MAKING OF THE INDIAN NATION

MAKING OF THE INDIAN NATION Quest for a Foundation for Unity THREE quarters of a century have passed since India gained its independence, but it has yet to join the ranks of the truly developed countries. That is a dream still to be realized. And this is in spite of India being a large country with all kinds of potential. One reason for this tragic failure is the Indian people’s lack of national character. The plight the country finds itself in today can be traced to this basic shortcoming. Bereft of this sterling quality, Indians have fallen short in taking the country towards progress and prosperity. What is national character? It is, to put it simply, the capacity and the will to hold the interests of the nation supreme in every sphere. If there is a clash between individual and national interests, individual concerns must be subordinated to the greater good of the nation. Whenever a nation has made any progress, it has been due to this spirit of nationalism. Without such a spirit, no nation can advance either internally or externally. In a period just under 50 years, many countries like Singapore, Korea, Malaysia and Japan have succeeded in fostering a strong, national spirit in their people, and now stand alongside developed countries, while India still lags far behind. The reasons behind this state of affairs must be investigated. There is one basic reason for this: attempting to achieve the possible by means which are impossible. Producing national spirit or character in India is certainly possible. It is just that we have set off on the wrong track, and once on this track, it is difficult to retrace our steps and get on to the right one. After Independence, an “Indian nation” had come into existence in the political and geographical sense. But, at the psychological level, the level of feelings and emotions, our position was still that of a nation in the making. For the desired national reconstruction to take place, our leaders proposed a recipe based on the concept of a common heritage consisting of three main parts: religious unity, historical unity and cultural unity. Religious unity implied that all religions were essentially one. It was believed that if this concept could take root in people’s minds, it would produce a sense of unity all over the country. Historically, of course, this assumption was wrong; there is a long, sorry record of coreligionists fighting fiercely among themselves. For instance, in the war