Unit 2 (Nelson Mandela)
Patel on freedom and character
Explain Sardar Patel's message about freedom and responsibility.
Freedom and responsibility. Before the speech, the book asks: what is the link between freedom and responsibility? A simple answer: freedom of speech comes with the duty to think about what you say, to whom and why. Freedom was won by people who took responsibility; we keep it only if we take ours.
Who is speaking. This is Sardar Patel, at a university convocation (the ceremony where degrees are given). The book's source is his Collected Works for 1948, the year after Independence and Partition. He thanks the university for its honour and calls it a heavy debt: if he fails, they share the blame.
'Do you deserve it?' The young people listening did not have to fight for freedom. Patel asks whether they deserve it. India won freedom by sacrifice, truth and non-violence, while the World War was fought with brute force. That war, like the churning of the ocean (samudra manthan), has thrown up poison, and no one is there to swallow it.
A one-year-old child. Patel says freedom is not yet made firm (consolidated). It is like a one-year-old child that must be fed, cared for and made strong. If we waste it on quarrels, future generations will curse us. The first task is to make the country strong and united.
Character above all. The most important need, he says, is character. Then India can earn its proper place in the comity of nations (the friendly family of the world's nations), with its rich natural resources and people put to full use. He warns that the real danger is disunity and communalism (one religious community set against another, not 'communism').
One line needs its date. The speech also says that some people 'should and will leave India'. Read it as words spoken in 1948, months after Partition; the lesson for today is unity, duty and character.
A book slip. Question 7's four options repeat Question 6's. None is right; the answer from the speech is disunity.
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