一个古梵文谚语说，女人是家，而家是社会的基础，就像我们能建设自己的家园我们才能建设我们的国家。如果家是不够条件的-物资和必须品不充足，或者友好不充足，还有每个孩子成长和发展所需要的友爱氛围不够好,那样国家就不能和谐，一个不和谐的国家根本不能全方位的发展。

　　That is why women's education is almost more important than the education of boys and men. We-and by "we" I do not mean only we in India but all the world-have neglected women education. It is fairly recent. Of course, not to you but when I was a child, the story of early days of women's education in England, for instance, was very current. Everybody remembered what had happened in the early days.

　　那就为什么说女性的教育几乎比男孩和男人的教育都重要。我不是仅指我们印度而是全世界那些忽视了妇女的教育的国家。就在我小的时候，早期英国妇女追求教育的故事是非常流行的。每个人都记得起初发生了什么.

　　Now, we have got education and there is a debate all over the country whether this education is adequate to the needs of society or the needs of our young people. I am one of those who always believe that education needs a thorough overhauling. But at the same time, I think that everything in our education is not bad, that even the present education has produced very fine men and women, specially scientists and experts in different fields, who are in great demand all over the world and even in the most affluent countries. Many of our young people leave us and go abroad because they get higher salaries, they get better conditions of work.

　　而现在，我们得到了教育，并且整个国家引起了关于社会或者青少年是否需要的争论。我是一直坚信教育需要大调整的人之一。但同时我认为我们教育中的一切都不是坏的，甚至现在的教育也培养出了非常好的男性和女性，特别是那些全世界甚至最富有的国家都需要的不同领域的科学家和专家。许多年轻人离开我们出国因为他们能得到较高的薪水得到较好的工作环境。

　　Our country is a very rich country. It is rich in culture, it is rich in many old traditions-old and even modern tradition. Of course, it has a lot of bad things too and some of the bad things are in the society-superstition, which has grown over the years and which sometimes clouds over the shining brightness of ancient thought and values, eternal values. Then, of course, there is the physical poverty of large numbers of our people. That is something which is ugly and that hampers the growth of millions of young boys and girls. Now, all these bad things we have to fight against and that is what we are doing since Independence.

　　我们的国家是一个非常富有的国家。文化富有，许多老传统富有.古老而又现代的传统。当然，也有很多不足的方面和一些坏的社会事实,就比如说迷信，已经好多年了，有时还遮挡了古代思想和永恒价值的光彩。然后，有许多物质生活贫困的人信奉迷信思想,并阻碍了成千上万的男孩女孩成长的东西。现在这些坏的事情我们不得不反对，那也是我们自独立以来一直做的事情。

　　As I said, we do have many shortcomings, whether it is the government, whether it is the society. Some are due to our traditions because, as I said, not all tradition is good. And one of the biggest responsibilities of the educated women today is how to synthesize what has been valuable and timeless in our ancient traditions with what is good and valuable in modern thought. All that is modern is not good just as all that is old is neither all good nor all bad. We have to decide, not once and for all but almost every week, every month what is coming out that is good and useful to our country and what of the old we can keep and enshrine in our society. To be modern, most people think that it is something of a manner of dress or a manner of speaking or certain habits and customs, but that is not really being modern. It is a very superficial part of modernity.

　　就我看来，我们有很多缺点，无论是政府还是社会。一些是由于传统，因为在我看来，不是所有的传统都是好的，现在受过教育的妇女最大的责任之一就是综合我们古老传统中有价值和永恒的东西，并且对现代的思想也是好的有价值的。所有现代的不一定都是好的就像所有老的也不都是好的或坏的。我们不得不决定，不是一次而是几乎每一周，每个月，决定那些新出现的对我们国家来说是好的有用的，和那些我们社会上能保持和铭记的。为了时髦， 多数人认为那是服装款式或者说话的方式或者一种行为习惯，但那不是真正的时髦。那是很肤浅的现代性。

