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Challenges Of Nation Building

Question

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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 ?

Solution

My opinion is that merger with Indian State was an extension of democracy to the people of the Princely States. The decision of joining Pakistan could have threatened the very existence of a united India. The response of some rulers such as Travancore, Hyderabad was negative. This meant that India would get further divided into a number of small countries. The prospects of democracy for the people in these states also looked bleak. Indian leaders had aimed at unity, self-determination as well as democracy, in most of the Princely States, governments were run in a non-democratic manner and the people did not enjoy any rights. So the merger with Indian State established democracy in the Princely States.

While, it is correct that force was used but that was necessitated due to the prevailing circumstances of that time in the states like Hyderabad where a paramilitary force known as the Razakars whose communal atrocities knew no bound. They murdered, maimed and raped targeting particularly non muslim. Hence, the army was sent to control the Nizam’s forces. This led to Hyderabad’s accession to India.

Some More Questions From Challenges of Nation Building Chapter

Match the principles with the instances:

Take a current political map of India (showing outlines of states) and mark the location of the following Princely States:
(a) Junagadh (b) Manipur

(c) Mysore (d) Gwalior

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 he 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 ?

Bring out two major differences between the challenge of nation building for eastern and western regions of the country at the time of independence.

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

(a) List the commonalities that the author mentions between India and Soviet Union and give one example for each of these from India.

(b) The author does not talk about dissimilarities between the two experiments. Can you mention two dissimilarities ?

(c) In retrospect which of these two experiments worked better and why ?

Which famous speech did Jawaharlal Nehru deliver in 1947 and where?

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