Q.Assertion (A) : The first challenge after getting independence was to keep India united. Reason (R) : India's Deputy Prime Minister and the Home Minister, Sardar Patel played an important role in the unification of India. Options : (A) Both Assertion (A) and Reason (R) are true and Reason (R) is the correct explanation of the Assertion (A). (B) Both Assertion (A) and Reason (R) are true, but Reason (R) is not the correct explanation of the Assertion (A). (C) Assertion (A) is false, but Reason (R) is true. (D) Assertion (A) is true, but Reason (R) is false.

When the British announced they would leave India in 1947, they also declared that the 565 princely states—territories that had enjoyed varying degrees of autonomy under paramountcy—would be free to choose: join India, join Pakistan, or remain independent. This created an immediate existential threat. If even a handful of strategically located states chose independence or acceded to Pakistan, the new Indian Union would be fragmented, surrounded by hostile or neutral enclaves, and possibly unviable as a nation. The challenge was not merely administrative but went to the heart of whether India would survive as a single political entity.

Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, serving as Deputy Prime Minister and Home Minister, took charge of the States Department alongside his secretary V.P. Menon. Between the announcement of independence and August 15, 1947, Patel orchestrated a campaign of persuasion, pressure, and occasionally coercion to secure the accession of princely states. He appealed to rulers' sense of shared geography, culture, and economic interest, while making it clear that independence was not a realistic option in the new political landscape. By Independence Day, all but three states—Junagadh, Hyderabad, and Kashmir—had acceded to India.

The holdouts required firmer action:

• Junagadh, a small state in Gujarat with a Muslim ruler and Hindu majority, initially acceded to Pakistan despite having no land connection to it. Patel authorized a police action, and after a plebiscite the state joined India.
• Hyderabad, the largest and wealthiest princely state in the Deccan, was ruled by a Nizam who hoped to remain independent. After more than a year of negotiations failed and communal violence escalated, Patel launched Operation Polo in September 1948, integrating Hyderabad into the Union within days.
• Kashmir acceded to India in October 1947 amid a tribal invasion from Pakistan, though its final status remained contested. …

Part (a)

Among the international organisations that campaign for human rights, the most prominent is Amnesty International. Founded in 1961, it works to prevent and end grave abuses of human rights by conducting careful research, mobilising public pressure through its global membership, and advocating for the release of prisoners of conscience and against torture, the death penalty and discrimination. Crucially, it operates independently of any government, political ideology or religion, which allows it to criticise abuses wherever they occur. (Human Rights Watch is another valid example.) …