The men and women who led India into the modern world were scholars and historians as well as leaders. Look at the amazing books Nehru wrote in a jail cell. Look at the immense learning of Dr. Ambedkar, who led the drafting of the constitution. Look at the worldwide reputation of Professor Radhakrishnan, a distinguished leader who was still a prolific scholar during his entire time in office.
In India and America, the largest democracies in our world, we have a special obligation to be informed citizens. We must all be active citizens, we must all do bread labor, we must all be public workers.
Universal access to knowledge is the great unachieved promise of our times. By informing ourselves, by educating our children, by struggling to change the world instead of allowing the times to beat us into apathy, we can all walk together down that road of progress, and, as Martin Luther King so often said, “the crooked ways will be made straight and the rough roads will be made smooth” until, arm in arm, we arrive at that shining city on the hill, that place with a library containing universal access to all knowledge, a free library, a library we can pass on as a gift to future generations.
Please help us build that library. It is bread labor. It is public work.
Jai Hind! God bless America! Thank you!
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