Vol. 8 · pages 161–165

136 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES country. Such other names as India, Hind, etc., being derived from the same original word Sindhu may be used but only to signify the same sense—the land of the Hindus, a country which is the abode of the Hindu Nation. Aryavarta, BharatBhumi and such other names are of course the ancient and the most cherished epithets of our Mother Land and will continue to appeal to the cultured elite. In this insistence that the Mother Land of the Hindus must be called but “Hindustan”, no encroachment or humiliation is implied in connection with any of our non-Hindu countrymen. Our Parsee and Christian countrymen are already too akin to us culturally and are too patriotic and the Anglo-Indians too sensible to refuse to fall in line with us Hindus on so legitimate a ground. So far as our Moslem countrymen are concerned it is useless to conceal the fact that some of them are already inclined to look upon this molehill also as an insuperable mountain in their way to Hindu-Moslem unity. But they should remember that the Moslems do not dwell only in India nor are the Indian Moslems the only heroic remnants of the Faithful in Islam. China has crores of Moslems. Greece, Palestine and even Hungary and Poland have thousands of Moslems amongst their nationals. But being there a minority, only a community, their existence in these countries has never been advanced as a ground to change the ancient names of these countries which indicate the abodes of those races whose overwhelming majority owns the land. The country of the Poles continues to be Poland and of the Grecians as Greece. The Moslems there did not or dared not to distort them but are quite content to distinguish themselves as Polish Moslems or Grecian Moslems or Chinese Moslems when occasion arises, so also our Moslem countrymen may distinguish themselves nationally or territorially whenever they want, as “Hindustanee Moslems” without compromising in the least their separateness as Religious or Cultural entity. Nay, the Moslems have been calling themselves as “Hindustanis” ever since their advent in India, of their own accord. “But if inspite of it all some irascible Moslem sections amongst our countrymen object even to this name of our Country, that is no reason why we should play cowards to our own conscience. We Hindus must -not betray or break up the continuity of our Nation from the Sindhus in Rigvedic days to the Hindus of our own generation which is implied in “Hindustan”, the accepted appellation of our Mother Land. Just as the land of the Germans is Germany, of the English England, of the Turks Turkistan, of the Afghans Afghanistan— even so we must have it indelibly impressed on the map of the earth for all times to come a “Hindustan”—the land of the “ Hindus”.

137 PAKISTAN : HINDU ALTERNATIVE TO PAKISTAN The second is the retention of Sanskrit as sacred language, Hindi as national language and Nagari as the script of Hindudom.* “The Sanskrit shall be our “ nsoHkk"kk” (Deva Bhasha)§ our sacred language and the “Sanskrit Nishtha”† Hindi, the Hindi which is derived from Sanskrit and draws its nourishment from the latter, is our “jk"VªHkk"kk” (Rashtra Bhasha)‡ our current national language— besides being the richest and the most cultured of the ancient languages of the world, to us Hindus the Sanskrit is the holiest tongue of tongues. Our scriptures, history, philosophy and culture have their roots so deeply imbedded in the Sanskrit literature that it forms veritably the brain of our Race. Mother of the majority of our mother tongues, she has suckled the rest of them at her breast. All Hindu languages current today whether derived from Sanskrit or grafted on to it can only grow and flourish on the sap of life they imbibe from Sanskrit. The Sanskrit language therefore must ever be an indispensable constituent of the classical course for Hindu youths. “In adopting the Hindi as the National tongue of Hindudom no humiliation or any invidious distinction is implied as regards other provincial tongues. We are all as attached to our provincial tongues as to Hindi and they will all grow and flourish in their respective spheres. In fact some of them are today more progressive and richer in literature. But nevertheless, taken all in the Hindi can serve the purpose of a National Pan-Hindu language best. It must also be remembered that the Hindi is not made a National Language to order. The fact is that long before either the English or even the Moslems stepped in India the Hindi in its general form had already come to occupy the position of a National tongue throughout Hindustan. The Hindu pilgrim, the tradesman, the tourist, the soldier, the Pandit travelled up and down from Bengal to Sind and Kashmere to Rameshwar by making himself understood from locality to locality through Hindi. Just as the Sanskrit was the National Language of the Hindu intellectual world even so Hindi has been for at least a thousand years in the past the National Indian Tongue of the Hindu community.......... “By Hindi we of course mean the pure “Sanskrit Nistha” Hindi, as we find it for example in the “Satyartha Prakash” written by Maharsi Dayananda Saraswati. How simple and untainted with a single unnecessary foreign word is that Hindi and how expressive withal! It may be mentioned in passing that Swami Dayanandaji was about the first Hindu leader who gave conscious and definite expression to the *Speech 1939, pp. 21,22,23. § Language of Gods. †Basically Sanskrit. ‡National Language.

