I write to you just before leaving for the Queen’s Garden Party at Buckingham Palace. And with the noise around British Sovereignty, Immigration, Europe and the new Mayor - it’s timely. As Baroness Warsi congratulated, in her words, the Pakistani Mayor, this is what an amended recent Obama speech may have sounded like if delivered by a British Indian Mayor of London…
We must recall that what binds this nation together is not the class of our forefathers or the tenets of our faiths or the origins of our names. What makes us exceptional -- what makes us British -- is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made a millennium ago. That those on these islands are an Independent people, slaves of no master, ancient in beliefs, young in outlook.
As a Statue in this great City testifies, we heard a Mahatma proclaim that the individual freedom of all citizens is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth. This is what it means to be British, to be a Londoner.
Entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed, the patriots of two World Wars did not fight to replace the tyranny of foreign powers with the privileges of a few. London did not endure a Blitz to be bombed by new tyrants.
And as Indians showed Britain, through blood drawn by bayonet and bullet that strength lays in our non-violence, and our ability to suffer pain is strength not weakness – what troubles may come.
Together, this City determined that that we are part of a nation and refuge for all the world’s faiths for over two thousand years, but our warm welcome should not be mistaken for a lack of steadfastness in our own beliefs.
Together, we resolved that a great City and a great nation must be willing to shed the blood of its own sons and daughters to protect the values of freedom around the world it holds dearest.
Through it all, we have never relinquished our scepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone. Our celebration of initiative and enterprise, our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, these are constants in our character.
London’s possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands: youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention. My fellow Londoners, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it.
We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is British; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own. It is now our generation’s task to carry on what this City’s suffragettes began. For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn respect equal our own in deed, not just in word.
You and I, as Indians, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time -- not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in defence of our most ancient values and enduring ideals. Let us, each of us, now embrace with solemn duty and awesome joy what is our lasting birthright as Britons.
With common effort and common purpose, with passion and dedication, let us answer the call of history and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom, human dignity and justice.
