Great Speeches of Modern India

Rudranghsu Mukherjee

Description

The Great Speeches of Modern India tells the story of modern India through its speeches. Here are all the classics from Tilak, Gandhi, Nehru, Tagore, Ambedkar, L.K. Advani, Manmohan Singh, Indira Gandhi, and here are also some rare speeches-Satyajit Ray on cinema, Vikram Seth on his school days and Godse's defence of his assassination of Gandhi. Stimulating, informative, and full of rare gems, The Great Speeches of Modern India is a must on every bookshelf.

Sujets

• Histoire
• Humanities
• History

Informations

• Publié par: Random House Publishers India Pvt. Ltd.
• Date de parution: 01 octobre 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9788184002348
• Langue: English

Extrait

By the same author
Awadh in Revolt, 1857-58: A Study of Popular Resistance
Spectre of Violence: The 1857 Kanpur Massacres
Mangal Pandey: Brave Martyr or Accidental Hero?
The Penguin Gandhi Reader (editor)
India: Then and Now (co-author)
Trade and Politics in the Indian Ocean World: Essays in Honour
of Ashin Das Gupta (co-editor)
RANDOM HOUSE INDIA
Published by Random House India in 2011
Introduction and introductory notes Rudrangshu Mukherjee 2007
Introductory notes to speeches by Mani Shankar Aiyar,
Andr B teille, Somnath Chatterjee, Khan Abdul Gaffar Khan
and Aruna Roy Rudrangshu Mukherjee 2011
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EPUB ISBN 9788184002348
For
Shobita
To talk and laugh, and to do each other kindnesses; to read pleasant books together; to pass from lightest jesting to talk of deepest things and back again: to differ without rancour, to teach each other and to learn from each other; these proceeding from our hearts as we gave affection and received it back, and shown by face, by voice, by the eyes, and by a thousand other pleasing ways, kindled a flame.
Contents
Introduction
Part One 1880s-1947
1. The opening of the Indian National Congress (1885) WOMESH CHANDRA BONERJEE 2. One country, two nations (1888) SYED AHMED KHAN 3. On the inauguration of the Muslim League (1906) MUSHTAQ HUSSAIN 4. On conserving ancient monuments (1900) LORD CURZON 5. Game preservation in India (1901) LORD CURZON 6. Sisters and brothers of America (1893) SWAMI VIVEKANANDA 7. How and why I adopted the Hindu religion (1902) SISTER NIVEDITA (1867-1911) 8. At Benares Hindu University (1916) MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI 9. Freedom is my birthright (1917) BAL GANGADHAR TILAK 10. The trial speech (1922) MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI 11. The dangerous cult of absolute non-violence (1940) V.D. SAVARKAR 12. Purna Swaraj (1929) JAWAHARLAL NEHRU 13. At the second Round Table Conference (1931) MOHANDAS KARAMCHAND GANDHI 14. The Muslims of India (1930) MUHAMMAD IQBAL 15. The death of God (1933) M. SINGARAVELU 16. Crisis of civilization (1941) RABINDRANATH TAGORE 17. Give me blood and I promise you freedom! (1944) SUBHAS CHANDRA BOSE 18. The great Calcutta killings (1946) SHYAMAPROSAD MOOKERJEA 19. Opening address to the Constituent Assembly of Pakistan (1947) MUHAMMAD ALI JINNAH 20. The dawn of freedom (1947) SARVEPALLI RADHAKRISHNAN 21. Tryst with destiny (1947) JAWAHARLAL NEHRU
Part Two 1947-2007
22. The light has gone out (1948) JAWAHARLAL NEHRU 23. My father, do not rest (1948) SAROJINI NAIDU 24. Why I killed Gandhi (1949) NATHURAM GODSE 25. Closing speech of the first Constituent Assembly of India (1949) B.R. AMBEDKAR 26. Temples of the new age (1954) JAWAHARLAL NEHRU 27. Power (Calcutta, November 1954) S.N. BOSE 28. On the Five-Year Plans (1955) JAWAHARLAL NEHRU 29. The Hindu Code Bill (1955) J.B. KRIPALANI 30. The Kashmir issue (1952) SHYAMAPROSAD MOOKERJEA 31. Tibet (1959) ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE 32. A myth (1968) J.R.D. TATA 33. The presidential system (1968) J.R.D. TATA 34. Importance of NGOs (1969) JAYAPRAKASH NARAYAN 35. I have come to serve you (1969) KHAN ABDUL GHAFFAR KHAN 36. Tragedy in Bangladesh (1971) INDIRA GANDHI 37. Proclamation of Emergency (1975) INDIRA GANDHI 38. Speech in the Lok Sabha on the President s address (1976) SOMNATH CHATTERJEE 39. The education of a filmmaker (1982) SATYAJIT RAY 40. Lowering the voting age to eighteen (1988) RAJIV GANDHI 41. Panchayati raj (1989) RAJIV GANDHI 42. Present economic situation (1991) MANMOHAN SINGH 43. The future of Indo-US relations (1994) P.V. NARASIMHA RAO 44. Why Ayodhya is a setback (1992) L.K. ADVANI 45. The fatwa (1993) SALMAN RUSHDIE 46. Survival and Right to Information (1996) ARUNA ROY 47. On Founder s Day (1992) VIKRAM SETH 48. Doon School Founder s Day address (2007) MANI SHANKAR AIYAR 49. Our culture, their culture (1995) AMARTYA SEN 50. Renunciation (2004) SONIA GANDHI 51. On Jinnah (2005) L.K. ADVANI 52. In Lahore (1999) ATAL BIHARI VAJPAYEE 53. The viable university (2010) ANDR B TEILLE 54. Rekindling a spark of enthusiasm (1982) J.R.D. TATA
Sources
Acknowledgements
Preface to the Paperback Edition
