National and Emotional Integration
India is a country of many races, languages and belief. But despite this diversity the social structure there has been an unstable unity and affinity which had bound the people of this vast country into a well-knit nation throughout its long and chequered history. The need of maintaining this unity in diversity and an emotional and national integration is greater than ever before today when all types of conflicts are rearing their head and threatening the basic unity of the country.
Unity is all the more essential today when we see that enemy is still posed in a threatening posture at our-borders and has not yet given up its evil designs against our freedom and integrity. When the Chinese invaded us in October 1962, the entire country exhibited a rare unity and stood up to throw back the invaders from our sacred soil. This unity has to be sustained at all costs, for the enemy is still at the door.
We have paid heavily on account of communalism in the past. The partition of India into two itself was the culmination of the virus of communalism nurtured by the Muslim league. When freedom came, communalism caused unspeakable misery to many. It is a pity that even after the supreme price we paid in the martyrdom of the Father of Nation we are still not completely free from this virus.
Bickerings of any kind are anathema to national unity. But when these conflicts and bickerings arise out of language, region and parochialism, they become a slur on our patriotism. and sense of duty towards the motherland. The recent upheavals in many parts of the country cannot but be deeply regretted. The feelings of north and south, east and west are unfortunately uppermost in our minds. All sorts of conflicts and fissiparous tendencies are rearing their head today. What should be our course of action?
We attained our independence after a bitter although peaceful struggle. These discordant notes in our national life seek to threaten our hard-won freedom. If we cannot maintain the basic unity of the country, how can we safeguard the hard-won freedom ? The first task therefore before us is to maintain our unity and fight the foes that threaten our freedom in a unified and determined manner.
If we are to survive and prosper in this world we must weld ourselves into a strong one nation. We must make sincere efforts at not only achieving unity but also sustaining it through all sorts of trials. The National Integration Conference was the first major step in the direction. The Emotional and Integration Committee, made valuable suggestions for achieving national and emotional integration in the country. The parliament has already amended the Constitution to make secessionist talk a punishable offence. All this is good beginning but unity cannot be achieved by legal enactments and conferences and committees alone. For a real unity the call must come from heart.
What is, therefore, needed is that every man, woman and child of India realize the need of maintaining national and emotional unity. He must be reminded that he is an Indian first. Unity and patriotism can come only when there is a common goal before the people. Our people had shown unique sense of unity during our freedom struggle. Even recently during the Chinese invasion, the people rallied be-hind the leader of the Nation as one man to throw back the enemy. If we have to weld our people into a united nation, we must place before them a common goal to work for.
This is an age of democracy and socialism. An innate sense of unflinching patriotism and the twin ideals of democracy and socialism alone can provide the objectives we are searching for-a goal that might bind our people into a well-knit whole, a nation, strong, prosperous and ever vigilant.
