Challenges of Nation Building

Which among the following statements about the Partition is incorrect?

Match the principles with the instances: (a) Mapping of boundaries on religious grounds (b) Mapping of boundaries on grounds of different languages (c) Demarcating boundaries within a country by geographical zones (d) Demarcating boundaries within a country on administrative and political grounds i. Pakistan and Bangladesh ii. India and Pakistan iii. Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh iv. Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand

Here are two opinions – Bismay: “The merger with the Indian State was an extension of democracy to the people of the Princely States.” Inderpreet: “I am not so sure, there was force being used. Democracy comes by creating consensus.” What is your own opinion in the light of accession of Princely States and the responses of the people in these parts?

Read the following very different statements made in August 1947 – “Today you have worn on your heads a crown of thorns. The seat of power is a nasty thing. You have to remain ever wakeful on that seat…. you have to be more humble and forbearing….now there will be no end to your being tested.” — M.K GANDHI “…India will awake to a life of freedom….we step out from the old to the new….we end today a period of ill fortune and India discovers herself again. The achievement we celebrate today is but a step, an opening of opportunity…” — JAWAHARLAL NEHRU Spell out the agenda of nation building that flows from these two statements. Which one appeals more to you and why?

What are the reasons being used by Nehru for keeping India secular? Do you think these reasons were only ethical and sentimental? Or were there some prudential reasons as well?

What was the task of the States Reorganisation Commission? What was its most salient recommendation?

It is said that the nation is to a large extent an “imagined community” held together by common beliefs, history, political aspirations and imaginations. Identify the features that make India a nation.

Read the following passage and answer the questions below: “In the history of nation-building only the Soviet experiment bears comparison with the Indian. There too, a sense of unity had to be forged between many diverse ethnic groups, religious, linguistic communities and social classes. The scale – geographic as well as demographic – was comparably massive. The raw material the state had to work with was equally unpropitious: a people divided by faith and driven by debt and disease.” — RAMACHANDRA GUHA