The people at large have eagerly seen in the move to nationalise the banks the beginning of a new economic advance. However, the logic of nationalisation is basically the logic of large scale mobilisation of resources. Unless this is grasped, we will falter and dissipate the enthusiasm that has been generated. Only if this is grasped shall we be in a position to provide a national minimum to all sections of our population. Without providing the national minimum in the matter of food, clothing, shelter and education, we cannot hope to harness the boundless potential for growth that exists in this country. We have to do these things quickly or else we may not be in a position to do them at all.
Let us turn now to the specifics of the development of political ideas, institutions and parties in the seventies. It is clear that they will have to be in tune with the broad design of defence effort. On this at least there will have to be a national consensus without which it is not possible to make the heavy investment required for safeguarding national security against external aggression. There are also two other areas in which it is desirable to secure maximum agreement between all the political parties in the country.
The first is the whole range of political and administrative policies for preserving and strengthening our hard-won unity. We have a number of obstacles in the way of nation building. In some ways they are a product of our long history. But the very process of social and economic development has also created new focal points of tension. Communalism is one of the most difficult problems we face. Manifestations of communalism, particularly in the form of violent conflicts resulting in the tragic loss of many innocent lives and property, are a daily reminder of the unfinished task of building the nation on modern secular lines. We have to remember that unless religion is accepted by the people as a matter of individual's personal faith and belief, not affecting his social, economic or political status in the country, the very foundations of our Constitution viz. common citizenship, common rights and common obligations, will be undermined. The country paid a terrible price, in the aftermath of the partition, when a section of our people equated religion with nation. One would have thought that we would have learnt our lessons from that catastrophe. The continuing eruptions of the rash of communal violence across the country is, however, a sad reminder to the fact that it is not so.
There cannot be any doubt that India as a nation cannot survive if the communal virus is not rooted out for ever, and the idea of secularism is not translated into reality. In 1947, we gave to ourselves a new idea of the State which did not patronise this or that religion, which was not associated with the religious values of a particular community, but which conferred equal rights, and imposed equal obligation on all, irrespective of their religious convictions. Though the ground for acceptance of this idea had been prepared carefully by our great leaders during the freedom struggle, traces of older attitudes and values survive and make it difficult to establish a truly secular approach to problems of society and of Government.
