So I ask you whether you want the majority to be cut off in such a way that the majority will not be answerable to anybody belonging to your community and no one in the majority will have to care for your sentiments or for the reactions of his acts on you and your associates? Nothing will be more harmful than that. And do you not see the signs today? Do you not see the upsurge of communal passions even in quarters which had remained uncontaminated in the past? I have no doubt that from whichever point of view you may look at it, it will be extremely detrimental to your interests if you now clamour for separate electorates. Apart from other things it is an obsolete anachronism today. In a free country nobody has ever heard of separate electorates. After all, what is the essence of democracy? For the success of democracy one must train himself in the art of self-discipline. In democracies one should care less for himself and more for others. There cannot be any divided loyalty. All loyalties must exclusively be centered round the State. If in a democracy, you create rival loyalties, or you create a system in which any individual or-group, instead of suppressing his extravagance, cares nought for larger or other interests, then democracy is doomed. So, separate electorates are not only dangerous to the State and to society as a whole, but they are particularly harmful to the minorities. We all have had enough of this experience, and it is somewhat tragic to find that all that experience should be ‘lost and still people should hug the exploded shibboleths and slogans. In the olden days one could have shouted like that; but now, especially these days when we are seeing all the orgies of violence before our very eyes when we are every hour hearing the harrowing tales of massacres, of rapine, of plunder, of rape and what not, which make everyone of us hang his head in shame if not to hang himself by the neck, then I say, does it not occur to you that we have paid amply for this abominable cult of separation and we must grow wise?
