Vol. 8 · pages 166–170

141 PAKISTAN : HINDU ALTERNATIVE TO PAKISTAN “We Hindus, in spite of thousand and one differences within our fold, are bound by such religious, cultural, historical, racial, linguistic and other affinities in common as to stand out as a definitely homogeneous people as soon as we are placed in contrast with any other non-Hindu people— say the English or Japanese or even the Indian Moslems. That is the reason why today we the Hindus from Cashmere to Madras and Sindh to Assam will have to be a Nation by ourselves”... The second proposition on which Mr. Savarkar has built up his scheme relates to the definition of the term Hindu. According to Mr. Savarkar a Hindu is a person : “......... who regards and owns this Bharat Bhumi, this land from the Indus to the Seas, as his Fatherland as well as his Holy Land ;—i.e., the land of the origin of his religion, the cradle of his faith. The followers therefore of Vaidicism, Sanatanism, Jainism, Buddhism, Lingaitism, Sikhism, the Arya Samaj, the Brahmosamaj, the Devasamaj, the Prarthana Samaj and such other religions of Indian origin are Hindus and constitute Hindudom, i.e., Hindu people as a whole. Consequently the so-called aboriginal or hill-tribes also are Hindus: because India is their Fatherland as well as their Holy Land, whatever form of religion or worship they follow. The definition rendered in Sanskrit stands thus: AA vfla/q fla/ iU;ark ;Le Hkkjr Hkwfedk AA AA fir`Hkw % iq.;HkwJSo l oS fganqfjfrLe`r% AA û AA This definition, therefore, should be recognized by the Government and made the test of ‘Hindutva’ in enumerating the population of Hindus in the Government census to come.” This definition of the term Hindu has been framed with great care and caution. It is designed to serve two purposes which Mr. Savarkar has in view. First, to exclude from it Muslims, Christians, Parsis and Jews by prescribing the recognition of India as a Holy Land as a qualification for being a Hindu. Secondly, to include Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, etc., by not insisting upon belief in the sanctity of the Vedas as an element in the qualifications. Such is the scheme of Mr. Savarkar and the Hindu Maha Sabha. As must have been noticed, the scheme has some disturbing features. One is the categorical assertion that the Hindus are a nation by themselves. This, of course, means that the Muslims are a separate nation by themselves. That this is his view, Mr. Savarkar does not leave to be inferred. He insists upon it in no uncertain

142 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES terms and with the most absolute emphasis he is capable of. Speaking at the Hindu Maha Sabha Session held at Ahmedabad in 1937, Mr. Savarkar said:— “Several infantile politicians commit the serious mistake in supposing that India is already welded into a harmonious nation, or that it could be welded thus for the mere wish to do so. These our well-meaning but unthinking friends take their dreams for realities. That is why they are impatient, of communal tangles and attribute them to communal organizations. But the solid fact is that the so-called communal questions are but a legacy handed down to us by centuries of a cultural, religious and national antagonism between the Hindus and the Muslims. When the time is ripe you can solve them ; but you cannot suppress them by merely refusing recognition of them. It is safer to diagnose and treat deep-seated disease than to ignore it. Let us bravely face unpleasant facts as they are. India cannot be assumed today to be a unitarian and homogeneous nation, but on the contrary these are two nations in the main, the Hindus and the Muslims in India.” Strange as it may appear, Mr. Savarkar and Mr. Jinnah instead of being opposed to each other on the one nation versus two nations issue are in complete agreement about it. Both agree, not only agree but insist that there are two nations in India—one the Muslim nation and the other the Hindu nation. They differ only as regards the terms and conditions on which the two nations should live. Mr. Jinnah says India should be cut up into two, Pakistan and Hindustan, the Muslim nation to occupy Pakistan and the Hindu nation to occupy Hindustan. Mr. Savarkar on the other hand insists that, although there are two nations in India, India shall not be divided into two parts, one for Muslims and the other for the Hindus ; that the two nations shall dwell in one country and shall live under the mantle of one single constitution; that the constitution shall be such that the Hindu nation will be enabled to occupy a predominant position that is due to it and the Muslim nation made to live in the position of subordinate co-operation with the Hindu nation. In the struggle for political power between the two nations the rule of the game, which Mr. Savarkar prescribes, is to be one man one vote, be the man Hindu or Muslim. In his scheme a Muslim is to have no advantage which a Hindu does not have. Minority is to be no justification for privilege and majority is to be no ground for penalty. The State will guarantee the Muslims any defined measure of political power in the form

