Read the passage given below to answer.
"I believe separate electorates will be suicidal to the minorities"
During the debate on 27 August 1947, Govind Ballabh Pant said:
I believe separate electorates will be suicidal to the minorities and will do them tremendous harm. If they are isolated for ever, they can never convert themselves into a majority and the feeling of frustration will cripple them even from the very beginning. What is it that you desire and what is our ultimate objective? Do the minorities always want to remain as minorities or do they ever expect to form an integral part of a great nation and as such to guide and control its destinies? If they do, can they ever achieve that aspiration and that ideal if they are isolated from the rest of the community? I think it would be extremely dangerous for them if they were segregated from the rest of the community and kept aloof in an air-tight compartment where they would have to rely on others even for the air they breath. The minorities if they are returned by separate electorates can never have any effective voice.
CAD, Vol.II
"There is the unwholesome and to some extent degrading habit of thinking always in terms of communities and never in terms of citizens" was stated by:
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Govind Ballabh Pant
Arguing that all communities had to act as equal members of one State, Govind Ballabh Pant called it an unwholesome and degrading habit to think always in terms of communities and never in terms of citizens; for him it was the citizen that must count.
NCERT (2026-27): “3.1 The problem with separate electorates … The Constitution would grant to citizens rights, but citizens had to offer their loyalty to the State. Communities could be recognised as cultural entities and assured cultural rights. Politically, however, members of all communities had to act as equal members of one State, or else there would be divided loyalties. ‘There is the unwholesome and to some extent degrading habit of thinking always in terms of communities and never in terms of citizens,’ said Pant. And he added: ‘Let us remember that it is the citizen that must count. It is the citizen that forms the base as well as the summit of the social pyramid.…” |