Vol. 8 · pages 211–215

186 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES her ornaments. After some time, she came to her senses and ran towards her home. Her assailants again pursued her. She succeeded in reaching her home and locking herself in. Her Muslim assailants broke open the door, caught hold of her and again carried her away on the road. It was suggested by her assailants that she should be again raped on the street. But with the help of another woman by name Rajani, Kusum escaped and took shelter in the house of Rajani. While she was in the house of Rajani the Musalmans of Govindpur paraded her husband Radha Vallabh in the streets in complete disgrace. Next day the Musalmans kept watch on the roads to and from Govindpur to the Police Station to prevent Radha Vallabh and Kusum from giving information of the outrage to the Police.” These acts of barbarism against women, committed without remorse, without shame and without condemnation by their fellow brethren show the depth of the antagonism which divided the two communities. The tempers on each side were the tempers of two warring nations. There was carnage, pillage, sacrilege and outrage of every species, perpetrated by Hindus against Musalmans and by Musalmans against Hindus—more perhaps by Musalmans against Hindus than by Hindus against Musalmans. Cases of arson have occurred in which Musalmans have set fire to the houses of Hindus, in which whole families of Hindus, men, women and children were roasted alive and consumed in the fire, to the great satisfaction of the Muslim spectators. What is astonishing is that these cold and deliberate acts of rank, cruelty were not regarded as atrocities to be condemned but were treated as legitimate acts of warfare for which no apology was necessary. Enraged by these hostilities, the editor of the Hindustan—a Congress paper—writing in 1926 used the following language to express the painful truth of the utter failure of Mr. Gandhi’s efforts to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity. In words of utter despair the editor said* : “There is an immense distance between the India of today and India a nation, between an uncouth reality which expresses itself in murder and arson and that fond fiction which is in the imagination of patriotic if self-deceiving men. To talk about Hindu-Muslim unity from a thousand platforms or to give it blazoning headlines is to perpetrate an illusion whose cloudly structure dissolves itself at the exchange of brick-bats and the desecration of tombs and temples. To sing a few pious hymns of peace and goodwill a la Naidu…… will not benefit the country. The President of the Congress has been improvising on the theme of Hindu- * Quoted in “Through Indian Eyes” columns of the Times of India, dated 16-8-26.

187 PAKISTAN : HINDU ALTERNATIVE TO PAKISTAN Muslim unity, so dear to her heart, with brilliant variations, which does credit to her genius but leaves the problem untouched. The millions in India can only respond when the unity song is not only on the tongues of the leaders but in the hearts of the millions of their countrymen.” Nothing I could say can so well show the futility of any hope of Hindu-Muslim unity. Hindu-Muslim unity upto now was at least in sight although it was like a mirage. Today it is out of sight and also out of mind. Even Mr. Gandhi has given up what, he perhaps now realizes, is an impossible task. But there are others who notwithstanding the history of the past twenty years, believe in the possibility of Hindu-Muslim unity. This belief of theirs seems to rest on two grounds. Firstly, they believe in the efficacy of a Central Government to mould diverse set of people into one nation. Secondly, they feel that the satisfaction of Muslim demands will be a sure means of achieving Hindu-Muslim unity. It is true that Government is a unifying force and that there are many instances where diverse people have become unified into one homogeneous people by reason of their being subjected to a single Government. But the Hindus, who are depending upon Government as a unifying force seem to forget that there are obvious limits to Government acting as a unifying force. The limits to Government working as a unifying force are set by the possibilities of fusion among the people. In a country where race, language and religion do not stand in the way of fusion, Government is most effective as a unifying force. On the other hand, in a country where race, language and religion put an effective bar against fusion, Government can have no effect as a unifying force. If the diverse people in France, England, Italy and Germany became unified nations by reason of a common Government, it was because neither race, language nor religion obstructed the unifying process of Government. On the other hand, if the people in Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Turkey failed to be unified, although under a common Government, it was because race, language and religion were strong enough to counter and nullify the unifying power of Government. No one can deny that race, language and religion have been too dominant in India to permit the people of India to be welded into a nation by the unifying force of a common

