The second matter on which I should like to see control from the Centre is education. I know that I am touching on Avery controversial point, that I will be criticised and my suggestion will be completely repudiated by those who, I feel, think – and only think – in provincial terms. At the same time, I feel that my proposal that education throughout the country should be controlled from the Centre will have, the approval and endorsement of eminent educationists of men, of vision and of men with statesmanship. What is happening today? On the threshold of independence (I cannot help saying it) certain provinces are running riot in the educational field. Provinces are implementing not only divergent but often directly opposing policies. And it is axiomatic that a uniform, synthesized, planned education system is the greatest force to ensure national solidarity and national integration. Equally, divergent, fissiparous, opposing educational policies will be the greatest force for disintegration and the disruption of this country. I regret to say, but it is true, if we will only admit it, that educational policies conceived in narrow provincial and even parochial terms are today menacing us with the inevitable danger of raising cultural barriers, mental stockades, of building educational walls, over which it will become increasingly impossible to look. I feel very strongly on this subject, because I have not a little to do with education. I have a great deal to do with education from an all-India point of view, and I feel that if a policy of laissez faire at this stage is conceded or accepted from the Centre, then we are trifling with a force which in its potential for mischief, in its potential for disrupting this country is much greater than any disruptive tendency we have faced from religious communalism.
