E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Is There an Alternative to… 161to provide the framework of our system. Firstly, let us look atthe foundations-the belief in a common nationhood, insovereignty, in democracy, and in socialism.The sense of nationhood was not merely a reflex thatthe presence and policies of the alien caused. It was essentiallya positive awareness of oneness, of the commonness ofexperience and aspiration that had seeped into the subconscious,through oral traditions, mores and myths, and theambience of amity and mutuality in the case of the commonman, and through all these reinforced by the study of history,culture, and modern ideas, in the case of the elite and theeducated. Those who have lived through the period of thestruggle for independence will surely testify to the reality andthe near-universality of this sense of oneness. I do not suggestthere was no dissent, or that no one challenged the prevalentnotion of nationhood. Indeed there were some who argued thatreligion or ethnic affinity was the predominant determinant ofnationhood, and that India could not, therefore, be considered acountry inhabited by one nation. Quaid-e-Azam MohammadAli Jinnah forced the partition of the country on the basis of histwo-nation theory. But, apart from those who followed him, thevast majority of Indians considered this view an illogical andunfortunate aberration, and believed that religion or ethnicaffinity could not be considered the sole basis of nationhood;that diversity in religious beliefs, ethnic origin, language, andthe like need not prevent the emergence, stability, and progressof a nation. Thus the concept of nationhood that took shapefrom our distant as well as recent history was based onsecularism or equal respect for all religions, pluralism, andvirtual federalism. It was widely believed that, with thePartition, and the carnage and colossal uprooting of familiesthat came as its aftermath, the illogicality and impracticabilityof the two-nation theory had been proved to the hilt, and thetheory that had become a convenient political hatchet in the