First and foremost, we have succeeded in maintaining the unity of the nation, and kept this vast country together. It is for the first time in our history, that we have been able to put an economic content into the dream of unity that has haunted the mind of India over the ages, and establish economic ties of inter-dependence between the diverse parts of the country. It is by clinging to our cultural values and our traditions of tolerance, to our composite culture and secularism, and to our economic and social development programmes, that we can maintain our unity. It is from this domestic base that our armed forces defended with valour the territorial integrity of the country during the last five decades. The greatest achievement of India since independence, has been the establishment of a democratic system of government and politics.
Indian democracy is the product of a complexity of factors.
Besides, the revolutionary implications of universal adult suffrage that we adopted are unfolding themselves today. The lower and poorer sections of society and the women are being drawn into the political system as active players. The time is overdue for meeting the aspirations of these sections of society, particularly the women, for their economic and political empowerment. Fellow citizens, we have every reason to be proud of our democracy. But we will have to strain our every nerve to purify our political, administrative and electoral processes, and to remove the aberrations and distortions that have come into the functioning of our democracy.