India

When India attained independence, she was no nation, she was divided into princely states and provinces; she was backward economically, educationally, scientifically and even culturally. It needed men of genius and destiny like Gandhi, Nehru and Patel to knit her into a nation. Since the dawn of independence, we have been striving to solve various problems facing the motherland to make her a united democratic and solvent nation. What we have achieved is praiseworthy, what we have failed to achieve is deplora­ble. It is the right criticism that we could have achieved more than what we have achieved if we had possessed a missionary spirit and sacrificing attitude. Nevertheless, our achievements are not negligi­ble in the light of circumstances in which the Britisher left us at the time of the transfer of power.

We received freedom under the shadow money. The moment, we held the reins of regime, we Established position and changed the atmosphere of horror and terror created by communal disharmony into an atmosphere of goodwill, co-exis­tence and tolerance. We taught the lesson of regard to different communities living in India. Thus, we decided to take the nation towards secularism. When we formed our constitution, we expressed in a clear language that our aim was to make India a 'Secular State'. As against the narrow mindedness of the Pakistani leaders, who in­tended to make Pakistan a Theocratic State, we aimed at and succeeded in making India a Scalar State, This is our first achieve­ment of a great importance.

India looked a storehouse of problems when the English people left us with bag and baggage. The greatest problem was that of prin­cely states. India then was in a condition of complete disintegration, as nearly 562 princely states were raising their ugly heads. Sardar Vallabh Bhai Patel, the immortal son of mother India and the Bismark of India, with his will-power and iron-will, unified these scattered states dealing with them individually and