Read the passage and answer the questions:
“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 breathe... The minorities if they are returned by separate electorates can never have any effective voice”.
What argument is given to oppose a separate electorate?
Answer & explanation
Correct answer: option 2
The correct answer is Option (2) → Isolation
The whole argument of the passage is isolation. Pant argued that separate electorates would permanently isolate the minorities, make them vulnerable, and deprive them of any effective say within the government. Segregated from the rest of the community and kept aloof in an “air-tight compartment”, they would have to rely on others even for the air they breathe.
Option (1) Sedition — Incorrect. Sedition means stirring up people against the government. Pant accuses no one of it; he speaks of the harm to the minorities themselves.
Option (3) Communism — Incorrect. Communism is a political idea of common ownership of property. It has nothing to do with the debate on electorates.
Option (4) Pan-Internationalism — Incorrect. The speech does not look beyond India at all. It is about the place of the minorities within one nation.
NCERT (2026-27): “3.1 The problem with separate electorates … Countering the demand for separate electorates, Govind Ballabh Pant declared that it was not only harmful for the nation but also for the minorities. He agreed with Bahadur that the success of a democracy was to be judged by the confidence it generated amongst different sections of people. He agreed too that every citizen in a free state should be treated in a manner that satisfied ‘not only his material wants but also his spiritual sense of self-respect’, and that the majority community had an obligation to try and understand the problems of minorities, and empathise with their aspirations. Yet Pant opposed the idea of separate electorates. It was a suicidal demand, he argued, that would permanently isolate the minorities, make them vulnerable, and deprive them of any effective say within the government.…”
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