Vol. 8 · pages 241–245

216 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES emphasis only. The real thing is to recognize, as does Mr. Toynbee, that “nationalism is strong enough to produce war in spite of us. It has terribly proved itself to be no outworn creed, but a vital force to be reckoned with.” As was pointed out by him, “the right reading of nationalism has become an affair of life and death.” It was not only so for Europe. It was so for Turkey. It was so for Czechoslovakia. And what was a question of life and death to them could not but be one of life and death to India. Prof. Toynbee pleaded, as was done before him by Guizot, for the recognition of nationality as the necessary foundation of European peace. Could India ignore to recognize this plea ? If she does, she will be acting at her peril. That nationalism is a disruptive force is not the only lesson to be learnt from the history of these two countries. Their experience embodies much else of equal if not of greater significance. What that is, will be evident if certain facts are recalled to memory. The Turks were by no means as illiberal as they are painted. They allowed their minorities a large measure of autonomy. The Turks had gone far towards solving the problem of how people of different communities with different social heritages are to live together in harmony when they are geographically intermingled. The Ottoman Empire had accorded, as a matter of course, to the non-Muslim and non-Turkish communities within its frontiers a degree of territorial as well as cultural autonomy which had never been dreamt of in the political philosophy of the West. Ought not the Christian subjects to have been satisfied with this? Say what one may, the nationalism of Christian minorities was not satisfied with this local autonomy. It fought for complete freedom and in that fight Turkey was slit open. The Turks were bound to the Arabs by the tie of religion. The religious tie of Islam is the strongest known to humanity. No social confederacy can claim to rival the Islamic brotherhood in point of solidarity. Add to this the fact that while the Turk treated his Christian subjects as his inferior, he acknowledged the Arab as his equal. All non-Muslims were excluded from the Ottoman army. But the Arab soldiers and officers served side by side with Turks and Kurds. The Arab officer class, educated in Turkish

217PAKISTAN : LESSONS FROM ABROAD school, served in military and civil capacities on the same terms as the Turks. There was no derogating distinction between the Turk and the Arab, and there was nothing to prevent the Arab from rising to the highest rank in the Ottoman services. Not only politically but even socially the Arab was treated as his equal by the Turk and Arabs married Turkish wives and Turks married Arab wives. Ought not the Arabs to have been satisfied with this Islamic brotherhood of Arabs and Turks based on fraternity, liberty and equality? Say what one may, the Arabs were not satisfied. Arab nationalism broke the bonds of Islam and fought against his fellow Muslim, the Turk, for its independence. It won, but Turkey was completely dismantled. As to Czechoslovakia, she began with the recognition that both the Czechs and the Slovaks were one people. Within a few years, the Slovaks claimed to be a separate nation. They would not even admit that they were a branch of the same stock as the Czechs. Their nationalism compelled the Czechs to recognize the fact that they were a distinct people. The Czechs sought to pacify the nationalism of the Slovaks by drawing a hyphen as a mark indicating distinctness. In place of Czechoslovakia they agreed to have Czecho-Slovakia. But even with the hyphen the Slovak nationalism remained discontented. The act of autonomy was both, a hyphen separating them from the Czechs as well as a link joining them with the Czechs. The hyphen as making separation was welcome to the Slovaks but as making a link with the Czechs was very irksome to them. The Slovaks accepted the autonomy with its hyphen with great relief and promised to be content and loyal to the state. But evidently this was only a matter of strategy. They did not accept it as an ultimate end. They accepted it because they thought that they could use it as a vantage ground for destroying the hyphen which was their main aim and convert autonomy into independence. The nationalism of the Slovaks was not content with a hyphen. It wanted a bar in place of the hyphen. Immediately the hyphen was introduced, they began their battle to replace the hyphen between the Czechs and the Slovaks by a bar. They did not care what means they should employ. Their nationalism was so wrong-headed and so intense that when they failed they did not hesitate to call the aid of the Germans.

218 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES Thus a deeper study of the disruption of Turkey and Czechoslovakia shows that neither local autonomy nor the bond of religion is sufficient to withstand the force of nationalism, once it is set on the go. This is a lesson which the Hindus will do well to grasp. They should ask themselves : if the Greek, Balkan and Arab nationalism has blown up the Turkish State and if Slovak nationalism has caused the dismantling of Czechoslovakia, what is there to prevent Muslim nationalism from disrupting the Indian State ? If experience of other countries teaches that this is the inevitable consequence of pent-up nationalism, why not profit by their experience and avoid the catastrophe by agreeing to divide India into Pakistan and Hindustan ? Let the Hindus take the warning that if they refuse to divide India into two before they launch on their career as a free people, they will be sailing in those shoal waters in which Turkey, Czechoslovakia and many others have foundered. If they wish to avoid shipwreck in mid-ocean, they must lighten the draught by throwing overboard all superfluous cargo. They will ease the course of their voyage considerably if they—to use the language of Prof. Toynbee—reconcile themselves to making jetsam of less cherished and more combustible cargo. V Will the Hindus really lose if they agree to divide India into two, Pakistan and Hindustan ? With regard to Czechoslovakia it is instructive to note the real feelings of its government on the loss of their territory caused by the Munich Pact. They were well expressed by the Prime Minister of Czechoslovakia in his message to the people of Czechoslovakia. In it he said* :— “Citizens and soldiers....I am living through the hardest hour of my life ; I am carrying out the most painful task, in comparison with which death would be easy. But precisely because I have fought and bacause I know under what conditions a war is won, must tell you frankly... that the forces opposed to us at this moment compel us to recognize their superior strength and to act accordingly.... *Alexander Henderson—Eye-witness in Czechoslovakia (IIarrap, 1939), pp. 229-30.

