'India may be new to world politics and her military strength insignificant in comparison with that of the giants of our epoch.'
'But India is old in thought and experience and has travelled through trackless centuries in the adventure of life.'
'Throughout her long history she has stood for peace and every prayer that an Indian raises, ends with an invocation to peace.'
Jawaharlal Nehru's memorable speech to the United States Congress:
On June 8, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will address a joint session of the United States Congress.
Modi will be the 6th -- and not as commonly believed, the 5th -- Indian prime minister to be accorded this honour.
Thirty-six years before his grandson Rajiv Gandhi spoke to Congress -- a speech that began the process of transformation of India-US relations -- India's first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru addressed the US House of Representatives and the US Senate.
Nehru -- inarguably the most brilliant man to occupy the prime minister's office -- delivered an expectedly elegant speech on October 13, 1949 at the Ways and Means Hearing Room, Longworth House, just south of the US Capitol, which was under renovation at the time.
Jawaharlal Nehru's Voyage of Discovery speech -- the first speech by an Indian prime minister to the US Congress, October 13, 1949:
I have come to this country to learn something of your great achievements.
I have come also to convey the greetings of my people, and in the hope that my visit may help to create a greater understanding between our respective peoples, and those strong, and sometimes invisible links, stronger even than physical links, that bind countries together.
The President referred the day before yesterday, in language of significance, to my visit as a voyage of discovery of America. The United States of America is not an unknown country, even in far-off India and many of us have grown up in admiration of the ideals and objectives which have made this country great.
Yet, though we may know the history and something of the culture of our respective countries, what is required is a true understanding and appreciation of each other even where we differ. Out of that understanding grows fruitful co-operation in the pursuit of common ideals. What the world today lacks most is, perhaps, understanding and appreciation of one another among nations and people.
I have come here, therefore, on a voyage of discovery of the mind and heart of America and to place before you our own mind and heart. Thus, we may promote that understanding and co-operation which, I feel sure, both our countries earnestly desire. Already I have received a welcome here, the generous warmth of which has created a deep impression on my mind and, indeed, somewhat overwhelmed me.
During the last two days that I have been in Washington I have paid visits to the memorials of the great builders of this nation. I have done so not for the sake of mere formality, but because they have long been enshrined in my heart and their example has inspired me, as it has inspired innumerable countrymen of mine.
These memorials are the real temples to which each generation must pay tribute and, in doing so, must catch something of the fire that burned in the hearts of those who were the torchbearers of freedom, not only for this country but for the world; for those who are truly great have a message that cannot be confined within a particular country but is for all the world.
In India, there came a man in our own generation, who inspired us to great endeavour, ever reminding us that thought and action should never be divorced from moral principle, that the true path of man is the path of truth and peace. Under his guidance, we laboured for the freedom of our country, with ill will to none and achieved that freedom. We called him reverently and affectionately the Father of our Nation.
Yet he was too great for the circumscribed borders of any one country and the message he gave may well help us in considering the wider problems of the world.
The United States of America has struggled to freedom and unparalleled prosperity during the past century and a half and today it is a great and powerful nation. It has an amazing record of growth in material well-being and scientific and technological advance. It could not have accomplished this unless America had been anchored in the great principles laid down in the early days of her history, for material progress cannot go far or last long unless it has its foundations in moral principles and high ideals.
Those principles and ideals are enshrined in your Declaration of Independence, which lays down as a self-evident truth that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It may interest you to know that, in drafting the Constitution of the Republic of India, we have been greatly influenced by your own Constitution. The preamble of our Constitution states:
We, the people of India, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a Sovereign Democratic Republic and to secure to all its citizens:
Justice, social, economic and political;
Liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;
Equality of status and of opportunity; and to promote among them all Fraternity assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity of the Nation;
In our Constituent Assembly do hereby adopt, enact and give to ourselves this Constitution.
You will recognize in these words, that I have quoted, an echo of the great voices of the founders of your Republic. You will see that though India may speak to you in a voice that you may not immediately recognize, or that may perhaps appear somewhat alien to you, yet that voice somewhat strongly resembles what you have often heard before.
Yet, it is true that India's voice is somewhat different; it is not the voice of the old world of Europe but of the older world of Asia. It is the voice of an ancient civilization, distinctive, vital, which, at the same time, has renewed itself and learned much from you and the other countries of the West. It is, therefore, both old and new. It has its roots deep in the past but it also has the dynamic urge of today.
But however the voices of India and the United States may appear to differ, there is much in common between them.
Like you, we have achieved our freedom through a revolution, though our methods were different from yours.
Like you we shall be a republic based on the federal principle, which is an outstanding contribution of the founders of this great Republic. In a vast country like India, as in this great Republic of the United States, it becomes necessary to have a delicate balance between central control and State autonomy.
We have placed in the forefront of our Constitution those fundamental human rights to which all men who love liberty, equality and progress aspire -- the freedom of the individual, the equality of men and the rule of law. We enter, therefore, the community of free nations with the roots of democracy deeply embedded in our institutions as well as in the thoughts of our people.
