Complete solutions to all ten exercise questions printed at the end of NCERT Class 12
Political Science, Politics in India Since Independence, Chapter 1 Challenges of Nation
Building. The questions are reproduced in the English edition’s own wording, numbering and
lettering, and each answer is written the way it should be written in the exam. The chapter’s
‘Let Us Do It Together’ activity and the questions asked inside the chapter (picture caption, film
box, ‘Let’s re-search’ box, map activity and margin notes) are solved at the end.
The exercise does not differ between the two editions of this chapter. Both print ten
questions in the same order and asking the same things; Question 1 has four options in both, in the
same order, and the incorrect statement is (d), the fourth option, in both editions. Question 2 pairs the same four principles with the same four
instances, Question 3 names the same four princely states, and Question 10 is the same Ramachandra
Guha passage with the same three sub-parts. These answers are written from the English
edition throughout.
Questions 3, 4, 5, 9 and 10 are open-ended. The answers below are model answers built only from
what this chapter actually says, so nothing in them can be marked wrong on facts; the opinion parts
are marked as such, and you are free to argue the other way as long as you use the chapter’s
evidence.
1 Question 1
Q. Which among the following statements about the partition is incorrect?
(a) Partition of India was the outcome of the “two-nation theory.”
(b) Punjab and Bengal were the two provinces divided on the basis of religion.
(c) East Pakistan and West Pakistan were not contiguous.
(d) The scheme of partition included a plan for transfer of population across the border.
Answer: (d) The scheme of partition included a plan for transfer of population across the
border.
Why (d) is the incorrect statement. There was no such plan. The chapter says that as soon
as it became clear that the country was going to be partitioned, violence started at an
unprecedented level, and then states in so many words that no one had quite anticipated the scale
of this problem and no one had any plans for handling it. Communities on both sides of the border
were often compelled to leave their homes at a few hours’ notice, which is the opposite of a
planned transfer. That is why 1947 became the year of one of the largest, most abrupt, unplanned
and tragic transfers of population that human history has known.
Why the other three are correct. (a) is correct: according to the two-nation theory
advanced by the Muslim League, India consisted of not one but two ‘people’, Hindus and Muslims, and
that is why it demanded Pakistan. (b) is correct: Punjab and Bengal were the two Muslim majority
provinces with very large non-Muslim majority areas, and both were bifurcated according to the
religious majority at the district or even lower level. (c) is correct: there was no single belt of
Muslim majority areas, so Pakistan comprised two territories, West and East Pakistan, separated by
a long expanse of Indian territory.
2 Question 2
Q. 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
Answer. (a) – ii, (b) – i, (c) – iv, (d) – iii.
| Principle | Instance | Why |
|---|---|---|
| (a) Boundaries on religious grounds | ii. India and Pakistan | Partition followed the principle of religious majorities: areas where the Muslims were in majority would make up the territory of Pakistan and the rest would stay with India. |
| (b) Boundaries on grounds of different languages | i. Pakistan and Bangladesh |
These two were one country until East Bengal separated. What divides them is not religion, since both are Muslim majority, but language: the chapter’s own aside notes that what was ‘East’ Bengal has now become Bangladesh. |
| (c) Boundaries within a country by geographical zones | iv. Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand |
Both are hill territories separated out from a larger plains state, Punjab in 1966 and Uttar Pradesh in 2000. The dividing line is the geography of the region, not its language. |
| (d) Boundaries within a country on administrative and political grounds | iii. Jharkhand and Chhattisgarh |
The chapter says these were among the three states created in 2000 on the basis of a separate regional culture or complaints of regional imbalance in development, which is an administrative and political ground rather than a linguistic one. |
3 Question 3
Q. 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
Answer. This is a map-marking activity, so it has to be done on your own map. What the
examiner is checking is that you know which present-day state each of these four princely states
lies in, so learn the table below and then mark them.