188 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Government. It is an illusion to say that the Central Government in India has moulded the Indian people into a nation. What the Central Government has done, is to tie them together by one law and to house them together in one place, as the owner of unruly animals does, by tying them with one rope and keeping them in one stable. All that the Central Government has done is to produce a kind of peace among Indians. It has not made them one nation. It cannot be said that time has been too short for unification to take place. If one hundred and fifty years of life under a Central Government does not suffice, eternity will not suffice. For this failure the genius of the Indians alone is responsible. There is among Indians no passion for unity, no desire for fusion. There is no desire to have a common dress. There is no desire to have a common language. There is no will to give up what is local and particular for something which is common and national. A Gujarati takes pride in being a Gujarati, a Maharashtrian in being a Maharashtrian, a Punjabi in being a Punjabi, a Madrasi in being a Madrasi and a Bengali in being a Bengali. Such is the mentality of Hindus, who accuse the Musalman of want of national feeling when he says “I am a Musalman first and Indian afterwards”. Can any one suggest that there exists anywhere in India even among the Hindus an instinct or a passion that would put any semblance of emotion behind their declaration “ Civis Indianus sum”, or the smallest consciousness of a moral and social unity, which desires to give expression by sacrificing whatever is particular and local in favour of what is common and unifying ? There is no such consciousness and no such desire. Without such consciousness and no such desire, to depend upon Government to bring about unification is to deceive oneself. Regarding the second, it was no doubt the opinion of the Simon Commission : “That the communal riots were a manifestation of the anxieties and ambitions aroused in both the communities by the prospects of India’s political future. So long as authority was firmly established in British hands and self-government was not thought of, Hindu-Muslim rivalry was confined within a narrower field. This was not merely because the presence of a neutral bureaucracy discouraged strife. A further reason was that there was little for members of one community to fear from the predominance of the other. The comparative absence

189 PAKISTAN : HINDU ALTERNATIVE TO PAKISTAN of communal strife in the Indian States today may be similarly explained. Many, who are well acquainted with conditions in British India a generation ago, would testify that at that epoch so much good feeling had been engendered between the two sides that communal tension as a threat to civil peace was at a minimum. But the coming of the Reforms and the anticipation of what may follow them have given new point to Hindu-Muslim competition. The one community naturally lays claim to the rights of a majority and relies upon its qualifications of better education and greater wealth ; the other is all the more determined on those accounts to secure effective protection for its members, and does not forget that it represents the previous conquerors of the country. It wishes to be assured of adequate representation and of a full share of official posts.” Assuming that to be a true diagnosis, asssuming that Muslim demands are reasonable, assuming that the Hindus were prepared to grant them—and these are all very big assumptions—it is a question whether a true union between Hindus and Muslims can take place through political unity, resulting from the satisfaction of Muslim political demands. Some people seem to think that it is enough if there is a political unity between Hindus and Muslims. I think this is the greatest delusion. Those who take this view seem to be thinking only of how to bring the Muslims to join the Hindus in their demands on the British for Dominion Status or Independence as the mood of the moment be. This, to say the least, is a very shortsighted view. How to make the Muslims join the Hindus in the latter’s demands on the British is comparatively a very small question. In what spirit will they work the constitution ? Will they work it only as aliens by an unwanted tie or will they work it as true kindreds, is the more important question. For working it as true kindreds, what is wanted is not merely political unity but a true union of heart and soul, in other words, social unity. Political unity is worth nothing, if it is not the expression of real union. It is as precarious as the unity between persons, who without being friends become allies of each other. How very precarious it always is, is best illustrated by what has happened between Germany and Russia. Personally, I do not think that a permanent union can be made to depend upon the satisfaction of mere material interests. Pacts may produce unity. But that unity can never ripen into union. A pact as a basis for a union is worse than useless. As its very nature indicates, a pact is

190 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES separative in character. A pact cannot produce the desire to accommodate, it cannot instil the spirit of sacrifice, nor can it bind the parties to the main objective. Instead of accommodating each other, parties to a pact strive to get, as much as possible, out of each other. Instead of sacrificing for the common cause, parties to the pact are constantly occupied in seeing that the sacrifice made by one is not used for the good of the other. Instead of fighting for the main objective, parties to the pact are for ever engaged in seeing that in the struggle for reaching the goal the balance of power between the parties is not disturbed. Renan spoke the most profound truth when he said : “Community of interests is assuredly a powerful bond between men. But nevertheless can interests suffice to make a nation ? I do not believe it. Community of interests make commercial treaties. There is a sentimental side to nationality ; it is at once body and soul; a Zollverein is not a fatherland.” Equally striking is the view of James Bryce, another wellknown student of history. According to Bryce, “The permanence of an institution depends not merely on the material interests that support it, but on its conformity to the deep-rooted sentiment of the men for whom it has been made. When it draws to itself and provides a fitting expression for that sentiment, the sentiment becomes thereby not only more vocal but actually stronger, and in its turn imparts a fuller vitality to the institution.” These observations of Bryce were made in connection with the foundation of the German Empire by Bismarck who, according to Bryce, succeeded in creating a durable empire because it was based on a sentiment and that this sentiment was fostered “….most of all by what we call the instinct or passion for nationality, the desire of a people already conscious of a moral and social unity, to see such unity expressed and realize under a single government, which shall give it a place and name among civilized states”. What is it that produces this moral and social unity which gives permanence and what is it that drives people to see such unity expressed and realized under a single government, which shall give it a place and a name among civilized states ? No one is more competent to answer this question than James Bryce. It was just such a question he had to consider in discussing the vitality of the Holy Roman Empire as contrasted with the