In this fight for independence, the Indian leaders committed a blunder. they should have engaged themselves in an economic fight instead of starting a political movement. The British took advantage of this blunder of the Indian leaders. They got the opportunity to divide India into two parts. They infused in the Muslims the idea that the Hindus formed the majority, and that therefore if the British quit India the government would naturally go into the hands of the Hindus, and the Muslims of the whole of India would remain as their subjects.
This shrewd policy yielded good results. A Hindu phobia grew among the Muslims. The Muslim leaders began to propagate this Hindu phobia at the top of their voices, and as a result of this anti-Hindu sentiment created out of Hindu phobia, a Muslim nation was again born in India in this twentieth century. Directed by this Hindu phobia, they demanded a separate homeland for the Muslim nation. It was not possible for the Hindus to resist this demand for a separate homeland, because at that time no nation which could be termed a Hindu nation was formed in India.
The reason for this is quite simple. Because of the numerical strength of the Hindus in India, there was no Muslim phobia among the Hindus, and for want of an anti-Muslim sentiment, no Hindu nation could be formed anew.
In the Punjab and Bengal, where the Muslims formed the majority, the case was different. If these two provinces went entirely for the Muslim homeland, the Hindu population in these areas would have to remain as subjects of the Muslims. Because of this fear the Hindus in these provinces were seized with Muslim phobia, and that is why they demanded an independent homeland for the Hindus. With the partition of India, the Punjab and Bengal were also partitioned.
Where did the mistake lie? When, as a result of anti-British sentiment, the Indian nation was formed in the nineteenth century, the then leaders of India should have started a struggle for economic independence instead of launching a political movement. All Indians could have fought together unitedly, there being no Hindu, Muslim, Punjabi or Marathi feelings in this economic struggle, and as a result an anti-exploitation sentiment could have been developed in India. This sentiment could have made Indians stronger. If there had been no fight for political independence, the fear that the Muslims would have to remain under the suzerainty of the Hindus after the independence of India could not have crept into their minds. In the absence of Hindu phobia, there would have been no demand for the homeland of the Muslim nation, and when India would have gained economic independence, Hindus and Muslims would have lived together as brothers and sisters in undivided India. The fight for economic independence would have brought political independence also. There might have been some delay in it, but political independence would have surely come.
When the British decided to quit India under economic and political pressure, undivided India was the demand of the Hindu leaders, while the Muslim leaders demanded a Muslim homeland. There was no scope for an amicable settlement between these two demands. Therefore the British had to divide India.
It mattered little whether India liked it or not. Under such circumstances, was there any way for the leaders to avoid the partition of India? Yes, there was. Had they started a movement for economic independence instead of accepting the partition of India, it would have been possible to form a united and independent India. But neither the Hindu nor the Muslim leaders did so, for reasons best known to them. The economic struggle could not have remained confined to British exploitation only, but would have extended to the Indian exploiters (social, economic, psychological).
When the British would have realized that their exploitation was not going to continue, they would have been compelled to grant political independence to India and with political independence exploitation by the local people would have come to an end also. But the Hindu and Muslim leaders came from the bourgeois class and so they did not like this idea. They wanted liberty keeping capitalism (social, economic, psychological, etc.) alive. For this reason they accepted the political independence of divided India.
There are two more reasons why they did not want economic independence. One of these reasons was that those who were leaders in the struggle for political independence might not prove to be suitable leaders in the struggle for economic independence. Especially, the struggle for economic independence might lead to mass revolution and bloodshed at any time. And there was every possibility of young leaders appearing among the revolutionaries. The leaders did not want this. They tried to check the sanguinary revolution by preaching the theory of non-violence.
The leaders had one more weakness in this matter. Most of the leaders, both Hindu and Muslim, had grown old in the course of the political struggle.
Possibly they thought that if they started a fresh fight for economic independence, and if the fight lasted a long time, the chance of controlling the government would not come to them. Perhaps with this idea in mind they gave their consent to a heinous crime such as the partition of India.
Where did the mistake lie? The factors which made Europe a country of many nations are applicable to India also. Rather, the differences which exist in India between one provincial nation and another are greater than those existing in Europe. The provincial nations have their own languages, manners, customs, mode of living, race, intonation, history and traditions. Some of them have their own scripts, almanac, dress and code of law of inheritance. The differences among the European nations are not as great.