| Princely State | Where to look for it today | What the chapter says about it |
|---|---|---|
| (a) Junagadh | In the Saurashtra region of Gujarat, in the west, near the coast of the Arabian Sea |
Its accession proved more difficult than the rest, and the issue was resolved after a plebiscite confirmed people’s desire to join India. |
| (b) Manipur | In the north-east, on the border with Myanmar | Its Maharaja, Bodhachandra Singh, signed the Instrument of Accession a few days before Independence, held elections in June 1948, and signed the Merger Agreement in September 1949. |
| (c) Mysore | In the south, in present-day Karnataka | Named only in this exercise; it is not one of the four states whose accession the chapter calls more difficult than the rest. |
| (d) Gwalior | In central India, in present-day Madhya Pradesh | Also named only in this exercise, and a reminder of how far the princely territory stretched, since Princely States covered one-third of the land area of the British Indian Empire. |
The chapter names these four states but does not say where any of them is; the locations in the
table come from a current political map, which is what the question tells you to use. Use only the
map printed in your own textbook or atlas. The chapter’s own two illustrations carry the note that
they are not maps drawn to scale and should not be taken to be an authentic depiction of India’s
external boundaries, so do not copy from those, and do not copy from an internet image.
- Find each present-day state first: Gujarat (west coast), Manipur (north-east, on the Myanmar border), Karnataka (south), Madhya Pradesh (centre).
- Put a dot inside that state where the princely state lay: Junagadh in the south-west of the Saurashtra peninsula; Manipur around Imphal in the middle of the state; Mysore in the south of Karnataka; Gwalior in the north of Madhya Pradesh.
- Write the name beside each dot as (a), (b), (c), (d) with the princely state’s name, and add a small key.
4 Question 4
Q. 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?
Answer. Both opinions are partly right, and the chapter gives the evidence for each.
The case for Bismay. In most of the princely states, governments were run in a
non-democratic manner and the rulers were unwilling to give democratic rights to their populations,
so merger did extend democracy to their people. The chapter’s evidence is direct. The people of most
of the princely states clearly wanted to become part of the Indian union, and this was the first of
the three considerations that guided the government’s approach. In Hyderabad, the movement against
the Nizam’s rule came from the people themselves: the peasantry of the Telangana region rose against
his oppressive rule, women who had seen the worst of it joined in large numbers, and the Communists
and the Hyderabad Congress led it. In Manipur, it was under the pressure of public opinion that the
Maharaja held elections in June 1948, which made Manipur the first part of India to hold an election
based on universal adult franchise. In Junagadh the question was settled by a plebiscite, which is
the most democratic instrument of all.
The case for Inderpreet. Force and pressure were used, and consent was not always the
route. In Hyderabad the central government had to order the army; in September 1948 the Indian army
moved in and the Nizam surrendered only after a few days of intermittent fighting. In Manipur the
merger was not settled by the elected Legislative Assembly at all, in which there were sharp
differences, with the state Congress for merger and other political parties against it; the
Government of India instead persuaded the Maharaja into signing the Merger Agreement, so the decision
was taken by the ruler and not by the assembly the state had just elected. And the whole design was
undemocratic at the start, since the British left the decision to join India or Pakistan or stay
independent not to the people but to the princely rulers.
A balanced opinion. The outcome was democratic even where the method was not. The purpose
of integration was to make the people of the princely states citizens with rights rather than
subjects of a ruler, and by that test it succeeded. But Inderpreet is right that consensus was
sometimes replaced by pressure, and Manipur is the strongest example, because there the elected
assembly was bypassed. The fairest conclusion is that integration extended democracy in its results,
while the process itself was a mixture of negotiation, popular movement and, in one case, military
action.
5 Question 5
Q. 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?
The agenda that flows from Gandhi’s statement. Gandhi speaks to those who have just taken
power, and every phrase is a warning about how power is to be used. A crown of thorns means that
office is a burden and a duty, not a prize. To remain ever wakeful on that seat is a demand for
constant self-examination in government. To be more humble and forbearing sets the standard of
conduct towards those you now rule, including those who disagree with you. And there will be no end
to your being tested says that independence is the beginning of the work and not its end. The agenda
this produces is a moral one: a government that serves rather than rules, that keeps its humility
towards minorities and the weak, and that treats every day in office as a test. It matches what
Gandhi actually did in those months, when he refused to celebrate and instead worked in Kolkata,
Noakhali and Delhi to stop communal violence and to ensure that Muslims could stay in India with
dignity as equal citizens.
