There were so many challenge that India was facing in the process of nation building. A significant contribution of Indian national movement had been to forge India’s unity cutting across class, caste, ethnic and religious divides. It was achieved as a struggle against colonialism. After 1947, when the British had left India there was a resurfacing of tensions inherent in the Indian society.
The foremost was the challenge of religious communalism. The national movement’s attempt at uniting Hindus and Muslims in face of the higher challenge of colonialism was undermined even when the major movements like Non-cooperation and Civil Disobedience Movements were withdrawn.
In the post-colonial phase with the growing social and economic insecurity communalism reared its ugly head again. Partition stimulated a wave of communal unrest. The challenge was to address the problem of communal tension and its violent aftermath.
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Various approaches were tried which included gearing up the law and order machinery to the education of the general population regarding the syncretic tradition of Hindu-Muslim unity. You must be aware of the recent controversy regarding the syllabus and curriculum of history writing in India.
In the 1960s and 70s a major attempt was made to write history textbooks countering communalism and putting towards the secular viewpoint. Attempts were also made to reconcile through peace marches, seminars, discussions as well as cultural interactions.
These it may be pointed out were responses coming from within the civil society. At the constitutional level fundamental rights to equality and freedom. For minority institutions to run their own affairs sought to create an atmosphere in which amicable conditions came in to being for communal harmony.
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The Indian State tried to create a legal framework in which Hindus and Muslims could live together. The problem however, has persisted. As late as 1993 the Bombay communal riots and then recently the communal riots in Godhra in Gujarat are indications that the communal tensions persist within the Indian society and polity and is likely to remain a fundamental challenge.
Apart from the religious divide the problem of caste divides persist as a major challenge to the nascent Indian society and polity. B.R. Ambedkar took up the cause of the lower caste movements in the days of the freedom struggle.
However, in spite of various achievements of Dr. Ambedkar, the Dalit and lower castes continued to be abused, humiliated and deprived of their basic rights in the post-independence India. Anti-Dalit carnages in Bihar. Haryana and Maharashtra in this period is a grim reminder that this challenge to post-Independence India will not go away in a hurry.
Furthermore, there is a major challenge which the Indian nation faces in the North-East. Here tribes with territorial and kinship lies spreading over several states and even national boundaries are in a struggle for defining their self-determination. During the colonial regime, social and economic neglect of these tribes compounded the problem. Consequently, there has been tension threatening the unity and integrity of India itself.