ears are feasted, that our eyes are feasted, but it is necessary that our hearts have got to be touched and that our hands and feet have got to be moved.

  We have been told during the last two days how necessary it is, if we are to retain our hold upon the simplicity of Indian character, that our hands and feet should move in unison with our hearts. But this is only by way of preface. I wanted to say it is a matter of deep humiliation and shame for us that I am compelled this evening under the shadow of this great college, in this sacred city, to address my countrymen in a language that is foreign to me. I know that if I was appointed an examiner, to examine all those who have been attending during these two days this series of lectures, most of those who might be examined upon these lectures would fail. And why? Because they have not been touched.

  I was present at the sessions of the great Congress in the month of December. There was a much vaster audience, and will you believe me when I tell you that the only speeches that touched the huge audience in Bombay were the speeches that were delivered in Hindustani? In Bombay, mind you, not in Benaras where everybody speaks Hindi. But between the vernaculars of the Bombay Presidency on the one hand and Hindi on the other, no such great dividing line exists as there does between English and the sister language of India; and the Congress audience was better able to follow the speakers in Hindi. I am hoping that this University will see to it that the youths who come to it will receive their instruction through the medium of their vernaculars. Our languages are the reflection of ourselves, and if you tell
me that our languages are too poor to express the best thought, then say that the sooner we are wiped out of existence the better for us. Is there a man who dreams that English can ever become the national language of India? Why this handicap on the nation? Just consider for one moment what an equal race our lads have to run with every English lad.

  I had the privilege of a close conversation with some Poona professors. They assured me that every Indian youth, because he reached his knowledge through the English language, lost at least six precious years of life. Multiply that by the numbers of students turned out by our schools and colleges, and find out for yourselves how many thousand years have been lost to the nation. The charge against us is that we have no initiative. How can we have any, if we are to devote the precious years of our life to the mastery of a foreign tongue? We fail in this attempt also. Was it possible for any speaker yesterday and today to impress his audience as was possible for Mr Higginbotham? It was not the fault of the previous speakers that they could not engage the audience. They had more than substance enough for us in their addresses. But their addresses could not go home to us. I have heard it said that after all it is English educated India which is leading and which is doing all the things for the nation. It would be monstrous if it were otherwise. The only education we receive is English education. Surely we must show something for it. But suppose that we had been receiving during the past fifty years’ education through our vernaculars, what should we have today? We should have today a free India, we should have our educated men, not as if they were foreigners in their own land but speaking to the heart of the nation; they would be working amongst the poorest of the poor, and whatever they would have gained during these fifty years would be a heritage for the nation. Today even our wives are not the sharers in our best thought. Look at Professor Bose and Professor Ray and their brilliant researches. Is it not a shame that their researches are not the common property of the masses?