XII CONCLUDING OBSERVATIONS 2 . 1 In the preceding pages of this report, the Commission has provided an account of the manner in which it has, in 1996-97, sought to discharge the responsibilities entrusted to it under the Protection of Human Rights Act, 1993. In so doing, it has sketched its efforts against the larger canvas of India in the fiftieth year of its Independence. For ease of reference, a summary of the report and of its principal recommendations may be seen at Annexure VII. . 72.2 Certainly, the leaders of the nation, on 14-15 August 1947, had no iIIusions that the tasks ahead would beeasy. Gandhiji himself chose to be in strife-torn Beliaghata in Calcutta that historic night. And Pandit Nehru, speaking of the future, cautioned in his midnight address that it was not going to be: " ..... one of ease or resting but incessant striving so that we might fulfil the pledges we have so often taken and the one we shall take today. The service of India means the service of millions who suffer. It means the ending of poverty and ignorance and disease and inequality of opportunity. The ambition of the greatest man of our generation has been to Ape every tear from every eye. That may be beyond us but as long as there are tears and suffering, so long our work will not be over". 12.3 It is still far from over. Indeed, fifty years after Independence, for all of the remarkable achievements of which we can justly be proud, there is perceptible impatience with pledges unfulfilled. 12.4 These pledges relate, in essence, to the rights of the weakest sections of our society and of those who are at the receiving end of capricious authority. 12.5 This is why the C~mmissionhas stressed, in this report and on every possible occasion, that there is an intrinsic link between the proper promotion of human rights and the pursuit of econwnic and social policies that are just and that open the doors of opportunity to all of the people of our country. None of these policies is more fundamental than the right to free and compulsory education upto the age of 14 years, for upon it, and upon the right to adequate standards of health and nutrition, depend the capacity to fulfill human potential, or to stultify it. 12.6 It is for similar reasons that the Commission has stressed the importance of good governance, for the integrity of the civil and political rights of the people of this