India
attained independence on 15th of August, 1947. This was
the moment Indians had been waiting for. We have read in history that
there were many voices in our national movement. But there were two
goals almost everyone agreed upon: one, that after independence, we shall run
our country through democratic government; and two, that the government will be
run for the good of all, particularly the poor and the socially disadvantaged
groups. Now that the country was independent, the time had come to
realize the promise of freedom. This was not going to be easy. India
was100 born in very difficult
circumstances. Perhaps no other country by then was born in a situation more
difficult than that120 ///
of India in 1947. Freedom came with the partition of the country. The
year 1947 was a year of unprecedented violence and trauma of displacement.
It was in this situation that independent India started on its journey to
achieve several objectives. Yet the turmoil that accompanied independence did
not make our leaders lose sight of the multiple challenges that faced the new
nation.
Broadly,
independent India faced three kinds of challenges. The first and the immediate200 challenge was to shape a nation that was
united, yet accommodative of the diversity in our society.
India was a land of continental size and diversity. Its people spoke
different languages and followed different cultures and religions. At
that time,240 /// it
was widely believed that a country full of such kinds of diversity could
not remain together for long. The partition of the country appeared to
prove everyone’s worst fears. There were serious questions about the future of
India: Would India survive as a unified country? Would it do so by emphasising
national unity at the cost of every other300 objective? Would it mean rejecting all regional
identities? There was an urgent question: How was integration of the territory
of India to be achieved? The second challenge was to establish democracy. We
know that the Constitution granted fundamental rights and extended the
right to vote to every citizen. India adopted representative democracy based on
the parliamentary form of government. These360
/// features ensure that the political competition would take place in a
democratic framework.
A
democratic constitution is necessary but not sufficient for establishing
a democracy. The challenge was to develop democratic practices in accordance
with the Constitution. The third challenge400
was to ensure the development and wellbeing of the entire society and not only of
some sections. Here again the Constitution clearly laid down the principle
of equality and special protection to socially disadvantaged groups and religious
and cultural communities. The Constitution also set out in the Directive
Principles of State Policy the welfare goals that democratic politics must
achieve. The real challenge now was to evolve effective policies for economic
development and eradication of poverty. How did independent India480 /// respond to these challenges?
To what extent did India succeed in achieving the various objectives set out by
the Constitution?500 This
entire book is an attempt to respond to these questions. The book tells the
story of politics in India since Independence so as to equip you to develop
your own answers to big questions like these. First, we look at how the three
challenges mentioned above were faced in the early years after Independence. We
focus on the first challenge of nation building that occupied centre-stage
in the years immediately after Independence. We begin by looking at the
events that formed the context of Independence. This can help us understand why
the issue of national unity and security became600
/// a primary challenge at the time of Independence. We shall
then see how India chose to shape itself into a nation, united by a shared
history and common destiny. This unity had to reflect the aspirations of people
across the different regions and deal with the disparities that existed
among regions and different sections of people. Then we shall turn to the
challenge of establishing a democracy and achieving economic development with
equality and justice.
In
August 1947, not one but two nation-states came into existence – India and
Pakistan. This was a result of ‘partition’, the division of700 British India into India and Pakistan.
The drawing of the border demarcating the territory of each country marked the
culmination720 /// of
political developments that you have read about in the history textbooks. According
to the ‘two-nation theory’ advanced by the Muslim League, India
consisted of not one but two ‘people’, Hindus and Muslims. That is
why it demanded Pakistan, a separate country for the Muslims. The Congress
opposed this theory and the demand for Pakistan. But several political
developments in 1940s, the political competition between the Congress and the
Muslim League and the British role led to the decision800 for the creation of Pakistan. Thus, it
was decided that what was till then known as ‘India’ would be divided into
two countries, ‘India’ and ‘Pakistan’. Such a division was not only very
painful, but also very difficult to decide840
/// and to implement. It was decided to follow the principle of
religious majorities. This basically means that areas where the Muslims were in
majority would make up the territory of Pakistan. The rest was to stay with
India. The idea might appear simple, but it presented all kinds of difficulties.
First of all, there was no single belt of Muslim900 majority areas in British India. There
were two areas of concentration, one in the west and one in the east. There was
no way these two parts could be joined. So, it was decided that the new
country, Pakistan, will comprise two territories, West and East Pakistan
separated by a long expanse of Indian territory. Secondly, not all Muslim
majority960 /// areas
wanted to be in Pakistan. The North Western Frontier Province was staunchly
opposed to the two-nation theory. Eventually, its voice was simply ignored and
the North Western Frontier Province was made to merge with Pakistan. The third problem1000 was that two of the Muslim majority provinces
of British India, Punjab and Bengal, had very large areas where the non-Muslims
were in majority. Eventually, it was decided that these two provinces would be bifurcated
according to the religious majority at the district or even lower
level. This decision could not be made by the midnight of 14-15 August.
It meant that a large number of people did not know on the day of Independence
whether they were1080 /// in
India or in Pakistan. The Partition of these two provinces caused the deepest
trauma of Partition. This was related1100
to the fourth and the most intractable of all the problems of partition.
This was the problem of ‘minorities’ on both sides of the border. Lakhs of
Hindus and Sikhs in the areas that were now in Pakistan and an equally large
number of Muslims on the Indian side of Punjab and Bengal, and to some
extent Delhi and surrounding areas, found themselves trapped. They were to
discover that they were undesirable aliens in their own
home, in the land where they and their ancestors had lived for
centuries. As soon as it became clear that the country was going1200 /// to be partitioned,
the minorities on both sides became easy targets of attack.
