From 50 Years Ago:... Shall it Be Salted?

Can national integration be promoted by a committee or conference? We have been told it can be, and the conference which is meet-ing in Delhi is to take decisions and pass resolutions which, presumably, will be acted upon by the Union and State Governments. The present conference is a climax to a series of discussions and decisions on the subject arrived at earlier meetings sponsored by the Congress Party and there has been consider-able amount of preparatory work behind it. … Speaking at the conference now meeting in Delhi, Dr Zakir Hussain put his finger unerr-ingly on the sore spot when he said: “We have let loose forces which are creating disintegra-tion because we want to win elections”... Candidates had been selected on the basis of caste or communal considerations. Of the latter he cited the instance of the late Maulana Azad being put up as a candidate for Parliament only from Muslim majority areas. The Maulana, he felt, should have been put up from a pre-dominantly Hindu constituency. He might have been defeated but that defeat would have been a great victory for integration. The day’s newspaper which carries this report also carries the report of the victory of the Muslim League candidate in a by-election in Kerala. He came in with a reduced majority, because a Congress rebel candidate, who stood as an independent with “national integration” as his slogan, snatched some of his votes…