Vol. 8 · pages 351–355

326 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES consent of the governed. Even those who insisted, that the legitimacy of a government depended upon the consent of the governed, remained content with a victory for their proposition and did not care to probe further into the matter. They did not feel the necessity for making any distinctions within the category of the “governed”. They evidently thought that it was a matter of no moment whether those who were included in the category of the governed formed a community or a nation. Force of circumstances has, however, compelled political philosophers to accept this distinction. In the second place, it is not a mere distinction without a difference. It is a distinction which is substantial and the difference is consequentially fundamental. That this distinction between a community and a nation is fundamental, is clear from the difference in the political rights which political philosophers are prepared to permit to a community and those they are prepared to allow to a nation against the Government established by law. To a community they are prepared to allow only the right of insurrection. But to a nation they are willing to concede the right of disruption. The distinction between the two is as obvious as it is fundamental. A right of insurrection is restricted only to insisting on a change in the mode and manner of government. The right of disruption is greater than the right of insurrection and extends to the secession of a group of the members of a State with a secession of the portion of the State’s territory in its occupation. One wonders what must be the basis of this difference. Writers on political philosophy, who have discussed this subject, have given their reasons for the justification of a Community’s right to insurrection* and of a nation’s right to * Sidgwick justifies it in these words : “…..the evils of insurrection may reasonably be thought to be outweighed by the evils of submission, when the question at issue is of vital importance.... an insurrection may sometimes induce redress of grievances, even when the insurgents are clearly weaker in physical force ; since it may bring home to the majority the intensity of the sense of injury aroused by their actions. For similar reasons, again a conflict in prospect may be anticipated by a compromise ; in short, the fear of provoking disorder may be a salutary check on the persons constitutionally invested with supreme power under a democratic as under other forms of government……. I conceive, then that a moral right of insurrection must be held to exist in the most popularly governed community. ”—Elements of Politics (1929), pp. 646-47.

327 PAKISTAN : NATIONAL FRUSTRATION demand disruption.* The difference comes to this : a community has a right to safeguards, a nation has a right to demand separation. The difference is at once clear and crucial. But they have not given any reasons why the right of one is limited to insurrection and why that of the other extends to disruption. They have not even raised such a question. Nor are the reasons apparent on the face of them. But it is both interesting and instructive to know why this difference is made. To my mind the reason for this difference pertains to questions of ultimate destiny. A state either consists of a series of communities or it consists of a series of nations. In a state, which is composed of a series of communities, one community may be arrayed against another community and the two may be opposed to each other. But in the matter of their ultimate destiny they feel they are one. But in a state, which is composed of a series of nations, when one nation rises against the other, the conflict is one as to differences of ultimate destiny. This is the distinction between communities and nations and it is this distinction which explains the difference in their political rights. There is nothing new or original in this explanation. It is merely another way of stating why the community has one kind of right and the nation another of quite a different kind. A community has a right of insurrection because it is satisfied with it. All that it wants is a change in the mode and form of government. Its quarrel is not over any difference of ultimate destiny. A nation has to be accorded the right of disruption because it will not be satisfied with mere change in the form of government. Its quarrel is over the question of ultimate * This is what Sidgwick has to say on the right to disruption : “…..some of those who, hold that a government to be legitimate, must rest on the consent of the governed, appear not to shrink from drawing this inference: they appear to qualify the right of the majority of members of a state to rule by allowing the claim of a minority that suffers from the exercise of this right to secede and form a new state, when it is in a majority in a continuous portion of its old state’s territory…….and I conceive that there are cases in which the true interests of the whole may be promoted by disruption. For instance, where two portions of a state’s territory are separated by a long interval of sea, or other physical obstacles, from any very active intercommunication, and when, from differences of race or religion, past history, or present social conditions, their respective inhabitants have divergent needs and demands in respect of legislation and other governmental interference, it may easily be inexpedient that they should have a common government for internal affairs ; while if, at the same time, their external relations, apart from their union, would be very different, it is quite possible that each part may lose more through the risk of implication in the other’s quarrels, than it is likely to gain from the aid of its military force. Under such conditions as these, it is not to be desired that any sentiment of historical patriotism, or any pride in the national ownership of an extensive territory, should permanently prevent a peaceful dissolution of the incoherent whole into its natural parts.”— Elements of Politics (1929),.pp. 648-49.