219PAKISTAN : LESSONS FROM ABROAD “In Munich four European Great Powers met and decided to demand of us the acceptance of new frontiers, according to which the German areas of our State would be taken away. We had the choice between desperate and hopeless defence, which would have meant the sacrifice not only of the adult generation but also of women and chidren, and the acceptance of conditions which in their ruthlessness, and bacause they were imposed by pressure without war, have no parallel in history. We desired to make a contribution to peace; we would gladly have made it. But not by any means in the way it has been forced upon us. “But we were abandoned, and were alone .... Deeply moved, all your leaders considered, together with the army and the President of the Republic, all the possibilities which remained. They recognized that in choosing between narrower frontiers and the death of the nation it was their sacred duty to save the life of our people, so that we may not emerge weakened from these terrible times, and so that we may remain certain that our nation will gather itself together again, as it has done so often in the past. Let us all see that our State re-establishes itself soundly within its new frontiers, and that its population is assured of a new life of peace and fruitful labour. With your help we shall succeed. We rely upon you, and you have confidence in us.” It is evident that the Czechs refused to be led by the force of historic sentiment. They were ready to have narrower frontiers and a smaller Czechoslovakia to the ultimate destruction of their people. With regard to Turkey the prevalent view was the one that was expressed in 1853 by the Czar Nicholas I, during a conversation with British Ambassador in St. Petersburg in which he said “We have on our hand a sick man—a very sick man .... He may suddenly die upon our hands.” From that day the imminent decease of Turkey, the sick man of Europe was awaited by all his neighbours. The shedding of the territories was considered as the convulsions of a dying man who is alleged to have breathed his last by affixing his signature to the Treaty of Severs. Is this really a correct view to take of Turkey in the process of dissolution ? It is instructive to note the comments of Arnold Toynbee on this view. Referring to the Czar’s description of Turkey as the sick man who may suddenly die, he says* : “In this second and more sensational part of his diagnosis Czar Nicholas went astray because he did not understand the nature of the * Arnold Toynbee—Turkey, p. 141.

220 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES symptoms. If a person totally ignorant of natural history stumbled upon a snake in course of shedding its skin, he would pronounce dogmatically that the creature could not possible recover. He could point out that when a man (or other mammal) has the misfortune to lose his skin, he is never known to survive. Yet while it is perfectly true that the leopard cannot change his spots nor the Ethiopian his skin, a wider study would have informed our amateur naturalist that a snake can do both and does both habitually. Doubtless, even for the snake, the process is awkward and uncomfortable. He becomes temporarily torpid, and in this condition he is dangerously at the mercy of his enemies. Yet, if he escapes the kites and crows until his metamorphosis is complete, he not only recovers his health but renews his youth with the replacement of his mortal coils. This is the recent experience of the Turk, and ‘moulting snake’ is better simile than sick man for a description of his distemper.” In this view, the loss of her possessions by Turkey is the removal of an anomalous excrescence and the gain of a new skin. Turkey is certainly homogeneous and has no fear of any disruption from within. The Muslim areas are an anomalous excrescence on Hindustan and Hindustan is an anomalous excrescence on them. Tied together they will make India the sick man of Asia. Welded together they will make India a heterogeneous unit. If Pakistan has the demerit of cutting away parts of India, it has also the merit of introducing harmony in place of conflict. Severed into two, each becomes a more homogeneous unit. The homogeneity of the two areas is obvious enough. Each has a cultural unity. Each has a religious unity. Pakistan has a linguistic unity. If there is no such unity in Hindustan, it is possible to have it without any controversy as to whether the common language should be Hindustani, Hindi or Urdu. Separated, each can become a strong and well-knit state. India needs a strong Central Government. But it cannot have it so long as Pakistan remains a part of India. Compare the structure of the Federal Government as embodied in the Government of India Act, 1935, and it will be found, that the Central Government as constituted under it is an effete ramshackle thing with very little life in it.* As has already been pointed out, this * For further light on this topic, see my tract on Federation vs. Freedom.