The agenda that flows from Nehru’s statement. Nehru speaks of arrival and of opportunity.
India awakes to a life of freedom, steps out from the old to the new, ends a period of ill fortune,
and discovers herself again. But he is careful to add that the achievement is but a step, an opening
of opportunity. The agenda this produces is a constructive and forward-looking one: to build
institutions, to establish democracy in practice and not only on paper, and to use the opportunity
freedom has opened to achieve development and the well-being of the entire society. This matches the
second and third of the three challenges the chapter names, since the Constitution granted
fundamental rights and the vote to every citizen and set out welfare goals in the Directive
Principles of State Policy, and the real challenge was to evolve effective policies for economic
development and the eradication of poverty.
Which appeals more, and why. Both are needed, and the chapter’s own story shows why. Read
against 1947, Gandhi’s warning is the more immediately relevant of the two, because the danger of
that year was not a shortage of opportunity but a collapse of decency: 1947 was a year of
unprecedented violence, about 80 lakh people had to migrate and between five to ten lakh were
killed. Nehru’s opportunity would have meant nothing if the state had not first been humble and
forbearing enough to keep its minorities safe, which is exactly the point Nehru himself made in his
Letter to Chief Ministers. Read against the decades that followed, Nehru’s agenda is the one that
built the linguistic states, the elections and the development policies that this book goes on to
describe. So the honest answer is that Gandhi’s statement supplies the conscience of nation building
and Nehru’s supplies its programme, and a nation needs both. You may argue for either as long as you
support it from the chapter.
6 Question 6
Q. 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?
Nehru’s reasons. The chapter gives Nehru’s own words from his Letter to Chief Ministers of
15 October 1947. He starts from a fact, not a feeling: “We have a Muslim minority who are so large in
numbers that they cannot, even if they want, go anywhere else. That is a basic fact about which there
can be no argument.” From that fact he draws the obligation: whatever the provocation from Pakistan
and whatever the indignities and horrors inflicted on non-Muslims there, India has got to deal with
this minority in a civilised manner and must give them security and the rights of citizens in a
democratic State. He is joined in this by the leaders of the national movement generally, who
believed that India must treat persons of all religions equally and should not be a country that
gave superior status to adherents of one faith and inferior status to those who practised another,
so that all citizens would be equal irrespective of their religious affiliation and being religious
or a believer would not be a test of citizenship. This ideal of a secular nation was enshrined in the
Indian Constitution.
Were the reasons only ethical and sentimental? No. The ethical reason is certainly there,
and it is the one Gandhi lived and died for; equality of citizenship is a principle, not a
calculation. But the same letter carries an argument of pure prudence at the end: “If we fail to do
so, we shall have a festering sore which will eventually poison the whole body politic and probably
destroy it.” That is a statement about the survival of the state, not about right and wrong.
One, the size of the minority. Even after the large scale migration of Muslims to
Pakistan, the Muslim population in India accounted for 10-12 per cent of the total population in
1951. A state that treated a tenth of its own people as second-class citizens would be building a
permanent internal conflict.
Two, the danger of the two-nation theory being proved right. The leaders of the Indian
national struggle did not believe in the two-nation theory, and yet partition on a religious basis
had taken place. If India had then declared itself a Hindu nation, it would have accepted the very
theory it had fought, and would have had no answer to the treatment of Hindus and other minorities
in Pakistan.
Three, the first challenge of nation building. The immediate challenge was to shape a
nation that was united yet accommodative of the diversity in our society, and the chapter names
Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Jews alongside Muslims. A state built on one
religion could not have held that diversity together, and the partition had already created severe
conflict between the two communities while organisations existed that were trying to turn India
into a Hindu nation.
7 Question 7
Q. Bring out two major differences between the challenge of nation building for eastern
and western regions of the country at the time of Independence.