　　For instance, when I cut my hair, it was because of the sort of life that I was leading. We were all in the movement. You simply could not have long hair and go in the villages and wash it every day. So, when you lead a life, a particular kind of life, your clothes, your everything has to fit into that life if you are to be efficient. If you have to go in the villages and you have to bother whether your clothes are going to be dirty, then you cannot be a good worker. You have to forget everything of that kind. That is why, gradually, clothes and so on have changed in some countries because of the changes in the life-style. Does it suit our life-style or what we want to do or not? If it does, maybe we have to adopt some of these things not merely because it is done in another country and perhaps for another purpose. But what clothes we wear is really quite unimportant. What is important is how we are thinking.

　　例如当你不能简单的留着长发，因为在村庄你很难每天洗头发。所以，当你引领一种生活，一种特定的生活，你的服饰，你所有的一切都不得不适应那种生活如果你想生活的有效率的话。如果你不得不去村庄，你就不得不烦恼衣服是否会脏，然后你就不会是一个好的工人。你必须忘掉那一切。那就是为什么渐渐的，衣服等已经在一些乡村发生改变因为生活方式发生了改变。是否适应生活方式或者我们是否需要？如果是，也许我们会接受这些东西的某些部分，不仅仅是因为在一个村庄是这样做的也许是因为另外的一个目的。但是我们穿什么真的不重要，重要的是我们想什么。

　　Sometimes, I am very sad that even people who do science are quite unscientific in their thinking and in their other actions-not what they are doing in the laboratories but how they live at home or their attitudes towards other people. Now, for India to become what we want it to become with a modern, rational society and firmly based on what is good in our ancient tradition and in our soil, for this we have to have a thinking public, thinking young women who are not content to accept what comes from any part of the world but are willing to listen to it, to analyze it and to decide whether it is to be accepted or whether it is to be thrown out and this is the sort of education which we want, which enables our young people to adjust to this changing world and to be able to contribute to it.

　　有时候，那些从事科学的人思维却很不科学，在他们其他的行为中-不是他们在实验室的行为,而是他们在家中是怎样生活的或者是对他人的态度。现在，印度成为我们所希望的现代国家和合理的社会，那固然基于我们古老传统和土壤的优秀成分，我们不得不有一个广泛的思维，认为年轻女性不是一味接受来自世界任何部分的内容而是愿意倾听分析和决定是否被接受或者是否被摒弃，这就是我们想要的那种教育，那种能让年轻人去判断这个变化的社会并且对这个社会做出贡献的教育方式。

　　Some people think that only by taking up very high jobs, you are doing something important or you are doing national service. But we all know that the most complex machinery will be ineffective if one small screw is not working as it should and that screw is just as important as any big part. It is the same in national life. There is no job that is too small; there is no person who is too small. Everybody has something to do. And if he or she does it well, then the country will run well.

　　一些人认为那仅仅依靠非常高的职位的人，那些做很重要的事情或者做国家服务的人。但我们知道多数复杂的政府机关不会有效的解决小问题因为全体成员就如同任何大部分那样不想完成自己的工作。在国家生活中也是这样。没有职位是不重要的，没有人是渺小的。每一个人都有一些事情要做，如果他或她做的好，这个国家就会运行的好。

　　So, I hope that all of you who have this great advantage of education will not only do whatever work you are doing keeping the national interests in view, but you will make your own contribution to creating peace and harmony, to bringing beauty in the lives of our people and our country. I think this is the special responsibility of the women of India. We want to do a great deal for our country, but we have never regarded India as isolated from the rest of the world. What we want to do is to make a better world. So we have to see India's problems in the perspective of the larger world problems.

　　所以，我希望你们所有拥有教育这个巨大优势的人，不要只是做什么都是注意国家的利润，你可以为创造和平和和谐做出贡献，给人们带来生活的美丽。我认为这是印度妇女的特殊责任。我们要为我们国家做出巨大贡献，但是我们从不认为印度是与世界其他的地区是分离的,们想做的是创造一个美好的世界。所以我们不得不以更大世界观来看待印度的问题。