India is a symphony where there are, as in an orchestra, different instruments, each with its particular sonority, each with its special sound, all combining to interpret one particular score. It is this kind of combination that this country has stood for. It never adopted inquisitorial methods. It never asked the Parsis or the Jews or the Christians or the Muslims who came and took shelter there to change their creeds or become absorbed in what might be called a uniform Hindu humanity. It never did this. “Live and let live”- that has been the spirit of this country. If we are true to that spirit, if that ideal which has dominated our cultural landscape for five or six thousand years and is still operating, I have no doubt that the crisis by which we are faced today will be overcome as many other crises in our previous history have been overcome. Suicide is the greatest sin. To murder yourself, to betray yourself, to barter away your spiritual wealth for a mess of pottage, to try to preserve your body at the expense of your spirit-that is the greatest sin. If we therefore stand out for the great ideal for which this country has stood, the ideal which has survived the assaults of invaders, the ideals to which the unheeding world today is turning its attention, if we are able to do it, the flame which has sustained us in overcoming foreign rule, will fire our efforts to build a united and free India.
