From 50 Years Ago: Wherewith Shall It Be Salted?

Though the threatened strike by Post and Telegraph employees did not mar the Independence Day – in fact the celebrations were preceded by a much welcome sense of relief – it would be idle to pretend that August 15 stirred the people or aroused any enthusiasm or that the attempt to bolster up enthusiasm for India’s first War of Independence on the following day met with any better success. Why this cynicism? Is the country so much weighed down by mundane cares that it does not respond any longer even to so momentous an event as the celebration of ten years of Independence?...The routine recital that for the first time in centuries India has developed a sense of national unity and territorial integrity, that the integration of the Princely States has been an achievement without a parallel in the country’s history no longer stirs up flagging spirits.

True, there is the record in these ten years of two free and fair general elections to substantiate India’s claim to be the largest political democracy in the world today.Political stability has been consolidated. Social stability has been enhanced...These are no mean achievements.