143 PAKISTAN : HINDU ALTERNATIVE TO PAKISTAN of Muslim religion and Muslim culture. But the State will not guarantee secured seats in the Legislature or in the Administration and, if such guarantee is insisted upon by the Muslims,* such guaranteed quota is not to exceed their proportion to the general population. Thus by confiscating its weightages, Mr. Savarkar would even strip the Muslim nation of all the political privileges it has secured so far. This alternative of Mr. Savarkar to Pakistan has about it a frankness, boldness and definiteness which distinguishes it from the irregularity, vagueness and indefiniteness which characterizes the Congress declarations about minority rights. Mr. Savarkar’s scheme has at least the merit of telling the Muslims, thus far and no further. The Muslims know where they are with regard to the Hindu Maha Sabha. On the other hand, with the Congress the Musalmans find themselves nowhere because the Congress has been treating the Muslims and the minority question as a game in diplomacy, if not in duplicity. At the same time, it must be said that Mr. Savarkar’s attitude is illogical, if not queer. Mr. Savarkar admits that the Muslims are a separate nation. He concedes that they have a right to cultural autonomy. He allows them to have a national flag. Yet he opposes the demand of the Muslim nation for a separate national home. If he claims a national home for the Hindu nation, how can he refuse the claim of the Muslim nation for a national home ? It would not have been a matter of much concern if inconsistency was the only fault of Mr. Savarkar. But Mr. Savarkar in advocating his scheme is really creating a most dangerous situation for the safety and security of India. History records two ways as being open to a major nation to deal with a minor nation when they are citizens of the same country and are subject to the same constitution. One way is to destroy the nationality of the minor nation and to assimilate and absorb it into the major nation, so as to make one nation out of two. This is done by denying to the minor nation any right to language, religion or culture and by seeking to enforce upon it the language, religion and culture * It should be noted that Mr. Savarkar is not opposed to separate electorates for the Muslims. It is not clear whether he is in favour of separate electorates for Muslims even where they are in a majority.

144 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES of the major nation. The other way is to divide the country and to allow the minor nation a separate, autonomous and sovereign existence, independent of the major nation. Both these ways were tried in Austria and Turkey, the second after the failure of the first. Mr. Savarkar adopts neither of these two ways. He does not propose to suppress the Muslim nation. On the contrary he is nursing and feeding it by allowing it to retain its religion, language and culture, elements which go to sustain the soul of a nation. At the same time he does not consent to divide the country so as to allow the two nations to become separate, autonomous states, each sovereign in its own territory. He wants the Hindus and the Muslims to live as two separate nations in one country, each maintaining its own religion, language and culture. One can understand and even appreciate the wisdom of the theory of suppression of the minor nation by the major nation because the ultimate aim is to bring into being one nation. But one cannot follow what advantage a theory has which says that there must ever be two nations but that there shall be no divorce between them. One can justify this attitude only if the two nations were to live as partners in friendly intercourse with mutual respect and accord. But that is not to be, because Mr. Savarkar will not allow the Muslim nation to be co-equal in authority with the Hindu nation. He wants the Hindu nation to be the dominant nation and the Muslim nation to be the servient nation. Why Mr. Savarkar, after sowing this seed of enmity between the Hindu nation and the Muslim nation should want that they should live under one constitution and occupy one country, is difficult to explain. One cannot give Mr. Savarkar credit for having found a new formula. What is difficult to understand is that he should believe that his formula is the right formula. Mr. Savarkar has taken old Austria and old Turkey as his model and pattern for his scheme of Swaraj. He sees that in Austria and Turkey there lived one major nation juxtaposed to other minor nations bound by one constitution with the major nation dominating the minor nations and argues that if this was possible in Austria and Turkey, why should it not be possible for the Hindus to do the same in India.

145 PAKISTAN : HINDU ALTERNATIVE TO PAKISTAN That Mr. Savarkar should have taken old Austria and old Turkey as his model to build upon is really very strange. Mr. Savarkar does not seem to be aware of the fact that old Austria and old Turkey are no more. Much less does he seem to know the forces which have blown up old Austria and old Turkey to bits. If Mr. Savarkar instead of studying the past—of which he is very fond—were to devote more attention to the present, he would have learnt that old Austria and old Turkey came to ruination for insisting upon maintaining the very scheme of things which Mr. Savarkar has been advising his “Hindudom” to adopt, namely, to establish a Swaraj in which there will be two nations under the mantle of one single constitution in which the major nation will be allowed to hold the minor nation in subordination to itself. The history of the disruption of Austria, Czechoslovakia and Turkey is of the utmost importance to India and the members of the Hindu Maha Sabha will do well to peruse the same. I need say nothing here about it because I have drawn attention to lessons from their fateful history in another chapter. Suffice it to say that the scheme of Swaraj formulated by Mr. Savarkar will give the Hindus an empire over the Muslims and thereby satisfy their vanity and their pride in being an imperial race. But it can never ensure a stable and peaceful future for the Hindus, for the simple reason that the Muslims will never yield willing obedience to so dreadful an alternative. III Mr. Savarkar is quite unconcerned about the Muslim reaction to his scheme. He formulates his scheme and throws it in the face of the Muslims with the covering letter ‘ take it or leave it’.’ He is not perturbed by the Muslim refusal to join in the struggle for Swaraj. He is quite conscious of the strength of the Hindus and the Hindu Maha Sabha and proposes to carry on the struggle in the confident hope that, alone and unaided, the Hindus will be able to wrest Swaraj from the British. Mr. Savarkar is quite prepared to say to the Musalmans : “ If you come, with you, if you don’t, without you ; and if you oppose, in spite of you the Hindus will continue to fight for their national freedom as best as they can.”