‘The Triple Stream’

...he that laboureth  right for love of Me
Shall finally attain! But, if in this
Thy faint heart fails, bring Me thy failure!
–The Song Celestial.

‘The Triple Stream’ *

 

FRIENDLY NEIGHBOURS?

The hopes entertained at the time of the partition of India,–that the sister Dominions of India and Pakistan would soon settle down as friendly neighbours and devote their entire  energies to constructive tasks,–have been dashed to the ground. The quick succession of events within the few months since Independence Day, has hardly a parallel in human history. Millions have been uprooted and exiled, their homes broken up and their kindred cruelly murdered or kidnapped. Today, the spectre of demoniac hatred is stalking the land. The Nehru-Patel Cabinet, Free India’s first Government, were confronted with a situation which might have unnerved lesser men and betrayed them into wrong policies. But, inspired by Gandhian ideology, the men in power at the Centre set their faces definitely against all attempts at retaliation. They refused to conceive of India as a mere Hindu State, nor would they copy the methods of Pakistan in the treatment of evacuees.

Confidence in the integrity and ability of the present Government of India is growing every day; the firmness displayed in Junagadh and Kashmir is believed to be the prelude to similar firmness in Hyderabad. The standstill agreement with the premier Indian State is but a temporary concession to the forces of medieval obscurantism. The people’s will is bound to prevail, as it has prevailed in Mysore and Travancore. A strict watch has, however, to be kept over the doings of the Nizam’s Government, and of the rabid communalists of the Ittehad who still hope to keep the State as a Muslim preserve and as an outpost of Pakistan. To talk of parity between 13 per cent of Muslims and 87 per cent of non-Muslims, and to claim for Muslims a preponderant share in administrative posts as at present, is to court trouble. Responsible Government under the aegis of the Nizam, and accession to the Indian Union after a plebiscite, are the minimum demands of the State Congress. There can be no compromise on these issues; no interim Government can function successfully without the presence of the representatives of the State Congress specially invited to serve on it, after a formal concession of these demands.

Of the citizens of the Indian Union outside the present boundaries of Hyderabad, the Andhras, the Kannadigas and the Maharashtrians are vitally interested in the settlement of the Hyderabad issue. Responsible Government for Hyderabad must eventually mean a well-knit federation of the three linguistic areas comprising the State. Preserving their distinctive language and culture, these areas must co-operate for the common weal of a free Hyderabad under a constitutional Ruler. Though belonging to Provinces of the Indian Union, the various linguistic groups of India have racial and cultural affinities with their brethren in the neighbouring States. They cannot acquiesce in the continuance of autocratic rule across their borders. The struggle in Hyderabad is rapidly shaping as an all Deccan struggle. The Nizam’s Government must recognise the inwardness of this urge to freedom and come into line with the rest of India.

The Muslims of Hyderabad, like the Muslims of the Provinces and States of the Indian Union, will enjoy the rights of an important minority and will always be welcome to play a distinguished part in the political, economic and cultural life of the State. Liberal-minded Muslims from all parts of the Indian Union are veering round to the view that they must be the sole arbiters of their destiny, uninfluenced by directives from Pakistan. Under the wise leadership of Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, they ought to align themselves with the progressive non-communal forces which have won India her freedom and can be relied on to preserve it untarnished by further communal feuds. This turn in events will have a healthy influence on the relations between India and Pakistan. This may chance to be the first streak of light piercing the gloom that now surrounds us.

KASHMIR

For the moment, Kashmir overshadows even Hyderabad. The Kashmir issue will be debated before the Security Council of the United Nations. But, what is the genesis of the trouble in the happy vale of Kashmir? The League propagandists always looked upon Kashmir as an integral part of the Pakistan of their dreams, for, were not the Muslims in a majority? And Hyderabad, of course, must be in Pakistan, yea, become its nerve centre, for was not the Ruler a Muslim? But, contrary to all calculations, the nationalist Muslims of Kashmir and their lion-hearted leader refused to play the role of Mr. Jinnah’s henchmen. They felt that their political and economic interests lay in a union with India. The Maharajah and his ministers had bungled without end. They treated Sheikh Abdullah as their enemy and cast him into prison; they outlawed the National Conference; they even hesitated for a while between accession to Pakistan and accession to India. It was only the minatory gestures of the Government of Pakistan and the armed invasion abetted by them which opened the eyes of the Maharajah, when all was on the point of being lost. Generous and forgiving, Sheikh Saheb sprang into the arena in defence of Kashmir, the common homeland of Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs. This comradeship in a heroic endeavour invests Pandit Nehru and Sheikh Abdullah with the halo of the knight errants of the days of Chivalry.

