The Logic of Linguistic Provinces

About a couple of years ago, a prominent Congress politician of South India, in the course of an address on the ‘White Paper’ to the students of the Law College at Madras, put forward a very curious argument against the splitting of the Province of Madras into its linguistic units. He maintained that such disintegration would only weaken the South as against the North in the affairs of the future Central Government. He felt, therefore, that it should be the deliberate concern of all the people of the present Madras Presidency to keep a single solid Province of Madras which cannot be swept aside by the Provinces of the North in the Government of the Centre. This argument is interesting, not so much for its perhaps unwarranted picture of all the Provinces in future fighting selfishly for power at Simla and Delhi as for its complete disregard of the real idea behind the creation of linguistic Provinces. For, the real idea, to those who have vision and understanding, is the cultural advancement of the country. It may be that the cultural dissimilarity of the linguistic groups leads logically to the conclusion that a linguistic redistribution of the Provinces is desirable even for the political well-being of the country. But that is a different matter. To reduce the creation of linguistic Provinces to a mere problem of political tactics is essentially degrading. It is the mentality of a schoolboy reducing the entire importance of Shakespeare to the exigencies of an examination. Unfortunately for us in India, politics looms very large on the horizon today. But when a country has found its rightful place in the scheme of the world, the country’s worth will be recognised, not so much for its political machinery or its economic security as for its total contribution to the world in the cultural sphere. And if the cultural progress of India requires the division of the country into linguistic Provinces, it is futile to argue that a few clever politicians who know only their immediate business are in favour of the status quo.

The present Provinces of British India are mere administrative units. They are based on nothing better than historical accident and administrative convenience, and sometimes they are not even based on any convenience. In certain cases something like convenience has also coincided with the linguistic unity of the Province, as notably in Bengal. The other Provinces of the North where Hindustani is spoken, although it is spoken in varying dialects, also naturally enjoy such a coincidence. It is when we turn to the Central Provinces and Bombay and Madras that we find a conglomeration of languages. The Central Provinces have Marathi and Hindi. Bombay, losing Sind, has Gujarati, Marathi and Kannada. And Madras, losing the Oriya tract, has Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu. It is difficult to know whether today the Governments of these Provinces and the Government of India are opposed on principle to the separation into linguistic Provinces or whether they merely plead administrative inconvenience. It is very probable that they do not know themselves. The plea of administrative inconvenience should, of course, always be respected. But it must be conceded even by these Governments that the creation of certain linguistic Provinces is not more difficult or more fraught with danger than the creation of the present Provinces of Sind and Orissa.

As we said before, the logic behind the idea of linguistic Provinces is not political in its origin. It is essentially cultural. The cultural life of a country includes, of course, its political life. But it is really not necessary for us to indulge in any painstaking definition of the word, ‘culture.’ It is sufficient to say that, while the cultural unity of India is at least not less of a fact today than in the days of Asoka or Sankara or Akbar, there are, within limited areas, individual cultures based on the genius of each language and on the genius of people speaking it, whose contribution to the unity of Indian culture is not confusion but variety. Such well-defined cultural units are not inconsistent with the cultural unity of India. A parallel can be sought in Europe. If the genius of the English is essentially different from the genius of the French or the genius of the Germans, this is to be attributed no less to difference of language than to racial origins and territorial distinctness. But in spite of this difference of language, race and territory, there is, and has been, such a thing as a common European culture flowing through the various localised linguistic cultures. Taking, for instance, European literature, Shakespeare and Wordsworth could not have belonged to any other country but England; Voltaire and Anatole France are the peculiar products of the French genius; Goethe and Schiller are the Very flowering of the German spirit. But, taken in a mass, Shakespeare and Voltaire and Goethe could not have belonged to any other cultural area in the world but Europe. The cultures of the linguistic groups of India are not yet as highly developed as the parallels cited from Europe, and today they may not even be so vitally self-conscious. But that their future will take the course which the European units have long ago taken is beyond doubt.

In fact, to understand the cultural future of this country, one must constantly keep in mind this similarity to the Continent of Europe. To overlook the beginnings of individualised culture in each of our linguistic areas, and to belittle the similarity to Europe, would be to deny that India has any future at all in the realm of culture. But, Bengal, rich in cultural life, has shown to the world how much indeed can be achieved by a compact linguistic group in our own country, feeling as one people. It is true even Bengal cannot at once achieve that completeness of cultural life which only free countries enjoy, but the achievement is great enough under the present limitations. And there is no substantial reason why any other linguistic group in India should not in future, under equally favourable conditions, record a similar achievement.

