APRIL 24 The National Agenda

we gave top priority to gaining our independence, whereas, even in that difficult period, we should have concentrated on making education accessible to people in all walks of life. Gaining our freedom before having attained the necessary level of maturity in our thinking has resulted in the present lack of cohesiveness and absence of national spirit which are plain for all to see. The price we have paid for this neglect is our still being—even after fifty years of independence—very far from our most cherished goals, while within half that time tiny countries such as Singapore and Korea have emerged as commercial and industrial giants. Subsequent to 1947, we gave top priority to socialism. This was again illjudged. The better course would have been to maintain, more or less, the existing economic structure of the country, and to direct all our attention to the educational front. It is unfortunate that nothing of the sort happened. And if we are suffering today, it is the direct result of our wrong sense of priority. If we are facing instability as a nation today, it is because the common man thinks in terms neither of secularism, Hindutva, or any other national-spirited philosophy. He thinks purely in terms of his immediate relations, contacts and interests. This situation will be remedied only when we implement nationwide educational programmes which will broaden the intellectual horizons of the masses. Whenever someone falls into error, he himself, by rights, should atone for it. No one else should be expected to stand in for him. By the same token, the primary condition for a beneficial change of national course should be our admission at the outset of error, and our prompt and willing atonement for it. We must first admit that all along we have been setting ourselves wrong targets. The next step should be to get our priorities straight. Having done so, we should not cease in our efforts until the literacy rate is one hundred per cent. If we fail in this most important arena at the present time, India will continue to have the rather dubious distinction of being a nation still in the making.