We have achieved political freedom, but our revolution is not yet complete and is still in progress, for political freedom without the assurance of the right to live and to pursue happiness, which economic progress alone can bring, can never satisfy a people.
Therefore, our immediate task is to raise the living standards of our people, to remove all that comes in the way of the economic growth of the nation. We have tackled the major problem of India, as it is today the major problem of Asia, the agrarian problem. Much that was feudal in our system of land tenure is being changed so that the fruits of cultivation should go to the tiller of the soil and that he may be secure in the possession of the land he cultivates. In a country of which agriculture is still the principal industry, this reform is essential not only for the well-being and contentment of the individual but also for the stability of society.
One of the main causes of social instability in many parts of the world, more especially in Asia, is agrarian discontent, due to the continuance of systems of land tenure which are completely out of place in the modern world.
Another -- and one which is also true of the greater part of Asia and Africa -- is the low standard of living of the masses.
India is industrially more developed than many less fortunate countries and is reckoned as the seventh or eighth among the world's industrial nations. But this arithmetical distinction cannot conceal the poverty of the great majority of our people. To remove this poverty by greater production, more equitable distribution, better education and better health, is the paramount need and the most pressing task before us and we are determined to accomplish this task.
We realise that self-help is the first condition of success for a nation, no less than for an individual. We are conscious that ours must be the primary effort and we shall seek succour from none to escape from any part of our own responsibility. But though our economic potential is great, its conversion into finished wealth will need much mechanical and technological aid.
We shall, therefore, gladly welcome such aid and cooperation on terms that are of mutual benefit. We believe that this may well help in the solution of the larger problems that confront the world. But we do not seek any material advantage in exchange for any part of our hard-won freedom.
The objectives of our foreign policy are the preservation of world peace and enlargement of human freedom.
Two tragic wars have demonstrated the futility of warfare. Victory, without the will to peace, achieves no lasting result and victor and vanquished alike suffer from deep and grievous wounds and a common fear of the future. May I venture to say that this is not an incorrect description of the world of today?
It is not flattering either to man's reason or to our common humanity.
Must this unhappy state persist and the power of science and wealth continue to be harnessed to the service of destruction? Every nation, great or small, has to answer this question and the greater a nation, the greater is its responsibility to find and to work for the right answer.
India may be new to world politics and her military strength insignificant in comparison with that of the giants of our epoch. But India is old in thought and experience and has travelled through trackless centuries in the adventure of life.
Throughout her long history she has stood for peace and every prayer that an Indian raises, ends with an invocation to peace.
It was out of this ancient and yet young India that Mahatma Gandhi arose and he taught us a technique of action that was peaceful; yet it was effective and yielded results that led us not only to freedom but to friendship with those with whom we were, till yesterday, in conflict.
How far can that principle be applied to wider spheres of action? I do not know, for circumstances differ and the means to prevent evil have to be shaped and set to the nature of the evil.
Yet I have no doubt that the basic approach which lay behind that technique of action was the right approach in human affairs and the only approach that ulti;mately solves a problem satisfactorily. We have to achieve freedom and to defend it. We have to meet aggression and to resist it and the force employed must be adequate to the purpose.
But even when preparing to resist aggression, the ultimate objective, the objective of peace and reconciliation, must never be lost sight of, and heart and mind must be attuned to this supreme aim and not swayed or clouded by hatred or fear.
This is the basis and the goal of our foreign policy. We are neither blind to reality nor do we propose to acquiesce in any challenge to man's freedom from whatever quarter it may come. Where freedom is menaced or justice threatened or where aggression takes place, we cannot be, and shall not be neutral.
What we plead for and endeavour to practice in our own imperfect way is a binding faith in peace and an unfailing endeavour of thought and action to ensure it.
The great democracy of the United States of America will, I feel sure, understand and appreciate our approach to life's problems because it could not have any other aim or a different ideal. Friendship and co-operation between our two countries are, therefore, natural.
I stand here to offer both in the pursuit of justice, liberty and peace.
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru travelled across America over three weeks that visit, speaking engagingly about India's foreign policy at several key public meetings.
This prime ministerial visit was deemed a huge success and if you glance at the photographic archives there are colourful pictures of Nehru in a fedora visiting George Washington's home Mount Vernon with his sister Vijayalaxmi Pandit and daughter Indira Gandhi or Albert Einstein and Nehru laughing over a joke at the scientist's Princeton home.
After Prime Minister Nehru's speech to the US Congress on October 13, 1949, the other Indian prime ministers to do so are: Rajiv Gandhi (July 13, 1985), P V Narasimha Rao (May 18, 1994), Atal Bihari Vajpayee (September 14, 2000) and Dr Manmohan Singh (July 19, 2005). Prime Minister Indira Gandhi was never accorded the honour, clearly because she stood up to the Nixon administration.
