"LONG YEARS ago we made a tryst with destiny, and now the time comes when we shall redeem our.pledge, not wholly or in full measure, but very substantially. At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom."
These were the words with which Jawaharlal Nehru, a leader of India's domi- nant Congress party and the first prime minister of the country, hailed its inde- pendence in 1947.1 Nehru, the aristocratic scion of a long line of Kashmiri brahmans, was himself to be a virtual dynastic founder, with his daughter (In- dira) and grandson (Rajiv) to follow him. Nevertheless, he and other Congress leaders had led a long, often militant if nonviolent struggle under the leadership of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, and with planning and public ownership accepted even by the Indian bourgeoisie, the country seemed set on at least a semisocialistic path. Nehru had some basis to proclaim his achievements.
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