Independence Day Speech

Good morning respected principal, Father John, teachers and all the students present here. I am truly grateful to Father Ajit Kumar Xess for thinking me worthy of addressing this august gathering. Let me begin by congratulating all of you at the golden Jubilee of your school and also wishing each and every one of u a very Happy Independence Day.
For over half a century our nation has sprung, stumbled, run, followed, rolled over, gotten up and dusted herself. As students, we must always be reminded of this constant perseverance that has always been the backbone of success of our nation today. We live in a country whose faith in success is far greater than her fear of failure. We no longer boycott foreign goods but buy the companies that produce them instead.
At this juncture we must also think of our freedom fighters who laid down their lives for our country’s independence. When they began with their struggle, they were young, just like you and me. Their struggle, dedication and unrelenting zeal transformed us into a free nation. They dreamt big, stayed focused, and fought against all odds to achieve their goal. As we stand here, at the threshold of a new phase in our lives, we must take valuable lessons from them and incorporated these into our lives.
We must also think of the India today and compare it with the India that the people who fought for our independence, had in their minds. They fought for a free country where everyone would be regarded as equal, every Indian would have equal opportunities. But the India that we see today is not quite as it was imagined to be. We still have a long way to go. Even though, as Indians, we have a lot to be proud of: we are the citizens of a country which has given birth to scholars like Rabindranath Tagore, Amartya Sen, Scientists like Jagdish Chandra Bose, C.V. Raman, visionaries like Mahatma Gandhi and Sportspersons like Kapil Dev, Saina Nehwal, who have represented our country and brought respect to our nation,