We are now going to be free and we have paid a price for this freedom; we have Pakistan on the one side and the Union of India or Hindustan on the other side. There has been too much talk of treating the Muslims as aliens in Hindustan or the Hindus as aliens in Pakistan. Will this institution of separate electorates encourage the disruptive tendencies or will it bring about that cohesion without which neither state can exist? Do you want the citizens of one State to look to their co-religionists in the other State for their protection, or do you want them to be treated as equal citizens of their own free sovereign State? I want all minorities to have an honourable place in this Union of India. I want them to have full opportunities for self-realisation and self-fulfilment. I want this synthesis of cultures to go on so that we may have a State in which all will live as brothers and enjoy the fruits of the sacrifices of those who gave their all for the achievement of this freedom, fully maintaining arid observing and following the principles of equality, liberty and fraternity. (Loud cheers).