One may even go further and maintain that nothing remarkable can be achieved in this country in matters of cultural importance, until in the life of the country there is a definite and tangible recognition of the separate compact existence of our linguistic areas. The reason is to be sought in the very stuff of which Life is made. For Life itself, in the ultimate analysis, is an ever-expanding struggle for self-expression. And self-expression has as many Phases, emotional and intellectual, as the self has phases. The original phase is of the individual self, unrelated to any group and untrammelled by loyalty to anything higher than one’s self. The next phase is the family Phase.

After the family come the numerous groups of which one is a member, and some of these would be one’s community, the linguistic group to which one belongs, one’s country and one’s race. In the very nature of things there is bound to be conflict between one phase and another in the history of every individual and of every group, but it is no solution of a conflict to ignore any of the phases altogether. The only solution lies in the proper adjustment of the loyalties demanded by the various phases. On the other hand, to ignore any phase would be to deny a human being the necessary self-expression in that phase. Where, of course, a group has ceased to have any significance as a source of self-expression or as an aid thereto, the group should not command anyone’s loyalty. For instance, the subcastes among the Hindus, and, to a great extent, the main castes themselves, play no inevitable part today in the self-expression of any reasonable person. Modern civilisation has equipped us with a new social and economic ideology; and it is a man’s temperament and a man’s activities, and not a man’s birth, which determine whether he is a true Brahmin or a true Kshatriya or a true Vaisya or a true Sudra. And it is not inconceivable that the true ideal in temperament is to be all the four in one. A sentimental and unreasoning attachment to lifeless symbols is bound to continue long after the significance of being a distinct group is lost, and men will not be found wanting who can exploit this thoughtlessness, but such a group does not deserve any recognition because it does not and cannot help the true expression of the human spirit. It is futile attempting to invest the existence of such a group with the dignity of logic.

Facts, however, are entirely different when we consider the possibilities for cultural self-expression of a compact linguistic area. We do not yet know how to assess completely the influence of a common language upon the people who speak it, but the influence is undoubtedly great in the moulding of a specialised outlook on life. To that extent all the people who speak the same language possess, as a group, a great social and cultural heritage. If, as in the case of each linguistic group in India, there are, in addition to a common language, a distinct territory and a common history through many centuries, these facts demonstrate that the people living in each linguistic area are, so to speak, a nation within a nation. They have a certain spiritual unity which escapes definition. "What are the elements which constitute a distinct nation?", asks Mr. Lloyd George in a broadcast speech on the nationalism of Wales, and he answers:

"There is racial identity. There is common history and tradition. There is geographical situation, government. Most distinctive of all there is a separate language. But no country on earth can claim a hundred per cent of marks under each of these tests." (Italics are ours)

In the words of Professor Laski,

"Nationalism implies the sense of a special unity which marks off those who share in it from the rest of mankind. That unity is the outcome of a common history, of victories won and traditions created by a corporate effort. There grows up a sense of kinship which binds men into oneness. They recognise their likenesses, and emphasise their difference from other men. Their social heritage becomes distinctively their own, as a man lends his own peculiar character to his house. They come to have an art and a literature, recognisably distinct from that of other nations."

All this, undoubtedly, reads like an accurate description of the nature of the linguistic groups in India. For each of the groups has ‘a special sense of unity,’ and the members of each group ‘recognise their likenesses, and emphasise their difference from other men,’ and each group has ‘come to have an art and a literature recognisably distinct from that of other nations.’ In other words, each linguistic group has developed an individuality which demands the right to express itself in its own distinctive manner, and the denial of that right is to the members of that group a thwarting to some extent of the human personality. And, therefore the separate compact existence of the linguistic units in our country must be recognised and carefully fostered.

It remains to be considered whether the recognition of these linguistic areas as cultural units implies the necessity for their conversion into distinct political Provinces. At this stage it will be useful to examine what the alternatives are.

