ABSTRACT
Independence of India came with the difficult task of the ‘integration of states’, which required a careful and pragmatic political strategy on the part of national leaders combining cultural diversity with the political unity of the country. As a mature political leader and the first prime minister of independent India, Nehru had to initiate the twin processes of state and nation formation in post-partitioned India. Nehru’s contribution to the state-formation processes immediately after independence needs to be examined in the context of state security and stability in post-partitioned India. It is important to understand the conceptual framework — discursively and politically — within which Nehru tried to manage the burden of reorganisation soon after becoming the first prime minister of independent India. Nehru too thought that reorganisation probably would establish the languages of education in these states in a determinate manner and thus create a democratic public space for everyone to be educated in the language of the state.