First difference: the shape the partition took on each side. In the west, the Punjab was
bifurcated according to the religious majority at the district or even lower level, and the new
Pakistan territory lay directly across the border, so the west faced an enormous two-way movement of
people, with Hindus and Sikhs coming in and Muslims going out at a few hours’ notice. This is where
the chapter’s images of the trauma belong: the trains, the ‘communal zones’ of Lahore and Amritsar,
and the refugee camps in which lakhs lived for months and sometimes for years. In the east, Bengal
was bifurcated in the same way, but the territory that became East Pakistan was separated from West
Pakistan by a long expanse of Indian territory, so the eastern problem was of a country in two wings
with India in between. The chapter’s own aside makes the point: what was ‘East’ Bengal has now become
Bangladesh, and that is why our Bengal is called ‘West’ Bengal.
Second difference: what nation building then demanded in each region. In the west, the
immediate demand was rehabilitation on a very large scale, and alongside it the integration of the
princely states, of which the chapter’s two examples of sheer number are both western and central:
there were 26 small states in today’s Orissa, and the Saurashtra region of Gujarat alone had 14 big
states, 119 small states and numerous other different administrations. In the east, the demand was of
a different kind. There the task was to stop communal violence and hold a mixed population together,
which is why Gandhi spent 15 August 1947 in Kolkata rather than at any independence day celebration,
and why the chapter’s photograph shows him in Noakhali, now in Bangladesh, in 1947. Beyond Bengal,
the eastern region also
raised the question of accommodating distinct regional and tribal aspirations, which took much longer
to settle than the linguistic reorganisation of 1956: Nagaland became a state only in 1963,
Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura in 1972, and Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh as late as 1987.
8 Question 8
Q. What was the task of the States Reorganisation Commission? What was its most salient
recommendation?
The task. The formation of Andhra spurred the struggle for making of other states on
linguistic lines in other parts of the country, and these struggles forced the Central Government
into appointing a States Reorganisation Commission in 1953. Its task was to look into the question of
the redrawing of the boundaries of states.
The most salient recommendation. The Commission in its report accepted that the boundaries
of the state should reflect the boundaries of different languages. In other words, it accepted
language as the basis on which India’s internal map should be drawn.
What followed from it. On the basis of its report the States Reorganisation Act was passed
in 1956, and this led to the creation of 14 states and six union territories. The acceptance of the
principle did not mean that every state became a linguistic state at once: there was still the
experiment of the bilingual Bombay state of Gujarati- and Marathi-speaking people, split into
Maharashtra and Gujarat only in 1960 after a popular agitation, and Punjab, where the Punjabi-speaking
people’s demand for a separate state was not granted with the other states in 1956 and was met ten
years later, in 1966.
9 Question 9
Q. 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.
The idea behind the question. India is not held together by one language, one religion or
one ethnic origin. It was a land of continental size and diversity whose people spoke different
languages and followed different cultures and religions, and at that time it was widely believed that
a country full of such kinds of diversity could not remain together for long. So whatever makes India
a nation has to be something shared that is not sameness.
One, a shared history and a common destiny. The chapter says India chose to shape itself
into a nation united by a shared history and common destiny. The national movement is the proof:
there were many voices in it, and yet there were two goals almost everyone agreed upon, that after
independence we would run our country through democratic government, and that the government would
be run for the good of all, particularly the poor and the socially disadvantaged groups.
Two, a common political aspiration, written down. The Constitution granted fundamental
rights and extended the right to vote to every citizen, India adopted representative democracy
based on the parliamentary form of government, and the Constitution laid down the principle of
equality and special protection to socially disadvantaged groups and religious and cultural
communities, along with the welfare goals in the Directive Principles of State Policy.
Three, secularism as a shared civic identity. All citizens are equal irrespective of
their religious affiliation, and being religious or a believer is not a test of citizenship. This
is what allowed Muslims, Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Jews to belong to the same
nation on the same terms.
