India is a land of widespread diversities in terms of religion, language, caste, tribe, race, religion and so on. Hence, the achievement of National Integration becomes very essential for the all round development and prosperity of the country.

Obstacles to national integration:

Regionalism- Regionalism refers to the sub-nationalism and sub-territorial loyalty. It implies the love for a particular region or state in preference to the country as a whole. There is also sub-regionalism that is love for a particular reason in preference to the state of which region forms a part. Some examples of regionalism are demand of the people of certain areas for separate state would like Telangana, Bodoland, Uttrakhand, Vidarbha, Gorkhaland and so on; demand of people of certain union territories for full-fledged statehood like Manipur, Tripura, Puducherry, Delhi, Goa; formation of organisations with regional motives which advocates a militant approach in pursuing its policies and goals like Hindi Sena, Shivsena, Lachit Sena and so on.

Communalism- Communalism means love for one’s religious community in preference to a nation and a tendency to promote the communal interest at the cost of the interest of other religious communities. It has its roots in the British rule where 1909, 1919 and 1935 Acts had introduced communal representation for the Muslims and others.

Casteism- It implies love for one’s own caste group in preference to the general National interest. It is mainly an outcome of politicization of caste. Its various manifestations include formation of political parties on the basis of caste, emergence of pressure groups based on caste, allotment of party tickets during elections and formation of Council of Ministers in the states on caste lines.

Linguism– It means love for one’s language and hatred towards other language speaking people. The phenomena of linguism like that of regionalism, communalism and casteism are also a consequence of the political process. The problem of linguism got accentuated with the rise of some Regional parties in recent times like TDP, AGP, Shivsena and so on.