Vol. 8 · pages 371–375

CHAPTER XIII MUST THERE BE PAKISTAN ? I With all that has gone before, the sceptic, the nationalist, the conservative and the old-world Indian will not fail to ask “Must there be Pakistan ?” No one can make light of such an attitude. For the problem of Pakistan is indeed very grave and it must be admitted that the question is not only a relevant and fair one to be put to the Muslims and to their protagonists but it is also important. Its importance lies in the fact that the limitations on the case for Pakistan are so considerable in their force that they can never be easily brushed aside. A mere statement of these limitations should be enough to make one feel the force they have. It is writ large on the very face of them. That being so, the burden of proof on the Muslims for establishing an imperative need in favour of Pakistan is very heavy. Indeed the issue of Pakistan or to put it plainly of partitioning India, is of such a grave character that the Muslims will not only have to discharge this burden of proof but they will have to adduce evidence of such a character as to satisfy the conscience of an international tribunal before they can win their case. Let us see how the case for Pakistan stands in the light of these limitations. II Must there be Pakistan because a good part of the Muslim population of India happens to be concentrated in certain defined areas which can be easily severed from the rest of India ? Muslim population is admittedly concentrated in certain well defined areas and it may be that these areas are severable. But what of that ? In considering this question one must never lose sight of the fundamental fact that nature has made India one single geographical unit. Indians are of course quarrelling and no one can prophesy when they will stop quarrelling. But granting the fact, what does

348 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES it establish ? Only that Indians are a quarrelsome people. It does not destroy the fact that India is a single geographical unit. Her unity is as ancient as Nature. Within this geographic unit and covering the whole of it there has been a cultural unity from time immemorial. This cultural unity has defied political and racial divisions. And at any rate for the last hundred and fifty years all institutions—cultural, political, economic, legal and administrative—have been working on a single, uniform spring of action. In any discussion of Pakistan the fact cannot be lost sight of, namely, that the starting point, if not the governing factor, is the fundamental unity of India. For it is necessary to grasp the fact that there are really two cases of partition which must be clearly distinguished. There is a case in which the starting point is a preexisting state of separation so that partition is only a dissolution of parts which were once separate and which were subsequently joined together. This case is quite different from another in which the starting point at all times is a state of unity. Consequently partition in such a case is the severance of a territory which has been one single whole into separate parts. Where the starting point is not unity of territory, i.e., where there was disunity before there was unity, partition—which is only a return to the original—may not give a mental shock. But in India the starting point is unity. Why destroy its unity now, simply because some Muslims are dissatisfied ? Why tear it when the unit is one single whole from historical times ?”. III Must there be Pakistan because there is communal antagonism between the Hindus and the Muslims ? That the communal antagonism exists nobody can deny. The question however is, is the antagonism such that there is no will to live together in one country and under one constitution ? Surely that will to live together was not absent till 1937. During the formulation of the provisions of the Government of India Act, 1935, both Hindus and Musalmans accepted the view that they must live together under one constitution and in one country and participated in the discussions that preceded the passing of the Act. And what was the state

349 PAKISTAN : MUST THERE BE PAKISTAN ? of communal feeling in India between—say 1920 and 1935 ? As has been recorded in the preceding pages, the history of India from 1920 upto 1935 has been one long tale of communal conflict in which the loss of life and loss of property had reached a most shameful limit. Never was the communal situation so acute as it was between this period of 15 years preceding the passing of the Government of India Act, 1935, and yet this long tale of antagonism did not prevent the Hindus and the Musalmans from agreeing to live in a single country and under a single constitution. Why make so much of communal antagonism now ? Is India the only country where there is communal antagonism ? What about Canada ? Consider what Mr. Alexander Brady* has to say on the relations between the English and the French in Canada:— “Of the four original provinces, three, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Ontario had populations substantially of the same Anglo-Saxon stock and traditions. Originally a by-product of the American Revolution, these colonies were established by the 50,000 United Empire Loyalists who trekked north from persecution and cut their settlements out of the wilderness. Previous to the American Revolution, Nova Scotia had received a goodly number of Scotch and American settlers, and in all the colonies after the Revolution the Loyalist settlements were reinforced by immigrants from Great Britain and Ireland.” * * * * “Very different was the province of Quebec. French Canada in 1867 was a cultural unit by itself, divorced from the British communities, by the barriers of race, language and religion. Its life ran in a different mould. Stirred by a Catholic faith mediaeval in its intensity, it viewed with scant sympathy the mingled Puritanism and other-worldliness of a Protestantism largely Calvinistic. The religious faiths of the two peoples were indeed poles apart. In social, if not always in religious, outlook, English Protestantism tended towards democracy, realism and modernism : the Catholicism of the French leaned to paternalism, idealism and a reverence for the past.” * * * * * “What French Canada was in 1867 it remains substantially today. It still cherishes beliefs, customs, and institutions which have little hold on the English provinces. It has distinctive thought and enthusiasm, and its own important values. Its attitude, for example, on marriage and divorce is in conflict with the dominant view, not merely of the rest of Canada, but of the remainder of Anglo-Saxon North America.” * Canada—Chapter L

350 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES * * * * “The infrequency of intercourse between the two peoples is illustrated in Canada’s largest city, Montreal. About 63 per cent of the population is French and 24 per cent British. Here, if anywhere, is ample scope for association, but in fact they remain apart and distinct except where business and politics force them together. They have their own residential sections; their own shopping centres, and if either is more notable for racial reserve, it is the English.” * * * * “The English-speaking residents of Montreal, as a whole, have made no effort to know their French-speaking fellow citizens, to learn their language, to understand their traditions and their aspirations, to observe with a keen eye and a sympathetic mind their qualities and their defects. The separation of the two peoples is encouraged by the barrier of language. There is a wealth of significance in the fact revealed by the census of 1921; viz., that about 50 per cent, of the Canadians of French origin were unable to speak English and 95 per cent, of those of British origin were unable to speak French. Even in Montreal, 70 per cent of the British could not speak French and 34 per cent, of the French could not speak English. The absence of a common language maintains a chasm between the two nationalities and prevents fusion. “The significance of Confederation is that it provided an instrument of government which enabled the French, while retaining their distinct national life, to become happy partners with the British and attain a Canadian super-nationality, embracing a loyalty extending beyond their own group to that of the Dominion as a whole.” * * * * “While the federal system successfully opened the path for a wider nationality in Canada, the co-operation which it sponsored has at times been subjected to severe strain by the violent clash of opinion between the French and the British. The super-nationality has indeed often been reduced to a shadow.” What about South Africa ? Let those who do not know the relationship between the Boers and the British ponder over what Mr. E.H. Brooks* has to say :— “How far is South African nationalism common to both the white races of South Africa ? There is, of course, a very real and intense Afrikander nationalism ; but it is, generally speaking, a sentiment confined to one of the white races, and characterised, significantly enough, by a love of the Afrikans language, the tongue of the early settlers from Holland, as modified slightly by Huguenot and German influence, and greatly by the passage of time. Afrikander nationalism has a tendency to be exclusive, and has little place for the man who, while in every way a devoted son of South Africa, is wholly or mainly English-speaking.” * The Political Future of South Africa, 1927.