Four, the acceptance of diversity as the basis of unity. This is the feature this chapter
is really about. The choice in favour of linguistic states was a choice in favour of recognising
and accepting the existence of differences which could at times be oppositional, so that democracy
came to be associated with plurality of ideas and ways of life. It did not lead to disintegration
as many had feared; on the contrary it strengthened national unity, and it opened the path to
politics and power to people other than the small English speaking elite.
10 Question 10
Q. 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?
(a) The commonalities, with an Indian example for each
| Commonality the author mentions | An example from India |
|---|---|
| A sense of unity had to be forged between many diverse ethnic groups | The north-east, where distinct groups had to be accommodated over decades: Nagaland became a state in 1963, Meghalaya, Manipur and Tripura in 1972, and Mizoram and Arunachal Pradesh in 1987. |
| Unity between religious communities | After partition the Muslim population was still 10-12 per cent of the total in 1951, alongside Sikhs, Christians, Jains, Buddhists, Parsis and Jews, and India chose the ideal of a secular nation enshrined in the Constitution. |
| Unity between linguistic communities | The reorganisation of states on the linguistic principle: the Vishalandhra movement, the separate Andhra state announced in December 1952, and the States Reorganisation Act of 1956 creating 14 states and six union territories. |
| Unity between social classes | The Constitution laid down the principle of equality and special protection to socially disadvantaged groups, and set out welfare goals in the Directive Principles of State Policy; the national movement had agreed that the government would be run for the good of all, particularly the poor and the socially disadvantaged groups. |
| A comparably massive scale, geographic as well as demographic | India was a land of continental size and diversity, and the Princely States alone covered one-third of the land area of the British Indian Empire, with one out of four Indians living under princely rule. |
| Unpropitious raw material: a people divided by faith and driven by debt and disease |
Freedom came with partition: about 80 lakh people migrated, between five to ten lakh were killed, and lakhs lived in refugee camps for months and sometimes for years, so the new state began its work on a population that was both divided and destitute. |
(b) Two dissimilarities
One, the political method. India built its unity through a democratic constitution,
representative democracy on the parliamentary form of government and the vote for every citizen, and
it accepted demands from below even when the leadership was against them. The clearest instance is
the linguistic states themselves: the central leadership decided to postpone the matter, and the
chapter notes that Nehru and other leaders were very popular and yet the people did not hesitate to
agitate for linguistic states against the wishes of the leaders. The leadership then made the choice
in favour of linguistic states under popular pressure. Unity by consent through open political
competition is not how the Soviet experiment proceeded.
Two, what was done with diversity. India treated diversity as something to be recognised
and accommodated, not overcome. The chapter says the linguistic states underlined the acceptance of
the principle of diversity, and that democracy became associated with plurality of ideas and ways of
life; the government was even prepared to be flexible in giving autonomy to some regions in order to
accommodate plurality. The Soviet experiment sought to forge a single sense of unity across its
diversity rather than to give that diversity its own political shape.
This chapter is about India, not about the Soviet Union, so it gives you no Soviet facts at all
beyond the ones inside Guha’s own passage. Build both dissimilarities out of what India did, as
above, and do not invent Soviet dates, figures or policies; an examiner marks the India half, which
is the half the chapter can support.
(c) Which experiment worked better, and why
The answer, with the chapter’s evidence. The Indian experiment worked better, and the
simplest proof is that it is still going while the other is not. The chapter gives the reason
directly. Accepting the regional and linguistic claims of all regions was expected to reduce the
threat of division and separatism, and that is what happened: linguistic reorganisation did not lead
to disintegration of the country as many had feared earlier; on the contrary it strengthened national
unity. Three further points support the same conclusion. Linguistic states opened the path to
politics and power to people other than the small English speaking elite, so unity came with a
widening of democracy rather than a narrowing of it. The linguistic principle gave some uniform basis
to the drawing of state boundaries, so the internal map rested on an agreed rule instead of the
accidents of colonial annexation. And the process kept working long after 1956: Maharashtra and
Gujarat in 1960, Punjab in 1966, the north-eastern states from 1963 to 1987, Chhattisgarh,
Uttarakhand and Jharkhand in 2000, and Telangana on 2 June, 2014, each demand settled within the
constitutional system rather than outside it. That capacity to keep absorbing new demands without
breaking is what made the Indian experiment the more durable of the two.