Still, in the struggle for independence, the English language and the anti-British sentiment had made India one nation. With the departure of the British there is no anti- British sentiment, and so the Indian nation has died.
Today there are only a few persons who regard themselves as Indians; some look upon themselves as Punjabis, some as Andhrites, some as Bengalis, some as Bhumihars, some as Rajputs, etc. None of them are Indians.
The only connecting link which exists today is the weak tie of the English language. Those who are guided by a false sense of patriotism are trying even to do away with this language today.
It is crystal clear that with the banishment of the English language, the funeral ceremony of an Indian nation will be complete. With the departure of the British from India that is, with the death of the anti-British sentiment a new sentiment should have been created, but the Indian leaders failed to do so. The Pakistani leaders did so to some extent. In the beginning they utilized anti-Hindu sentiment in place of anti-British sentiment, and later anti-Indian sentiment was created on the question of the Kashmir issue. These sentiments helped the people of Pakistan to some extent, but in India there is no sentiment at all. Like Pakistan, India had ample opportunity to utilize several sentiments, but the leaders did not use them. They roamed in the realm of imagination.
It is a matter of great regret that no effort was made to form a nation on the basis of a strong sentiment. On the contrary, the little bond of unity which existed in Indian society is going to be spoilt by the unwise actions of these leaders. The three great lapses of the present leadership which are going to destroy the unity of India are: (1) the effort to demarcate provincial boundaries on a linguistic basis; (2) the question of national language; and (3) the use of local languages as the media of instruction in higher education.
Provincial boundaries: I have already said that India is a country of many languages, religions and customs. An ordinary student of political science can easily understand that the result of giving any sentiment the opportunity to grow on the basis of these differences will be detrimental to the interests of the country. Still the leaders committed that very mistake by taking up the work of forming provinces on a linguistic basis. Today there is a tug of war among different linguistic groups on the question of who controls districts, subdivisions, police stations, and even villages. The consequences of such disputes will be extremely dangerous in a country where there is nothing that can be termed a nation. Now the day has come for the well-wishers of India to ponder over this issue.
It would have been tolerable to some extent if states could have been completely formed on the basis of language within a very short span of time, but even that was not done. Of course, it is not possible to accurately ascertain the boundaries of provinces on a linguistic basis; that is, everywhere there will be some bilingual or trilingual areas.
Even then, what could have been done on a linguistic basis has not been done by the leaders. The result is that linguistic minorities all over India are suffering from a complex of despair. Really speaking, it was improper for the leaders to raise the question of the formation of states on the basis of language.
Some time ago, in a certain state, some leaders stated that the boundary commission* had not done them justice, hence they would dissociate from India. Just see the condition of the so-called Indian nation! National language: A great folly has been committed by raising the controversial issue of national language. It has not added to the growth of unity; on the contrary, it has increased disunity.
Some people have been thinking of introducing one script throughout the whole of India. Is this practical or desirable? Have they forgotten the consequences of the attempt to introduce Urdu script throughout the whole of Pakistan? What to speak of India, a land where the national sentiment has not yet crystallized!
India has many scripts. Many of these scripts are very old. From time immemorial Sanskrit, the common property of India, has been written in different scripts. Sanskrit has no script of its own. Though the Indian alphabetical order is scientific with regard to phonetics, the scripts are not scientific in the practical field. Even though Roman script is the most scientific script, I do not think that it is desirable to impose this script on the living languages of India which have a developed literature. It is, however, not disadvantageous to use the Roman script for those languages which have practically no literature at all (such as Konkani, Santhali, Khasia, etc.), or for those which are not spoken languages (such as Sanskrit and Pali). The interests of the languages which have a rich literature (such as Bengali, Hindi, Tamil and Gujarati) will be greatly affected if the Roman script is imposed on them, because by doing so the link between the past literature and the future literature will be cut off.
In this connection we should remember that at the time when Kamal Pasa of Turkey introduced Roman script for Turkish in place of Arabic, or at the time when Nagri script was introduced for the Marathi language in place of Moŕi, these languages had very poor literature. It will be extremely harmful today for either Turkish or Marathi if they change their script [again].
However, the decision whether a change in script is desirable or not should be left to the free will of the people speaking the particular language.
In this regard there is another big problem. Of the Indian languages, Bengali and Urdu are both Indian and Pakistani* languages, so to change the script for either entire language is beyond the jurisdiction of either India or Pakistan.
