Perspectives
This part of the study guide is designed to give you a few extra ideas about how you can approach the speech “Tryst with Destiny” by Jawaharlal Nehr…
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Historical perspective
“Tryst with Destiny” is one of the most important speeches in India's history, because it marks the beginning of India as an independent democratic country and the end of British colonisation.
The speech is as important to the Indian people today as the Declaration of Independence is to Americans. It is taught in schools in Indi…
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Current issues
In the speech, Jawaharlal Nehru mentions several socio-economic issues that independent India aimed to address, the most important ones being: “To bring freedom and opportunity to the common man, to the peasants and workers of India; to fight and end poverty and ignorance and disease, to build a prosperous, democratic, and progressive nation…” (p. 28, ll. 16-19).
In your analysis, you might examine the status of theses issues now, more than 70 years after India became independent. For example, the World Bank's statistics about poverty in…
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Textual perspective
In your analysis of the speech, you might find it useful to compare it with other political speeches or texts such as the American Declaration of Independence, or the Gettysburg Address by Abraham Lincoln. All of these texts are short but convincing, thanks to the use of rhetorical devices such as allusions, repetition, and ethos. Their content differs according to the circumstances, but they all inspi…
