Communalism in the 40s

Have been reading "The Dicovery of India" and its been a great read so far. Especially thinking about the times it was written in...seems India was so much more dyamic then...in the sense that so many people were working together for a common cause...

I came across a passage where Jawaharlal Nehru discusses the communal issues...his understanding of the communal problem is so much superior to the leaders of today...or maybe the leaders of today just shut their eyes and make plans to exploit it (Mulayam Singh Yadav is a prime example). His writing brings out his love for the nation so clearly that I feel a bit sorry that I had reservations about his being the first PM....more on that some other time..

This is what he had to say :
"The Communal problem, as it was called, was one of adjusting the claims of the minorities and giving them sufficient protection from majority action. Minorities in India, it must be remembered, are not racial or national minorities as in Europe; they are religious minorities
... There is no dispute about the usual provision for minority protection, such as the League of Nations used to lay down. All those were agreed to and much more. Religion, culture, language, the fundamental rights of the individual and the group, were all to be protected and assured by basic constitutional provisions in a democratic constitution applying equally to all.
... What remained? Fear that bigger numbers might politically overwhelm a minority.
... Having assured the protection of religion and culture,etc., the major problems that were bound to come up were economic ones which had nothing to do with a person's religion.
... It was not clear how even a majority could injure the interests of a huge minority like the Moslems, concentrated mostly in certain parts of the country, which would be autonomous. But fear is not reasonable."