At midnight on 15 August 1947, independent India was born as its first prime minister, Jawaharlal

Nehru, proclaimed a trst with destin!a moment which comes but rarel in histor, when we
pass from the old to the new, when an age ends and when the soul of a nation, long suppressed,
finds utterance"# It was an hour of dar$ness, too, with the flames of %artition bla&ing across the land,
hundreds of thousands being butchered in sectarian sa'ager and millions see$ing refuge across the
arbitrar lines that had 'i'isected their homelands# (et in the midst of these horrors, mingled with
the )o of that sublime moment when, in Nehru"s memorable words, India awo$e to life and
freedom, our prime minister remained conscious of his countr"s international obligations# In his
historic speech about India"s trst with destin", Nehru, spea$ing of his countr"s dreams, said*
+hose dreams are for India, but the are also for the world, for all the nations and peoples are too
closel $nit together toda for an one of them to imagine that it can li'e apart# %eace has been said
to be indi'isible, so is freedom, so is prosperit now, and so also is disaster in this -ne .orld that
can no longer be split into isolated fragments#" It was tpical of that great nationalist that, at a time
when the fires of %artition were bla&ing across the land, he thought not onl of India, but of the
world#
In a sense, this was not entirel surprising, because India had, for millennia, been engaged with the
rest of the world# +he north of India had witnessed a series of 'isitations and in'asions, ranging
from armed hordes of /acedonians, 0cthians, %ersians and 1entral Asians marching in through
the north2west in 3uest of pillage and plunder to learned 1hinese scholars crossing the 4imalaas in
the north and north2east in 3uest of learning and wisdom# +he 0outh, with its long coastlines, had
en)oed trade relations with the 5oman 6mpire, the Arab lands to the west and the east coast of
Africa, while e7tending its religious and cultural influence to the Asian countries to the east#
4istorical records and archaeological e7ca'ations demonstrate that India"s connections with the rest
of the world go at least as far bac$ as the 4arappan ci'ili&ation of 8599:1599 ;1, which
maintained e7tensi'e lin$s with /esopotamia# 6urope"s histor of trading relations with India is
borne out in the writings of the ancient historians 4erodotus, %lin, %etronius and %tolem, and long
precedes the colonial e7perience# +he na'al e7pansionism of the southern 1hola and %alla'a
empires too$ Indian influences directl to +hailand, /alaa, Indonesia and 1ambodia# <ater, the
/ughal 6mpire ser'ed as the centre of an Indo2%ersian world that straddled both the ;a of ;engal
and the Arabian 0ea, and whose influence stretched east as well as west!so that +hai $ings named
themsel'es after =eccani sultans and the first epic poet of Aceh >in 0umatra? was born in 0urat >in
@u)arat?# It could indeed be argued that the India of toda is the direct product of millennia of
contact, trade, immigration and interaction with the rest of the world# Nehru was thus spea$ing as
heir to this histor#
(et for two centuries before that moment, India had been unable to e7press its 'oice or e7ercise its
place in the world# +he ;ritish had usurped that right from it, when India, under colonial rule, was
made a founding member of the <eague of Nations after the Airst .orld .ar, its delegation was
headed b a former 6ngland cric$et captain, 1#;# Ar# +hose who spo$e for India in the world did
so with ;ritain"s interests uppermost in their minds# India"s authentic 'oice had onl been heard in
those international conferences of subaltern groups where nationalists li$e Jawaharlal Nehru spo$e
for his oppressed and e7cluded people, or in the resolutions passed annuall b the Indian National
1ongress on the international situation!resolutions which had no discernible effect on the
decision2ma$ers in <ondon who determined where India would stand in world affairs#
0o when Nehru spo$e at that midnight moment, he was spea$ing for a nation that had found its own
'oice in the world again, and was determined to use it to e7press a world'iew radicall different
from that which had been articulated b India"s ;ritish rulers in pre'ious decades# And he was
doing so as a con'inced internationalist himself, one who had seen much of the world in his
e7tensi'e tra'els and was resol'ed to appl his own understanding of it to his newl independent
nation"s stance in world affairs#
In the si7 decades since Nehru"s India constituted itself into a so'ereign republic, the world has
become e'en more closel $nit together than he so prescientl foresaw# Indeed, as the twent2first
centur enters its second decade, e'en those countries that once felt insulated from e7ternal dangers
!b wealth or strength or distance!now full reali&e that the world is trul $nit together" as
ne'er before, and that the safet of people e'erwhere depends not onl on local securit forces, but
also on guarding against terrorism, warding off the global spread of pollution, of diseases, of illegal
drugs and of weapons of mass destruction, and on promoting human rights, democrac and
de'elopment#
Jobs e'erwhere, too, depend not onl on local firms and factories, but on farawa mar$ets for
products and ser'ices, on licences and access from foreign go'ernments, on an international
en'ironment that allows the free mo'ement of goods and persons, and on international institutions
that ensure stabilit!in short, on the international sstem that sustains our globali&ed world#
+oda, whether ou are a resident of =elhi or =ili, =urban or =arwin, whether ou are from Noida
or New (or$, it is simpl not realistic to thin$ onl in terms of our own countr# @lobal forces
press in from e'er concei'able direction# %eople, goods and ideas cross borders and co'er 'ast
distances with e'er greater fre3uenc, speed and ease# .e are increasingl connected through tra'el,
trade, the Internet, through what we watch, what we eat and e'en the games we pla# +he ancient
Indian notion encapsulated in the 0an$srit dictum 'asudhai'a $utumba$am" >the world is a famil?
has ne'er been truer#