Parliament Special Session: PM recounts Nehru's historic speech in farewell to Samvidhan Sadan

Addressing the House, the prime minister said that the echo of Nehru ji’s 'Stroke of Midnight speech' will keep inspiring the nation for generations to come.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi recounted Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru's iconic 'Tryst with Destiny' speech on India's independence in his address to the Parliament special session on September 19, the last to be held in the old building.

Modi was addressing the special session in the Lok Sabha, which commenced on September 18 and will continue till September 22. Addressing the House, he said that the echo of Nehruji’s 'Stroke of Midnight' speech will keep inspiring the nation for generations to come.

Recounting on Pandit Nehru

On India's independence on August 15, 1947, Pandit Nehru had delivered a moving speech to the nation. “At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom," the first prime minister of Independent India had said from the Red Fort.

Pandit Nehru's words became synonymous with not just India's independence from the British colonial rule, but also with the nation's progress from being an oppressed country to a developing economy. His words have been time and again used as metaphors in various contexts related to the nation's progress towards a stronger economy.

Echoing Atal Bihari Vajpayee

In his address to Parliament on September 18, PM Modi recollected Atal Bihari Vajpayee's words when the former prime minister's cabinet faced a trust vote in May 1996. "The governments will come and go, parties will form and collapse. But this country should survive, its democracy should survive."

Down memory lane

Looking back at the journey of the old Parliament building, which has been the closest spectator of the nation's evolving political scenario and emergence as an economic powerhouse since Independence Day, Modi highlighted that in its 75-year history, the Indian Parliament has seen nearly 7,500 MPs with 600 of them being women.

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"Today is an occasion to reminisce the parliamentary journey of 75 years of India. We might be shifting to the new building but this building will keep on inspiring the coming generation as it is a golden chapter of the journey of Indian democracy,” Modi said.

He also recalled the 2011 terrorist attack on Parliament. “It was an attack on the soul of India,” he said, and hailed those who fought the terrorists to protect India's symbol of sovereignty and paid tribute to martyrs.

The Parliament special session resumed today in the early hours in the New Parliament Building. The prime minister rechristened the Old Parliament Building as Samvidhan Sadan.