328 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES destiny. If it will not be satisfied unless the unnatural bond that binds them is dissolved, then prudence and even ethics demands that the bond shall be dissolved and they shall be freed each to pursue its own destiny. V While it is necessary to admit that the efforts at HinduMuslim unity have failed and that the Muslim ideology has undergone a complete revolution, it is equally necessary to know the precise causes which have produced these effects. The Hindus say that the British policy of divide and rule is the real cause of this failure and of this ideological revolution. There is nothing surprising in this. The Hindus having cultivated the Irish mentality to have no other politics except that of being always against the Government, are ready to blame the Government for everything including bad weather. But time has come to discard the facile explanation so dear to the Hindus. For it fails to take into account two very important circumstances. In the first place, it overlooks the fact that the policy of divide and rule, allowing that the British do resort to it, cannot succeed unless there are elements which make division possible, and further if the policy succeeds for such a long time, it means that the elements which divide are more or less permanent and irreconcilable and are not transitory or superficial. Secondly, it forgets that Mr. Jinnah, who represents this ideological transformation, can never be suspected of being a tool in the hands of the British even by the worst of his enemies. He may be too self-opinionated, an egotist without the mask and has perhaps a degree of arrogance which is not compensated by any extraordinary intellect or equipment. It may be on that account he is unable to reconcile himself to a second place and work with others in that capacity for a public cause. He may not be overflowing with ideas although he is not, as his critics make him out to be, an empty-headed dandy living upon the ideas of others. It may be that his fame is built up more upon art and less on substance. At the same time, it is doubtful if there is a politician in India to whom the adjective incorruptible can be more fittingly applied. Anyone who knows what his relations with the British Government have

329 PAKISTAN : NATIONAL FRUSTRATION been, will admit that he has always been their critic, if indeed, he has not been their adversary. No one can buy him. For it must be said to his credit that he has never been a soldier of fortune. The customary Hindu explanation fails to account for the ideological transformation of Mr. Jinnah. What is then the real explanation of these tragic phenomena, this failure of the efforts for unity, this transformation in the Muslim ideology ? The real explanation of this failure of Hindu-Muslim unity lies in the failure to realize that what stands between the Hindus and Muslims is not a mere matter of difference, and that this antagonism is not to be attributed to material causes. It is formed by causes which take their origin in historical, religious, cultural and social antipathy, of which political antipathy is only a reflection. These form one deep river of discontent which, being regularly fed by these sources, keeps on mounting to a head and overflowing its ordinary channels. Any current of water flowing from another source however pure, when it joins it, instead of altering the colour or diluting its strength becomes lost in the main stream. The silt of this antagonism which this current has deposited, has become permanent and deep. So long as this silt keeps on accumulating and so long as this antagonism lasts, it is unnatural to expect this antipathy between Hindus and Muslims to give place to unity. Like the Christians and Muslims in the Turkish Empire, the Hindus and Muslims of India have met as enemies on many fields, and the result of the struggle has often brought them into the relation of conquerors and conquered. Whichever party has triumphed, a great gulf has remained fixed between the two and their enforced political union either under the Moghuls or the British instead of passing over, as in so many other cases, into organic unity, has only accentuated their mutual antipathy. Neither religion nor social code can bridge this gulf. The two faiths are mutually exclusive and whatever harmonies may be forged in the interest of good social behaviour, at their core and centre they are irreconcilable. There seems to be an inherent antagonism between the two which centuries have not been able to dissolve. Notwithstanding the efforts made to bring the creeds

330 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES together by reformers like Akbar and Kabir, the ethical realities behind each have still remained, to use a mathematical phrase, which nothing can .alter or make integers capable of having a common denominator. A Hindu can go from Hinduism to Christianity without causing any commotion or shock. But he cannot pass from Hinduism to Islam without causing a communal riot, certainly not without causing qualms. That shows the depth of the antagonism which divides the Hindus from the Musalmans. If Islam and Hinduism keep Muslims and Hindus apart in the matter of their faith, they also prevent their social assimilation. That Hinduism prohibits intermarriage between Hindus and Muslims is quite well known. This narrowminded-ness is not the vice of Hinduism only. Islam is equally narrow in its social code. It also prohibits intermarriage between Muslims and Hindus. With these social laws there can be no social assimilation and consequently no socialization of ways, modes and outlooks, no blunting of the edges and no modulation of age-old angularities. There are other defects in Hinduism and in Islam which are responsible for keeping the sore between Hindus and Muslims open and running. Hinduism is said to divide people and in contrast Islam is said to bind people together. This is only a half truth. For Islam divides as inexorably as it binds. Islam is a close corporation and the distinction that it makes between Muslims and non-Muslims is a very real, very positive and very alienating distinction. The brotherhood of Islam is not the universal brotherhood of man. It is brotherhood of Muslims for Muslims only. There is a fraternity but its benefit is confined to those within that corporation. For those who are outside the corporation, there is nothing but contempt and enmity. The second defeat of Islam is that it is a system of social self-government and is incompatible with local self-government, because the allegiance of a Muslim does not rest on his domicile in the country which is his but on the faith to which he belongs. To the Muslim ibi bene ibi patria is unthinkable. Wherever there is the rule of Islam, there is his own country. In other words, Islam can never allow a true Muslim to adopt India as his motherland and regard a Hindu