Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R).
Assertion (A) : The concept of National Integration involves political, economic, social, cultural and psy

Question

Given below are two statements, one is labelled as Assertion (A) and the other as Reason (R).
Assertion (A) : The concept of National Integration involves political, economic, social, cultural and psychological dimensions and inter-relation between them.
Reason (R) : The National Integration Council was constituted in 1961 on the principle of 'Unity in Diversity'.
Select the correct answer from the code given below :
Code :

UnlockIAS · Accepted Answer

Correct — A, Both (A) and (R) are true, but (R) is not the correct explanation of (A). The Assertion is the standard definition: national integration is treated in Indian political sociology as a multi-dimensional process — political (a shared constitutional and party system), economic (interdependence and balanced regional development), social (breaking caste and communal barriers), cultural (mutual respect across languages and faiths) and psychological (a felt sense of belonging to one nation) — with the dimensions reinforcing one another. The Reason is also true on its checkable core: the National Integration Council does date from 1961, when Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru convened a National Integration Conference in September-October 1961 out of which the Council was set up, with the Prime Minister as its chairman; 'unity in diversity' is the guiding idea conventionally attached to it. But the Reason is an institutional and historical fact about a body, while the Assertion is a conceptual claim about what integration consists of. The existence and founding year of a council cannot explain why the concept has five interlinked dimensions — if anything the causality runs the other way, since it was the many-sided nature of the problem that made a broad-based council necessary. Both true, no explanatory link: option (a).

Why the other options are wrong — (b) The Reason is not false. The National Integration Council genuinely traces to 1961 — Nehru's National Integration Conference of September-October 1961 produced it, and its first meeting followed in June 1962. A candidate who has only heard of the Council's later reconstitutions (2005 and 2010) or its last meeting (2013) may wrongly reject 1961.  (c) The Assertion is the textbook description of national integration and is not false. Nothing in it is overstated: it lists dimensions and says they are inter-related, which is exactly how the concept is taught. Rejecting a correct definitional statement is the commonest way to lose an assertion-reason mark.  (d) This is the trap the question is built on. Both statements are true and both are about national integration, so the eye wants to link them — but a date-and-institution fact does not explain a conceptual definition. Ask the explicit test: does the Reason answer the question 'WHY does national integration have these dimensions?' It does not; it only tells you that a council exists to promote integration.

Concept: National integration is the process of building a common sense of nationhood across a society divided by religion, language, caste, region and tribe — not by erasing those differences but by keeping loyalty to the nation stronger than loyalty to any one group. It is analysed along political, economic, social, cultural and psychological dimensions, and these interlock: regional economic disparity feeds regional political resentment, which in turn hardens cultural distance. The National Integration Council, set up in 1961 with the Prime Minister as chairman and drawing in Chief Ministers, opposition leaders and public figures, is the institutional forum for exactly this problem — its remit is communalism, casteism and regionalism.

State PCS 2025 Q83 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer

State PCS 2025 Q83 — Polity & Governance PYQ with Answer