Politics in India since Independence Three Challenges Broadly, independent India faced three kinds of challenges. The first and the immediate challenge was to shape a nation that was united, yet accommodative of the diversity in our society. India was a land of continental size and diversity. Its people spoke different languages and followed different cultures and religions.
At that time it was widely believed that a country full of such kinds of diversity could not remain together for long. The partition of the country appeared to prove everyone’s worst fears. There were serious questions about the future of India: Would India survive as a unified country? Would it do so by emphasising national unity at the cost of every other objective?
Would it mean rejecting all regional and sub-national identities? And there was an urgent question: How was integration of the territory of India to be achieved? The second challenge was to establish democracy. You have already studied the Indian Constitution.
You know that 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. These features ensure that the political competition would take place in a democratic framework. Hindustan Times, July Tomorrow we shall be free from the slavery of the British domination.
But at midnight India will be partitioned. Tomorrow will thus be a day of rejoicing as well as of mourning. Mahatma Gandhi August , Kolkata.