One of the alternatives is, naturally, the status quo without any modifications, where an arbitrary division of the country into administrative units has resulted in the jumbling together of two or more linguistic units in one administrative Province, or in one linguistic unit being shared in parts by two administrative Provinces. Examples of the jumbling together arise in Bombay, Madras and the Central Provinces. Two compact areas like Andhradesa and Tamilnad are yoked together in Madras. The Marathi-speaking people are herded with the Gujarati-speaking people in Bombay, and with the Hindi-speaking people in the Central Provinces. An example of a linguistic unit being shared in parts by two administrative Provinces is the Kannada country, The districts of Bijapur, Belgaum, Dharwar and Kanara (North) belong to the Bombay Presidency, while the district of South Kanara,–not to speak of portions of the Ceded Districts and of Coimbatore and Salem which may conceivably choose affiliation to a Kannada Province,–belongs to the Madras Presidency. The Mahrattas too are divided between Bombay and the Central Provinces. Such dismemberment and sharing of linguistic units exists, of course, also as between British India and certain Indian States. The Malayalee unit is shared by British India on the one hand and by Travancore and Cochin on the other. The Kannada unit is to a great extent within Mysore. A huge slice of the Andhra unit belongs to the Nizam’s Dominions. To the west of India, the Kathiawar States contain great numbers of the Gujatati population, and Baroda has its share of Gujarati-speaking as well as Marathi-speaking people. There can be no immediate question of the adjustment of linguistic units or of political re-affiliation where the States are concerned, and the status quo in their case, is inevitable, not on principle, but by force of the vested interests of the Rulers. The administrative units of British India cannot, however, plead the vesting of any interests, and they must stand or fall by the logic of their continued existence.

And that logic seems to be roughly this: India is now well on her way to achieve complete self-government. What India needs most at this hour is a perfect sense of unity. The disintegration of the present Provinces into linguistic units will only increase the narrow spirit of provincialism. The creation of linguistic Provinces may thus impede the achievement of self-government. Even otherwise, the disintegration will be a source of danger to the unity and well-being of a future self-governing India.

The cultural individuality of each linguistic group may be a fact. But the advancement of culture is not a political problem, and politics as such has nothing to do with culture. If any group has such an important cultural personality, it ought to be able to achieve complete self-expression without any kind of recognition in the political constitution of the country. Belonging to an administrative unit along with many other linguistic groups, or being shared in parts by two administrative units, cannot interfere with the cultural self-expression of any linguistic group. Nor can conversion into a distinct political and administrative unit in any way advance such cultural self-expression.

The argument is, in other words, twofold: firstly, that linguistic redistribution will be a political calamity; and, secondly, that linguistic redistribution is unnecessary for cultural advancement.

While considering the first half of the argument, it is of importance that we should analyse the nature of the political unity which is to be expected in a future self-governing India. It is obvious that the unity cannot be such as obtains in a unitary State like Japan or the Irish Free State. Both the size of the country and the diversity of the peoples, not to speak of the history of the country even throughout the British period, point to a federal ideology. The difference between a federal State and a unitary State, at least as far as India is concerned, is really this: in the federal State certain centrifugal tendencies cannot be, and ought not to be, ignored; in the unitary, certain centrifugal tendencies cannot be, and ought not to be, encouraged. Every one agrees that the political constitution of India should be of the federal type. And it is not to be a federation of the whole of British India with the native Indian States, but there is to be federation within British India itself. In other words, it is accepted that certain centrifugal tendencies which exist even within British India ought not to be ignored. What, then, are these accepted centrifugal tendencies within British India? If it is sought to be argued that these tendencies are of the present administrative Provinces, are the mixed people living in each Province south of the Vindhyas so imbued with an over-whelming sense of unity within the Province that they should ask for the perpetuation of these Provinces in a Constitution? The fact is that they are not so imbued, and it is the last thing they ever wish that the present Provinces should be perpetuated. The agitation for linguistic redistribution of Provinces has been going on for many decades now, and the existence of such an agitation has been recognised by the ‘Montagu- Chelmsford Report’ as well as by the ‘Simon Report.’ The centrifugal tendencies which deserve recognition in a country fit only for a federal Constitution must arise in distinct territorial groups whose individual sense of unity is unquestionable. The present Provinces cannot claim to be such units. Taking the Province of Madras as an example, no less a person than the Rajah of Bobbili, the present Chief Minister of the Madras Government, submitted at the Round Table Conference that "the Andhras and Tamils have the most marked differences of culture and traditions. And the Andhras have all along felt that they cannot develop and emphasise the special qualities of their culture except by being a separate political and administrative unit. Such development of the Andhra culture could only be possible by education being imparted through the medium of the Telugu language and also by public business being conducted in that language."

