It is a symptom of our freedom that everybody wants to be free and it becomes difficult to maintain order. It pains me to see beautiful flower-pots being broken. In the old days lakhs and lakhs of people used to congregate for festivities and there was no incident whatsoever. Our country is large, our population is large, our aspirations are large, but our restraints is yet not large enough.
I am very grateful to all the friends who have organised this beautiful welcome. It is possible to arrange a welcome for Swaraj, but when a small man like me undertakes to receive all that welcome, I prove unequal to the task. The burden of welcome that we all wish to give to Bharat Mata as a whole, I am trying to bear on my single body. How can I represent the whole of Bharat Mata? I stand here and you all try to see me. It is difficult to see me across all the pillars and the corners of this hall. Why do you want to look at me? Look at Bharat Mata, who is behind you and by your side.
For a long time we failed to see Bharat Mata though she was standing all around us. Gandhiji taught us how to see Bharat Mata, but he has gone away a little too prematurely, before we took the lesson fully. To see Bharat Mata, we must be industrious in our habits, and wise in our activities. If you go to a temple, you will only see stone and not God, if your character is not good. In order that your eyes may see God, your character must be upright. Bharat Mata is not different from God. If we want to see Bharat Mata really, we will have to be upright in our conduct and good in our minds.
We have won freedom all right, but we have not yet learnt how to remain free. It seemed easy to be loyal to British authority but it seems difficult to be loyal to the authority of our own democracy. We have to study hard in order to pay the same respect to the authority and prestige of democracy as we used to pay to a single foreign authority. But I am hopeful, because I see that you treat me with more affection than you ever treated any foreign Governor-General. I had thought that being an Indian, being one of you, having all the defects which you know I have, you would not treat me with the same respect as you showed the Marquesses and Earls who filled this office before me. I am glad not because I am tickled by your flattery but because it gives me hope that you will show the same respect to those whom democracy places in authority.
An ordinary merchant who is doing some small retail trade today may be made President of the Indian Union tomorrow. The moment he is in office, you must look upon him as the President of the State and not remember his old occupation. The clay, the earth upon which you are walking, can be made into Sri Ganesh and people fall prostrate before it. After the worship is over, they throw the clay into the water. We make Ministers. You must respect them as you respected the great officers who preceded the Ministers. The Ministers are Sri Ganesh. If we do not worship Ganesh, our State will crumble to pieces. May Ganesh give us the wisdom to learn how to obey, maintain order and support democracy.
May every institution in India, including the Bangalore Municipality, become better, richer and more glorious in free India than it was ever before. Everyone who is doing any creative work must feel that he is creating something for the sake of Free India now. If you go with some money to the booking office and offer money and want a ticket, the booking clerk must feel “I am now serving Free India and I must attend to this man promptly and quickly”. If you buy a ticket and get into the train, you are getting into Free India’s train and you ought not to occupy more space than you are entitled to. If you make any spot of Free India dirty, it is Free India that you make dirty. If you spit on the road, you are spitting on Free India. Free India has allotted space where you can spit, and you must not use other places for the purpose. Am I going to see in the latter part of my life that Municipalities in Free India are better administered than Municipalities in old India? Am I going to have the joy of seeing it? If I see Municipalities brighter than they used to be before, I shall feel that it was right for me to go to prison to make India free. Otherwise, I should feel it was a waste of labour.
There is only one duty before us. Everyone should be more honest than he was before the 15th of August last. If there is not more honesty in Free India than there was before, it is no use having become free. If private lives are not clean, public life cannot be clean. If my prayers are heard, God will make us all happier by making us more honest. I thank the President and the Commissioners of the Municipality for all the labour they have taken to make me feel great and happy. I am specially grateful to the people who have at last quietly sat down to listen to me. When men can be so easily persuaded to behave well, there is hope for India. There is no country which can be governed more easily than India because no force is necessary. You have only to appeal to their tradition and to their culture. All the great old Kings of the past—Janaka and Sri Ram—are still alive and governing our hearts. I am not the Governor-General. Sri Ram is the Governor-General. Treat my office always with respect.
This is part of ThePrint’s Great Speeches series. It features speeches and debates that shaped modern India.