If throughout India only Bengali or Urdu script is used, while Pakistan does not accept this, the problem will not be solved. If the scripts of these languages are changed in either state, the languages will be harmed enormously. People do not like to see their mother tongue harmed. If it is they will revolt, which is what happened in East Pakistan when an attempt was made to impose Urdu script on Bengali. Is it wise to implement a policy which has the potential to foment trouble in future? Let the leaders come down from the realm of imagination to the hard reality of the earth. The soil of reality is very hard very merciless.
HIGHER EDUCATION: Today local languages are being used as the media of instruction in higher education. During the British regime in India, English was the medium of instruction in colleges and universities. Students of any province could get higher education in any university of India. As a result of the close association of students, a spirit of all-India fraternity developed among them. But nowadays the opportunities for interprovincial contact are rapidly decreasing as a result of the acceptance of local languages as the media of higher education.
Possibilities for the growth of the spirit of fraternity among Indians are dwindling day by day. In most cases students remain confined to their provinces, and provincialism will gradually crop up as a result of want of an all-India sentiment.
What is to be done now? The leaders should totally forget the question of organizing states on the basis of language and instead take up the task of reorganizing the states entirely on the basis of economics. In all spheres of life, along with English, maximum facilities are to be also afforded to each and every language of India, in their respective regions as the official language, and as the medium of public contact.
There should not be any tendency to suppress anybody. If equal facilities are afforded to all in the matter of language, nobody will think of forming states on a linguistic basis.
A strong Indian nation of the future may, however, review the issue and come to a decision according to the demands of the changed circumstances; the present leaders need not bother about this issue at all. Also, they need not bother about the necessity or otherwise of having any other language as the national language in place of English.
First let them form a strong nation on the basis of a strong sentiment. The Indian nation of the future will take the responsibility for arriving at a decision on national language. It is not the proper occasion to waste time and energy on this sort of issue, creating regional controversies.
India, the land of many nations, is just like a joint family full of internal dissension. Although it is not possible for these nations to form one nation through their joint efforts, they can live together amicably as a joint family by forming a group of nations (a compact multinational unit) based on one ideology. It is to be remembered that the solidarity of a joint family cannot be maintained if activities are always determined by counting votes. In that case those who are defeated will quit the joint family that is, it will be ruined.
A joint family is nurtured by the goodwill of each of its members (in the present case, of each of the nations of India). It is a matter of great regret that there is a dearth of this goodwill in India today.
Even powerful leaders are looking after the interests of their own nations (the basis being language, states, communalism [socio-religious sentiment] or casteism as the case may be), instead of thinking of the interests of India as a whole. None of these leaders are the leaders of India; they are all the leaders of their own nations. The interests of others are not safe in their hands.
It is proper that English should continue as the medium of instruction in colleges and universities. Question papers, too, should be in English. But students should have the right to answer according to their convenience in English or in any other language or languages approved by the university. In this respect, the greater the number of languages approved by the university, the better. The students taking final school examinations should be also given the right to give answers in English or in other approved languages. The media of instruction should be English and other approved languages, and the question papers should be printed in the approved languages also.
Students may feel inconvenience if the medium of instruction is English only or if the question papers are in English only. Still, English must be an approved language; otherwise it will be almost impossible for students coming from distant provinces to get an education when their mother languages are not included in the schedule of approved languages.
All these suggestions are efforts to help check the fissiparous tendencies that exist in India. But we require something more as a nation-building element. What more should present-day India do towards the formation of a nation or a group of nations?
Most of the people of India are poverty-stricken. They want to get rid of exploitation. Political independence has no value for them if it cannot give them economic independence. I have heard many poor villagers say, "Can we not cast our votes in the box marked for the British? We will do that. Their government was good." These remarks certainly do not add to the glory of the present leadership. If a strong nation or group of nations is to be built, a fight against exploitation will have to be launched. Only high-sounding talks of socialism, a socialistic pattern, or a welfare state will not yield any result. No sentiment is growing in the minds of the people as a result of these slogans. Unless a strong sentiment is created, a nation or a group of nations cannot be formed. The government gets hardly any support or cooperation from the people in its welfare work for want of a sentiment among the people.
India has had many opportunities to create sentiments, and even today they exist, but in the interests of world fraternity one may not support them. If an anti-exploitation sentiment is created among the poverty-stricken mass of India, not only will a strong nation or a strong group of nations be formed, but this nation or group of nations will continue with due solidarity for a long time. The leaders should, therefore, rectify the errors of the past and vigorously launch a fresh anti-exploitation campaign. There is no other alternative to save India.