138 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES view that Hindi should be the Pan-Hindu National language of India. “This Sanskrit Nistha” Hindi has nothing to do with that hybrid, the so-called Hindustani which is being hatched up by the Wardha scheme. It is nothing short of a linguistic monstrosity and must be ruthlessly suppressed. Not only that but it is our bounden duty to oust as ruthlessly all unnecessary alien words whether Arabian or English, from every Hindu tongue—whether provincial or dialectical ........... “.......... Our Sanskrit alphabetical order is phonetically about the most perfect which the world has yet devised and almost all our current Indian scripts already follow it. The Nagari Script too follows this order. Like the Hindi language the Nagari Script too has already been current for centuries all over India amongst the Hindu literary circles for some two thousand years at any rate in the past and was even popularly nick-named as the “ Shastri Lipi” the script of our Hindu Scriptures .......... It is a matter of common knowledge that if Bengali or Gujarathi is printed in Nagari it is more or less understood by readers in several other provinces. To have only one common language throughout Hindustan at a stroke is impracticable and unwise. But to have the Nagari script as the only common script throughout Hindudom is much more feasible. Nevertheless, it should be borne in mind that the different Hindu scripts current in our different provinces have a future of their own and may flourish side by side with the Nagari. All that is immediately indispensable in the common interest of Hindudom as a whole is that the Nagari Script must be made a compulsory subject along with the Hindi language in every school in the case of Hindu students.” What is to be the position of the Non-Hindu minorities under the Swaraj as contemplated by Mr. Savarkar ? On this question, this is what Mr. Savarkar has to say : * “When once the Hindu Maha Sabha not only accepts but maintains the principles of “one man one vote” and the public services to go by merit alone added to the fundamental rights and obligations to be shared by all citizens alike irrespective of any distinction of Race or Religion .... any further mention of minority rights is on the principle not only unnecessary but self-contradictory. Because it again introduces a consciousness of majority and minority on Communal basis. But as practical politics requires it and as the Hindu Sanghatanists want to relieve our non-Hindu countrymen of even a ghost of suspicion, we are prepared to emphasise that the legitimate rights of minorities with regard to their Religion, Culture, and Language will be expressly guaranteed : on one condition only that the equal rights of the majority also must not in any case be encroached upon or abrogated. Every minority may have separate schools to train up their children in their own tongue, their own * Ibid., p. 4.