A true analysis, therefore, of the centrifugal tendencies existing within British India leads inevitably to the conclusion that the federating units within British India should be, not the present administrative Provinces but the territorially compact linguistic groups. The same argument can be presented in a different form. Anyone who lives in a Province of mixed linguistic groups, and particularly one who lives in the capital of the Province, notices the spirit of unhealthy rivalry and animosity between the different groups. The workings of such animosity come to the surface almost every day in every walk of life, whether that be in hostels among students or in high politics among veterans. Those whom official life protects from the world’s realities, and those who are otherwise amazingly innocent, can afford to remain unimpressed, but no normally intelligent man can mistake the significance of these seemingly trivial incidents. It is very easy each time to condemn the pettiness of the individuals concerned on each side, but there is this larger truth about life, that you cannot put two lusty babies in the same small, cradle without the babies kicking each other. It would be nice, extremely nice, if the babies did not kick each other–but they will. In this clash of groups, those who deplore the pettiness of individuals deplore at the wrong end of the problem. Each incident of pettiness is merely a symptom of the deeper trouble, which is that two or more highly developed and very different groups are thrown too much together when they could be kept apart. Territorial redistribution of Provinces cannot be conceived of as a solution to the Hindu-Muslim problem. Territorial redistribution cannot help to end the controversy between the Brahmins and the non-Brahmins. These problems, at any rate, have to be solved in other ways. But territorial redistribution definitely can put an end to the existing friction between one linguistic group and another, and there can be no greater want of statesmanship than to allow such friction to remain a permanent feature of political life in this country.

There is politically yet another aspect of this argument which deserves careful notice. Today the spirit of unity in the country is largely the result of political subjection. All the energy of united action in political life has now its source in that feeling of subjection. But those who build towards a future self-governing India must clearly realise that, when political subjection is gone, political life must draw its energy from other sources. Subjection has given us all one character, making everything else about us unimportant for the moment. All the other phases of our lives have been merged, out of necessity, in the phase of our belonging to a subject country. It is this fact which explains, while it does not justify, the want of vision of some administrators and politicians who honestly wish the political subjection to disappear, but cannot understand why in a free India we are not likely to have so large a plank of political unity again for the whole country. It is futile to deplore the forces of history. And it is inevitable that, if political life in this country is to remain strong and purposeful after the achievement of freedom, we have to seek the greater part of our energy and our unity of action within smaller spheres. And the unity will have to be a compelling inner unity of spirit, not a unity forced on us by an external catastrophe. The present administrative Provinces do not answer such a test. The units have necessarily to be the linguistic groups. This is not a plea for completely autonomous linguistic Provinces in future. This does not amount to suggesting that there cannot be a comprehensive Indian nationalism when political subjection disappears. This only means that the political unity and the political nationalism of the entire country cannot in future be anything more spectacular than the unity and the nationalism of other Federations in the world. We shall all rejoice when India is free. We shall all be then proud to call ourselves Indians when we travel abroad. But in the daily government of the country, the emphasis of political forces will shift more and more to the units of the Federation. Political life will become largely localised1 and the unity which gives strength hereafter to political action must undoubtedly be the unity of each linguistic group. But, if the shifting of political life to the federating units is coupled with the heterogeneous nature of each unit, friction is inevitable.

That this argument is not without substance and merit will be understood when we remember that administrators like Sir Bamfylde Fuller, political thinkers like Mr. Lionel Curtis, the ‘Montagu-Chelmsford Report,’ the ‘Nehru Report,’ and the ‘Simon Report,’ put their full faith in the argument. Sir Bamfylde Fuller wrote:

It would have been well for the country had its divisions into Provinces for purposes of government followed the lines marked by race and language, so as to reinforce the sympathy which arises by similarity, by feelings of pride in the local government. The existing administrative divisions are heterogeneous, so as to have a directly contrary effect."

Mr. Lionel Curtis, knowing like all men of foresight that true self-government is impossible in India until Indian languages displace the English language in the life of the country, arrived at the conclusion that self-government requires linguistic Provinces. In his famous ‘Letters to the People of India on Responsible Government,’ he says:

"To a detached observer one of the most pathetic features in the Indian situation is the tenacity with which certain elements of its people, and those the most vocal, cling to features in the system organised by us foreigners, which are in fact the greatest obstacles to popular government. One is our educational system; another is the Permanent Settlement; a third the vast satrapies into which our system has divided India…..The defect of the present areas (of administration) is that they are too mechanical. The Province of Bihar and Orissa, for instance, combines communities with an almost cynical disregard of the differences between them…..The first consideration is to get communities, which, as contrasted with those of the British Isles, France and Italy, are not too large for effective self-government on really provincial lines. Where possible, historic areas like Sind should be taken. But unity of language, race, and religion are also important factors, and language is the most important of all. The greatest obstacle to a real extension of popular government in India is the practice of conducting public business in the English tongue. By all means let English occupy the same position as Hindustani has in Northern India since, the time of the Mughal Empire. In English lies the hope of national unity and of knowledge from the outside world. Let the public records be kept in English; extend knowledge of that language in every possible direction. But if all discussion of public affairs is conducted in English, then public life is going to be confined, for many generations to come, to a narrowly restricted class. How can electorates ever be brought to grasp the questions submitted to their judgment if all public discussion is to be conducted in a foreign tongue? The use of the vernaculars in politics is essential if India is to advance towards responsible government at any but the slowest pace. The areas of provincial self-government must be designed largely with a view to making it possible for public business to be discussed in a language which all the legislators can speak with ease, and which the largest number of electors can understand. Given these conditions, a vast number of landholders and others who cannot conduct debates in English are rendered available for public life. The hope of popular governments lies in the vernaculars. (Italics are ours)