11 Let Us Do It Together
Task. Read a novel/ story on partition by an Indian and a Pakistani/ Bangladeshi writer. What are the commonalities of the experience across the border? Collect all the stories from the ‘Let’s Research’ suggestion in this chapter. Prepare a wallpaper that highlights the common experiences and has stories on the unique experiences.
How to do it. The chapter itself gives you three starting texts from both sides of the border: Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s The Dawn of Freedom (translated from the Urdu Subh-e-azadi), Amrita Pritam’s Today I call Waris Shah (from the Punjabi Aaj Akhan Waris Shah Nun) and Saadat Hasan Manto’s Hospitality Delayed (from the Urdu Kasre-Nafsi). Pick one full story or novel from an Indian writer and one from a Pakistani or Bangladeshi writer, and note down what happens to ordinary people in each.
Commonalities you are likely to find. The same experiences the chapter describes turn up on both sides: families forced to leave their homes at a few hours’ notice, people travelling across the border on foot or by train and being attacked on the way, women abducted or killed in the name of ‘family honour’, children separated from their parents, and neighbours who had lived together turning on each other. You will also find the other side of the story that the chapter’s ‘Let’s re-search’ box records, of families who sheltered people of the other community and saved their lives. Writers on both sides used the survivors’ own phrase for Partition, a ‘division of hearts’.
The wallpaper. Put the common experiences in the centre, with a short line from each text that shows them, and place the unique stories collected by the class (from the ‘Let’s re-search’ interviews) around the edge, each with the name of the place the family came from and where it settled.
12 In-text Questions
The chapter also asks questions inside the text: in a picture caption, in the film box, in the ‘Let’s re-search’ box and in the margin notes. They are answered below in the order in which they appear in the book, in the book’s own wording.
Q. These three stamps were issued in 1950 to mark the first republic day on 26 January 1950. What do the images on these stamps tell you about the challenges to the new republic? If you were asked to design these stamps in 1950, which images would you have chosen?
Answer. Stamps issued for the first Republic Day celebrate the new nation, and so they point straight at the three challenges this chapter names: to shape a nation that was united yet accommodative of the diversity in our society, to establish democracy, and to ensure the development and well-being of the entire society and not only of some sections. The three stamps show people beside a spinning wheel, people beside an ear of grain with a plough, and crowds celebrating with trumpets and flags. The spinning wheel and the grain point to the challenge of development, of feeding and clothing the people through self-reliant farming and industry, and the celebrating crowds point to a republic that belongs to all its people, that is, to unity and democracy.
Images I would choose. One stamp showing people of different regions, languages and religions together, for unity in diversity; one showing a voter casting a ballot, for democracy based on universal adult franchise; and one showing a farmer, a factory and a school, for development and the eradication of poverty. (This half of the question asks for your own design, so any images that match the three challenges are acceptable.)
Q. Can you imagine what Mirza Salim finally did? What do you think you would have done in these circumstances?
Answer. In the film, Salim Mirza finally decides not to leave for Pakistan. Seeing the students’ procession demanding fair treatment from the government, with his son Sikandar in it, he chooses to stay in India and join the struggle for his rights instead of running away from it.
What I would have done. I would also have stayed. The chapter explains why this was the right choice for the new India: most leaders of the national movement believed that India must treat persons of all religions equally, that all citizens would be equal irrespective of their religious affiliation, and that being religious or a believer would not be a test of citizenship. Staying and demanding fair treatment is a way of holding the state to that promise of a secular nation. (The second part asks for your own opinion; give reasons whichever way you answer.)
Q. Have you heard a similar story? Ask your grandparents or anyone of that generation about their memories of Independence Day, about the celebration, about the trauma of partition, about the expectations they had from independence. Write down at least two of these stories.
