Now, all of us here, I believe, are convinced that this business of separatism, whether it took the shape of separate electorates or other shapes has done a tremendous amount of evil to our country and to our people. We came to the conclusion some time back that we must get rid of separate electorates. That was the major evil. Reluctantly we agreed to carry on with some measure of reservation. Reluctantly we did so for two reasons: Reason No. 1 was that we felt that we could not remove that without the goodwill of the minorities concerned. It was for them to take the lead or to say that they did not want it. For a majority to force that down their throats would not be fair to the various assurances that we had given in the past and otherwise, too, it did not look the right thing to do. Secondly, because in our heart of hearts we were not sure about ourselves nor about our own people as to how they would function when all these reservations were removed, we agreed to that reservation, but always there was this doubt in our minds, namely, whether we had not shown weakness in dealing with a thing that was wrong. So when this matter came up in another context, and it was proposed that we do away with all reservations, except in the case of the Scheduled Castes, for my part I accepted that with alacrity and with a feeling of great relief, because I had been fighting in my own mind and heart against this business of keeping up some measure of separatism in our political domain: and the more I thought of it the more I felt that it was the right thing to do not only from the point of view of pure nationalism, which it is, but also from the separate and individual view-point of each group, if you like, majority or minority.