139 PAKISTAN : HINDU ALTERNATIVE TO PAKISTAN religious or cultural institutions and can receive Government help also for these,—but always in proportion to the taxes they pay into the common exchequer. The same principle must of course hold good in case of the majority too. “Over and above this, in case the constitution is not based on joint electorates and on the unalloyed National principle of one man one vote, but is based on the communal basis then those minorities who wish to have separate electorate or reserve seats will be allowed to have them,—but always in proportion to their population and provided that it does not deprive the majority also of an equal right in proportion of its population too.” That being the position assigned to the minorities, Mr. Savarkar concludes* that under his scheme of Swaraj: “The Moslem minority in India will have the right to be treated as equal citizens, enjoying equal protection and civic rights in proportion to their population. The Hindu majority will not encroach on the legitimate rights of any non-Hindu minority. But in no case can the Hindu majority resign its right which as a majority it is entitled to exercise under any democratic and legitimate constitution. The Moslem minority in particular has not obliged the Hindus by remaining in minority and therefore, they must remain satisfied with the status they occupy and with the legitimate share of civic and political rights that is their proportionate due. It would be simply preposterous to endow the Moslem minority with the right of exercising a practical veto on the legitimate rights and privileges of the majority and call it a “Swarajya”. The Hindus do not want a change of masters, are not going to struggle and fight and die only to replace an Edward by an Aurangazeb simply because the latter happens to be born within Indian borders, but they want henceforth to be masters themselves in their own house, in their own Land.” And it is because he wants his Swaraj to bear the stamp of being a Hindu Raj that Mr. Savarkar wants that India should have the appellation of Hindustan. This structure has been reared by Mr. Savarkar on two propositions which he regards as fundamental. The first is that the Hindu are a nation by themselves. He enunciates this proposition with great elaboration and vehemence. Says† Mr. Savarkar: “In my Presidential speech at Nagpur I had, for the first time in the history of our recent politics pointed out in bold relief that the whole Congress ideology was vitiated ab initio by its unwitted assumption that the territorial unity, a common habitat, was the only factor that * Ibid., p. 16. † Ibid., pp. 14-17.

140 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES constituted and ought to and must constitute a Nation. This conception of a Territorial Nationality has since then received a rude shock in Europe itself from which it was imported wholesale to India and the present War has justified my assertion by exploding the myth altogether. All Nations carved out to order on the Territorial design without any other common bond to mould each of them into a national being have gone to rack and ruin, tumbled down like a house of cards. Poland and Czechoslovakia will ever serve as a stern warning against any such efforts to frame heterogeneous peoples into such hotch-potch Nation, based only on the shifting sands of the conception of Territorial Nationality, not cemented by any cultural, racial or historical affinities and consequently having no common will to incorporate themselves into a Nation. These treaty-Nations broke up at the first opportunity they got: The German part of them went over to Germany, the Russian to Russia, Czechs to Czechs and Poles to Poles. The cultural, linguistic, historical and such other organic affinities proved stronger than the Territorial one. Only those Nations have persisted in maintaining their National unity and identity during the last three to four centuries in Europe which had developed racial, linguistic cultural and such other organic affinities in addition to their Territorial unity or even at times in spite of it and consequently willed to be homogeneous National units—such as England, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, etc. “Judged by any and all of these tests which go severally and collectively to form such a homogeneous and organic Nation, in India we Hindus are marked out as an abiding Nation by ourselves. Not only do we own a common Fatherland, a Territorial unity, but what is scarcely found anywhere else in the world, we have a common Holy Land which is identified with our common Fatherland. This Bharat Bhumi, this Hindustan, India is both our fir`Hkw and iq.;Hkw Our patriotism therefore is doubly sure. Then, we have common affinities, cultural, religious, historical, linguistic, and racial which through the process of countless centuries of association and assimilation moulded us into a homogeneous and organic nation and above all induced a will to lead a corporate and common national life. The Hindus are no treaty Nation—but an organic National Being. “One more pertinent point must be met as it often misleads our Congressite Hindu brethren in particular. The homogeneity that wields a people into a National Being does not only imply the total absence of all internal differences, religious, racial or linguistic, of sects and sections amongst themselves. It only means that they differ more from other people as a national unit than they differ amongst themselves. Even the most unitarian nations of today— say the British or the French— cannot be free from any religious, linguistic, cultural, racial or other differences, sects or sections or even some antipathies existing amongst themselves. National homogeneity connotes oneness of a people in relation to the contrast they present to any other people as a whole.