It is a long string of quotations from Mr. Curtis, but no apologies are needed because he presents a very important viewpoint. When ‘the use of the vernaculars in politics is essential if India is to advance towards responsible government,’ it is obvious that any perpetuation of the present administrative Provinces will be the greatest obstacle in the way. As long as a Province consists of two or more linguistic groups, political discussions have necessarily to be conducted in the English language. And the ‘Montagu-Chelmsford Report’ agreed with Mr. Curtis that in the political life of each Province the vernacular of the Province should displace the English language. Said the Report:

"We are impressed with the artificial and often inconvenient character of existing administrative units…..We cannot doubt that the business of government would be simplified if administrative units were both smaller and more homogeneous……It is also a strong argument in favour of linguistic or racial units of government that, by making it possible to conduct the business of legislation in the vernacular, they would contribute to draw into the arena of public affairs men who were not acquainted with English.……We are bound to indicate our own clear opinion that wherever such redistributions are necessary and can be effected by process of consent, the attempt to do so should be made; and therefore we desire that it should be recognised as one of the earliest duties incumbent upon all the provincial Governments to test public opinion upon schemes directed to this end."

And the result was 52-A of the Government of India Act of 1919:

"The Governor-General may, after obtaining the expression of opinion from the Local Government and the Local Legislature affected, by notification, with the sanction of His Majesty previously signified by the Secretary of State in Council, constitute a new Governor’s Province, or place part of a Governor’s Province under the administration of a Deputy Governor to be appointed by the Governor-General."

The ‘Simon Report’ was with the ‘Montagu-Chelmsford Report’ in this matter, and Section 290 of the present Government of India Act has provisions essentially similar to Section 52-A of the Act of 1919.

Politically, therefore, the creation of linguistic Provinces, far from being a calamity, is highly desirable. People who talk of the increasing bane of parochialism; whenever the question of linguistic Provinces is raised, must realise that federation itself implies the self-consciousness and the exclusiveness of the federating units, and that federal unity is not the unity of pulp but the unity of a tree with many branches. Dead branches can be made into a bundle, but live branches will certainly resist, and if forced too much must even break and die. The spirit behind the agitation for linguistic Provinces, which is unkindly dismissed by the unimaginative as mere parochialism, is in reality the very desirable spirit of nationalism-nationalism, that is, of the little nations within the Indian nation. And, as Mr. Lloyd George points out, what is wrong with the world is not nationalism but the perversion of nationalism:

"The zeal and pride that seek to lift a nation above the wretched, ignorant, squalid past to heights where its people shall be enlightened, prosperous, enjoying a physical, mental and moral well-being, with a quality and distinction that enables them to look every other nation in the face unashamed: that is a nationalism which is a blessing to those who practise it; an example and incentive to emulation for others who witness its beneficent activities; an enrichment to the sum total of human achievement and happiness. That has nothing in common with the pernicious nationalism which wastes strength and opportunity in organising wars, commercial or military, against its neighbours."

Organising commercial or military wars against neighbours cannot, of course, be within the power of the linguistic Provinces to be created. They are indeed idle fears that these Provinces can be a source of any danger to the well-being of a future self-governing India. As long as we have a strong Federal Centre, and as long as important subjects like Currency, Defence and Foreign Policy are exclusively within the purview of the Central Government, and as long as the residuary powers, where British India is concerned, are with the Federation, or, as in the present Act, either with the Centre or with the units at the discretion of the Governor-General, there is no imaginable harm which the linguistic Provinces can do to the well-being of India as a whole.

Having met the first half of the argument for the continuance of the present administrative Provinces, namely, that linguistic redistribution will be a political calamity, we pass on to the second half of it, that linguistic redistribution is unnecessary for the cultural advancement of the country.

(To be Concluded)