The fact that this book is going in for a paperback edition is ample proof that people are interested in reading speeches. One reason for this is that the text of a speech helps to capture a slice of history even though the speech-making aspects are lost in the written word. For this edition, I have corrected a few errors that were brought to my notice. More importantly, I have added five more speeches to the original. Two out of the five that have been added are previously unpublished and I am deeply grateful to Aruna Roy and Mani Shankar Aiyar for allowing me to read these speeches and for the permission to print them.
October 2010
Rudrangshu Mukherjee
Introduction
For last year s words belong to last year s language
And next year s words await another voice
Since our concern was speech, and speech impelled us
To purify the dialect of the tribe
And urge the mind to aftersight and foresight
T.S. Eliot, Little Gidding
Speeches are meant to be spoken-and heard. For this reason, a speech is fundamentally different from other forms of written text, for it is not simply dependent on the words alone-though they are the vital components of a good speech-but on certain other skills to do with voice and even gesture. A good orator brings to a speech something more persuasive and moving than the power of the written word and these qualities often prove to be ephemeral, losing something of themselves in printed form. But there are certain speeches that retain their emotive charge. Think of Abraham Lincoln s Gettysburg address and those words- government of the people, by the people and for the people -which have become the most quoted definition of democracy. Or think of Winston Churchill s memorable speeches during the Second World War. At the time they were made, Churchill s speeches roused the British people and sustained their morale during their darkest hour. Even today, they make stirring reading and so many of the phrases and sentences that he used have become part of the English language. This book brings together some of the speeches made in India, from the end of the nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first, which retain their power as written texts.
One reason these speeches speak to us across time and without the oratorical skills of their authors is that most of them were actually written up before they were delivered. There are exceptions, of course. Witness the speech that Jawaharlal Nehru made in the evening of January 30, 1948, immediately after Mahatma Gandhi s assassination. He was totally unprepared but his heart dictated the right words. It was one of the great impromptu speeches of modern Indian history. But for most of the speeches in this collection, the words were carefully chosen and the cadences of sentences measured to achieve maximum effect. The most famous example of this is another of Nehru s speeches, the one he made at midnight August 14-15, 1947. The phrase, tryst with destiny , which Nehru coined has earned for itself an undying quality.
There are some speeches, however, that have a charge not because of their language but because of the sheer enormity of the occasion on which they were made. The speech made in 1885 by W.C. Bonerjee, as the first president of the Indian National Congress on its opening session is enshrined in India s historical memory. Similarly, Indira Gandhi s short and severe announcement in June 1975-that India has been put under Emergency-is a speech that stands as a reminder of the only period in which democracy was suspended in independent India. In these cases the occasion made history; the speech is an expression of the making.
The finest speeches in this anthology marry style and context: they are beautiful and capture a mood or a moment of history. A good example is the statement Mahatma Gandhi made from the dock at his trial in 1923. It was a speech made in court and Gandhi did not allow his passion to overrun the restraint that the location naturally imposed on him. Even today the speech can be read as a perfect summary of Gandhi s creed of non-violence. But there are also a few speeches which have been included in the anthology simply because they read so well. I didn t have to include the final speech in this anthology-made by J.R.D. Tata on the occasion of his solo flight from Karachi to Bombay in 1982-but have done so because of its great charm, style and poignancy. Here is a sprightly seventy-eight year old admonishing the younger generation for being too preoccupied with their careers and hoping that when they are seventy-eight they will feel like I do, that despite all the difficulties, all the frustrations, there is a joy in having done something as well as you could and better than others thought you could.
This book is split into two sections with August 15, 1947, acting as the dividing line. The first part begins in the late nineteenth century and ends with India s independence. The second includes speeches made after independence right up to present times. Within these two broad divisions, the chronological sequence has been broken and the speech