National Integration: The Council, and What It Was Set Up to Counter

National integration describes the process, and the outcome, of binding India's genuinely diverse linguistic, religious, regional, and caste groups into a single cohesive political and social nation, rather than a mere administrative union of separate identities. This chapter is deliberately conceptual, and its exam value sits mainly in one specific institutional response, the National Integration Council, and the precise, named threats it was set up to counter.

The four named threats

The National Integration Council's own founding purpose names four specific evils it was convened to combat: communalism (organising politics or society around religious identity in a divisive way), casteism (the same organisation around caste identity), regionalism (a narrow, state or region-first loyalty at the expense of national cohesion), and linguism (the same narrow loyalty organised around language). These four, named together, are the standard checklist a question on this chapter draws from, rather than a general, undifferentiated idea of "disunity."

The National Integration Council: origin and current status

The National Integration Council (NIC) originated in a conference Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru convened in September-October 1961, specifically to find ways to combat the four evils above, and the conference itself set up the Council to review integration issues on an ongoing basis and make recommendations. The Council is a large advisory body, with 147 members drawn from Union Cabinet Ministers, state Chief Ministers, opposition leaders, and eminent public figures, chaired by the Prime Minister. Worth stating plainly rather than assuming the Council is an active, regularly-meeting body today: its most recent, sixteenth meeting was held on 23 September 2013, and no meeting has followed in the years since, making it, in practice, a dormant institution rather than a functioning one, even though it has never been formally dissolved.

Quick revision points

• National integration is the process of binding India's diverse linguistic, religious, regional and caste groups into one cohesive nation.
• The National Integration Council's founding purpose names four specific evils: communalism, casteism, regionalism, and linguism.
• Origin: a conference Prime Minister Nehru convened in September-October 1961; the conference itself established the Council.
• Composition: 147 members (Union Ministers, Chief Ministers, opposition leaders, eminent citizens), chaired by the Prime Minister.
• Effectively dormant since 2013: its sixteenth and most recent meeting was held on 23 September 2013, with no subsequent meeting, though it has not been formally dissolved.

A question naming "communalism, casteism, regionalism, linguism" together is drawing directly from the Council's own founding purpose; a question implying the Council meets regularly today is testing whether a candidate knows it has, in practice, gone dormant since 2013.