I want nothing to do with any religion concerned with keeping the masses satisfied to live in hunger, filth, and ignorance. I want nothing to do with any order, religious or otherwise, which does not teach people that they are capable of becoming happier and more civilized, on this earth, capable of becoming true man, master of his fate and captain of his soul.

In this statement Nehru rejects a quietist, otherworldly religion that reconciles people to poverty and social degradation. The target is not faith as such but any institution—religious or secular—that treats suffering as inevitable or spiritually salutary and thereby discourages education, civic equality, and material improvement. The second sentence shifts from negation to a humanist ideal: people can become “happier and more civilized” in this life, developing full human agency. The closing cadence (“master of his fate and captain of his soul”) echoes Victorian self-help rhetoric (notably Henley’s *Invictus*), reinforcing Nehru’s emphasis on self-determination and modern, this-worldly progress as a moral imperative.