India After Independence Summary Class 8 NCERT Summary

A New and Divided Nation

• Due to partition, 8 million refugees had come into India from what was now Pakistan.
• There was about 500 princely states each ruled by a maharaja or a nawab, each of whom had to be persuaded to join the new nation.
• There were divisions between high castes and low castes, between the majority Hindu community and Indians who practised other faiths.

A Constitution is Written

• Between December 1946 and November 1949, three hundred Indians had a series of meetings and decided on the formation of the Indian Constitution on 26 January, 1950.
• The features of Indian Constitution:
  • The adoption of universal adult franchise.
  • Guaranteed equality before the law to all citizens, regardless of their caste or religious affiliation.
  • Offered special constitutional rights to the poorest and the most disadvantaged Indian citizens along with the former Untouchables, the adivasis or Scheduled Tribes were also granted reservation in seats and jobs.
• The Constituent Assembly spent many days discussing the powers of the central government versus those of the state governments.
• The Constitution sought to balance claims by providing three lists of subjects: 
  • Union List (subjects such as taxes, defence and foreign affairs): Centre
  • State List (subjects such as education and health): States
  • Concurrent List (subjects such as forests and agriculture): The Centre and the states
• Another major debate in the Constituent Assembly concerned language which ended with Hindi would be the “official language” of India, English would be used in the courts, the services, and communications between one state and another.
• Dr. B.R. Ambedkar was the chairman of the Drafting Committee and under his guidance the document was finalised.

How were States to be Formed?

• A States Reorganisation Commission was set up, which submitted its report in 1956, recommending the redrawing of district and provincial boundaries to form compact provinces of Assamese, Bengali, Oriya, Tamil, Malayalam, Kannada and Telugu speakers respectively.
• The large Hindi-speaking region of north India were broken up into several states.
• In 1960, the bilingual state of Bombay was divided into separate states for the Marathi and Gujarati speakers.
• In 1966, the state of Punjab was divided into Punjab and Haryana, the former for the Punjabi speakers and the latter for the rest.

Planning for Development

• In 1950, the government set up a Planning Commission to help design and execute suitable policies for economic development.
• In 1956, the Second Five Year Plan was formulated which focused strongly on the development of heavy industries such as steel, and on the building of large dams.

The Nation, Sixty Years On

• On 15 August 2007, India celebrated sixty years of its existence as a free nation.
• That India is still united, and that it is still democratic.
• As many as thirteen general elections have been held since Independence, as well as hundreds of state and local elections. 
• There is a free press, as well as an independent judiciary.
• On the other hand, despite constitutional guarantees, the Untouchables or, as they are now referred to, the Dalits, face violence and discrimination.
• The Constitution recognises equality before the law, but in real life some Indians are more equal than others.