From 50 Years Ago:..Irresponsible Opposition.

How did we greet the 10th anniversary of the Republic? With mixed feelings, of course, but if truth has to be told, there was little intensity of feeling either of elation or anger, despite the progress of the plans, another year of good crops and the continued violation of our borders by the Chinese. True enough there was deep stir when border violations came to be widely known. Once in a long while, the nation arose as one man, de-manded that the country’s frontiers are ade-quately protected and got from the Government the assurance that it needed. But there has been no fresh incursions by the Chinese and there is a lull on the frontiers. The intense agitation of those few days was a most reassuring evi-dence of the strength of our nationalism. The pity of it is that people can be aroused, and united, against something, – the anti-idea being inseparable from the group idea – but they cannot be aroused and united for some-thing in the same manner. There is little en-thusiasm in the country for anything and let us better own it up. That is Nehru’s problem and the country’s problem. How to get the people interested, make them enthusiastic and keep up their enthusiasm for the things that matter? What matters most, no one need be told today. All that, or a part of it, if not a substantial part, has been put into the Five Year Plans. The Plan, however, has not yet aroused the enthusiasm of the people and brought it up to the high pitch that is neces-sary to turn it into the one object of national aspiration and pride.