How to answer. This is a small oral-history project. Ask the elder four things, in the order the box gives them: what they remember of Independence Day, how it was celebrated, what they saw or heard of the trauma of partition, and what they expected independence would bring. Write each story in the person’s own words, with the place and the year.
What to look for. The box’s own example is Shweta’s Nana, who moved from Lahore to Ludhiana, lost both his parents and survived only because a neighbouring Muslim family hid him for several days and helped him cross the border. The chapter adds that there are many examples of Hindu families and others who helped, sheltered and saved the lives of Muslim families too. Note down both the suffering and the acts of compassion and solidarity in your two stories, because that is the point the box is making.
Q. Can’t we end the partition of India and Pakistan the way they did in Germany? I want to have breakfast in Amritsar and lunch in Lahore!
Q. Isn’t it better that we now learn to live and respect each other as independent nations?
Answer. The two notes pull in opposite directions, and the second is the more realistic. Partition was not a temporary line drawn by outside powers: it followed the principle of religious majorities, it produced two independent nation-states on 14-15 August 1947, and it was followed by one of the largest, most abrupt and tragic transfers of population in history, with about 80 lakh people migrating and five to ten lakh killed. Two separate states and societies have grown on either side since then. Learning to live as good neighbours and respecting each other as independent nations, with easier travel, trade and contact between people, is the way to make ‘breakfast in Amritsar and lunch in Lahore’ possible without undoing the two countries. (This is an opinion question; you may argue either way if you give reasons.)
Q. I wonder what happened to all those hundreds of kings, queens, princes and princesses. How did they live their lives after becoming just ordinary citizens?
Answer. After integration the rulers lost their states and their power to govern. The people of the princely states became citizens of democratic India with the same rights as everyone else, and the rulers too became ordinary citizens who could vote and contest elections like anyone else. In Manipur, for example, the Maharaja first became a constitutional ruler after the elections of June 1948 and then signed the Merger Agreement in September 1949. What the chapter stresses is the change for the people: in most of the princely states governments had been run in a non-democratic manner, and integration ended that.
Q. Now, isn’t this very interesting? Nehru and other leaders were very popular, and yet the people did not hesitate to agitate for linguistic states against the wishes of the leaders!
Answer. Yes, and it shows how democracy worked in the new India. The central leadership had decided to postpone linguistic states, but local leaders and the people challenged that decision. In the Telugu speaking areas the Vishalandhra movement grew, Potti Sriramulu died after a fast of 56 days, and the unrest forced the Prime Minister to announce a separate Andhra state in December 1952. Popular leaders did not stop people from disagreeing with them; the leadership, under popular pressure, finally made a choice in favour of linguistic states, and the States Reorganisation Commission (1953) and the States Reorganisation Act (1956) followed.
Q. Read the map and answer the following questions:
1. Name the original state from which the following states were carved out: Gujarat, Haryana, Meghalaya, Chhattisgarh
2. Name two states that were affected by the partition of the country.
3. Name two states today that were once a Union Territory.
Answer.
1. Gujarat: from the bilingual Bombay state (1960). Haryana: from Punjab (1966). Meghalaya: from Assam (1972). Chhattisgarh: from Madhya Pradesh (2000).
2. Punjab and West Bengal, the two provinces that were bifurcated at Partition.
3. Manipur and Tripura, which were Union Territories and emerged as separate states in 1972.
Q. The US has one-fourth of our population but 50 states. Why can’t India have more than 100 states?
Answer. The number of states is not fixed by population alone. In India the boundaries of states have been drawn on an agreed basis, chiefly language, which the States Reorganisation Act of 1956 used, and later on the basis of a separate regional culture or regional imbalance in development, as with Chhattisgarh, Uttarakhand and Jharkhand in 2000 and Telangana in 2014. New states are created when such demands arise and are accepted, and the chapter notes that demands for smaller states such as Vidarbha, Harit Pradesh and the northern region of West Bengal still continue. So India could have more states, but each has to rest on a genuine regional demand; creating a hundred states simply to match the number in the US would ignore the linguistic and cultural basis on which our states were formed. (This is a discussion question; you may argue for more states if you give reasons.)