Divested of all touch of romance, the intervention of India in the politics of Kashmir is the normal performance of a duty cast on the Government of a self-respecting nation, to preserve from violation the territory of a State acceding to it in exercise of a legal right. In this instance, it is a whole population up in arms against a wily intruder plotting to deprive them of the freedom to choose between two neighbouring Dominions. If the Indian Independence Act of 1947 concedes this right to an Indian State, why should the protagonists of Pakistan Imperialism prejudge the issue by permitting their territory to be used as a base of operations and then place at the disposal of the so called ‘raiders’ the military equipment and trained personnel of a modern State? Pakistan will soon be in the dock at the bar of the United Nations. It has to justify its conduct or retrace its steps.

Meanwhile, the people of Kashmir, leaders and men, are setting a splendid example of communal harmony; they have placed country above community. And they have cleared many mental cobwebs by affirming that by a ‘nation’ is meant the entire population of a territory, irrespective of race or creed, owing allegiance to the Government called to power by the will of the people. Kashmir, the original home of the Nehrus, is forging a link between the Hindu, Muslim and Sikh citizens of the Indian Union.

 

NATIONAL LANGUAGE OR LINGUA FRANCA?

While people all over India whose mother-tongue is not Hindustani are prepared, and even eager, to welcome it as the lingua franca for inter-provincial contacts, the advocates of highly Sanskritised Hindi in the Nagari script seek to impose it as the’ national language’. They fight shy of the expression ‘Hindustani’ brought into vogue by Gandhiji and the Congress. Sri K. M. Munshi refers derisively to ‘Bazar Hindustani’. But it is this very ‘Bazar Hindustani’ which must serve as the medium of communication between millions of Indian citizens. Sanskritised Hindi and Persianised Urdu with their high-flown vocabulary may be allowed to develop in their different ways, and provide delectation to Pandits and Moulvies. They can preserve the immaculate purity of their respective languages. But the Telugus and Tamils of the South are not interested in this controversy relating to Hindi and Urdu. To them, what matters is the rapid acquisition of an easy medium for the expression of simple ideas. A man from Trichinopoly travelling in U. P. or Bihar is must be able to order his meal in a hotel or purchase his ticket at a railway station. He must be able to converse with fellow travellers on road or railway. He must follow a speech of Gandhiji or Nehru. In short, he must wield the speech of the common people and make himself at home everywhere.

If this knowledge of Hindustani is to become widespread, provision has to be made for its compulsory teaching, for a year or two, to Indian boys and girls before they finish the middle school stage in educational institutions. They may be given the option to learn it in their provincial script, for, what is all-important is that they should speak the language with ease. Even the adults in a locality may be encouraged to pick up this lingo during evening classes after school hours. Some kind of Basic Hindustani written, at the writer’s free choice, in Nagari, Persian, Roman, or Kannada-Telugu script will serve admirably as India’s lingua franca. Whenever a person is so inclined, he can learn a different script. But the script need never stand in the way of learning the language.

As for literary Hindi written in Devanagari, it has no greater claim on the allegiance of Indian citizens from South India than Bengali or Marathi. Hindi need not be placed on a higher pedestal, merely because it happens to be the mother-tongue of a larger number of Indians. India has a dozen principal languages, each with a great literature of its own. These languages will become the official languages in their respective regions,–the language of the legislature, the courts, and the universities. Every one of them must grow and become an efficient vehicle for the most advanced thought. There must be translations into all these provincial languages from the great languages of Asia and Europe and from the sister languages of India. In to this context, Hindi takes its place like any other language. Provision can always be made for the optional study of Hindi language and literature in every High School and College, but it can never be the medium of instruction in Provinces and States where it is not the regional language; nor can it be the official language of such States and Provinces, as a recent resolution of the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan recommends.

The Provincial and State Governments all over India will contact each other through English for some years; and Hindustani and English will both be used in the Central Legislature during the transition period. All-India institutions like the Benares Hindu University and the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, must, as Prof. Radhakrishnan urges, continue to employ English. This may also be the case with the Universities of Delhi, Bombay, and Madras which have a cosmopolitan character. As for the study of English as a language, it has to be taught optionally in every High School and compulsorily in every College in India.

Let us therefore be clear about Hindustani being only a lingua franca,–a business and political exchange, not necessarily a literary one.

* January 3.