But will the leaders be able or willing to do this? If they are, it is well and good. If they are not, perhaps they will try to unite the people forcibly through the pressure of governmental machinery.
But will this be possible? The different characteristics of the peculiar land of India cannot be pounded into dust by the steamroller of governmental machinery, and such unity is not at all desirable. The more the steamroller is used, the greater the dissatisfaction among the people will be.
If anything is to be done by force, the condition of India will become like that of the Balkan states. The whole of India will be split up into innumerable states, big and small. Innumerable nations, big and small, will fight among themselves. So it seems that the present leaders need to retire in the interests of India.
I find it necessary to say one more thing in this connection. Those who think that the Bhu'da'n and Sarvodaya movements* are a fight against exploitation are mistaken. Rather, these movements very carefully avoid an anti-exploitation campaign. They will only be advantageous to the capitalists because the fighting spirit of the people is tactfully suppressed.
Politics is neither my hobby nor my profession. I am a student of history. I feel it my duty to draw the dreadful picture which I visualize about India, otherwise future historians will not forgive us. The highest responsibility in this respect, however, rests with the leaders of the country. They can save or sabotage the country.
To save India the present leaders should immediately chalk out a policy to convert the people of India into a strong nation or a strong group of nations.
Any pretext or jugglery of words in this matter will be fatal to the cause of the country. If the leaders do not do this, I am afraid the political unity and geographical integrity of India will be affected at any moment; especially when there are fissiparous tendencies active in the country. We should not forget that in the past it was the want of unity which brought India under the yoke of slavery time and again. If there is lack of unity at present, it should be understood that India has become intellectually bankrupt.
I am an optimist. I hope that the leaders will realize their mistakes and will face reality with courage. If they fail to do so, India will create new leaders in the future, and those future leaders will save India from destruction. India will not die.
Today the primary duty of the common people of India is to rectify the errors committed by the leaders and unite India through an anti-exploitation campaign. India has got to be saved. This anti- exploitation campaign will not only unite India, but also India with Pakistan and with each of the poor and backward countries of Southeast Asia. A strong nation or group of nations will thereby grow up. It matters little what name is given to that nation or that group of nations.
It is through this anti-exploitation movement that Russia, the country of many nations, was united. This movement has made China a strong state. The nations in the capitalist countries are not united on the basis of this anti-exploitation sentiment. Their unity is based on some other sentiments. They have, however, maintained their unity by clearly recognizing their internal diversities. The leaders of India should study the conditions of such nations with due care. Although the anti-exploitation sentiment is the most important factor in building a nation or a group of nations, this sentiment will not be able to sustain a nation or a group of nations for a long time. One day exploitation must cease. If it is not stopped completely, it can be confidently said that in the future the intensity of exploitation will be much less than what it is today. As soon as administrative power passes into the hands of moralists, then exploitation will cease to exist.
In the absence of exploitation the anti-exploitation sentiment will die out, and consequently a nation or a group of nations based on the anti-exploitation sentiment will not exist either.
What will happen then? The sentiment of spiritual inheritance and Cosmic ideology will keep people united. It is true that this spiritual sentiment will not help to form a nation inside any particular country, but it will definitely unite the entire planetary world, and even the universe, into a nation. Then there will be only one nation a universal nation.
Today human beings, to whatever country they may belong, should, on the one side, propagate an anti-exploitation sentiment (exploitation does not mean exploitation in the economic sphere only, it includes all sorts of exploitation), and form strong nations in their respective countries; and, on the other side, preach the theory of one spiritual inheritance that every living being is the child of the Supreme Entity, and that all the people of all nations belong to the same family. This will have to be explained to all, that there will be clash among different nations as long as national feelings exist. People may talk of disarmament, but military preparation will go on underground. And if people dedicate themselves to the welfare of the entire human race, their respective nations will also be benefited indirectly because their nations are not outside the universe!
Along with the theory of spiritual inheritance, one Cosmic ideology will have to be propagated too, and that ideology is that one Supreme Entity the Cosmic Entity is the goal of all living beings. This spiritual sentiment will keep human beings united for all time to come. No other theory can save the human race. (1 January 1960, Jamalpur) .........Concluded
Posted by proutist-universal on February 20, 2006 01:01 PM
