Why Was There No Tranfer Of Population?

[G.Subramaniam]

II
The stand taken by Hindu Mahasabha has been defined by Mr. V. D. Savarkar, the President of the
Sabha, in his presidential addresses at the annual sessions of the Sabha. As defined by him, the
Hindu Maha Sabha is against Pakistan and proposes to resist it by all means. What these means are
we do not know. If they are force, coercion and resistance, they are only negative alternatives and
Mr. Savarkar and the Hindu Maha Sabha alone can say how far these means will succeed.
It would, however, not be fair to Mr. Savarkar to say that he has only a negative attitude towards
the claim put forth by the Muslims of India. He has put forth his positive proposals in reply to
them.
To understand his positive proposals, one must grasp some of his basic conceptions. Mr. Savarkar
lays great stress on a proper understanding of the terms, Hinduism, Hindutva and Hindudom. He
says : 4[f.4]
" In expounding the ideology of the Hindu movement, it is absolutely necessary to have a correct
grasp of the meaning attached to these three terms. From the word " Hindu" has been coined the
word "Hinduism " in English. It means the schools or system of Religion the Hindus follow. The
second word " Hindutva " is far more comprehensive and refers not only to the religious aspects of
the Hindu people as the word " Hinduism " does but comprehend even their cultural, linguistic,
social and political aspects as well. It is more or less akin to " Hindu Polity " and its nearly exact
translation would be " Hinduness ". The third word " Hindudom " means the Hindu people spoken
of collectively. It is a collective name for the Hindu World, just as Islam denotes the Moslem
World."
Mr. Savarkar takes it as a gross misrepresentation to say that the Hindu Maha Sabha is a religious
body. In refutation of this misrepresentation, Mr. Savarkar says : 5[f.5]
" It has come to my notice that a very large section of the English educated Hindus hold back from
joining the Hindu Maha Sabha.... under the erroneous idea that it is an exclusively Religious
organization— something like a Christian Mission. Nothing could be far from truth. The Hindu
Maha Sabha is not a Hindu Mission. It leaves Religious questions regarding theism, monotheism.
Pantheism or even atheism to be discussed and determined by the different Hindu schools of
religious persuasions. It is not a Hindu Dharma Maha Sabha, but a Hindu National Maha Sabha.
Consequently by its very constitution it is debarred to associate itself exclusively as a partisan with
any particular religious school or sect even within the Hindu fold. As a national Hindu body it will
of course propagate and defend the National Hindu Church comprising each and all religions of
Hindusthani origin against any non-Hindu attack or encroachment. But the sphere of its activity is
far more comprehensive than that of an exclusively religious body. The Hindu Maha Sabha
identifies itself with the National life of Hindudom in all its entirety, in all its social, economical,
cultural and above all political aspects and is pledged to protect and promote all that contributes to
the freedom, strength and glory of the Hindu Nation; and as an indispensable means to that end to
attain Puma Swarajya, absolute political Independence of Hindusthan by all legitimate and proper
means. "
Mr. Savarkar does not admit that the Hindu Maha Sabha is started to counteract the Muslim League
and that as soon as the problems arising out of the Communal Award are solved to the satisfaction
of both Hindus and Musalmans, the Hindu Maha Sabha will vanish. Mr. Savarkar insists that the
Hindu Maha Sabha must continue to function even after India becomes politically free. He says :
6[f.6]
"...... Many a superficial critic seems to fancy that the Maha Sabha was only contrived to serve as a
make-weight, as a reaction checkmating the Moslem League or the anti-Hindu policy of the present
leaders of the Congress and will be out of court or cease automatically 10 function as soon as it is
shorne of this spurious excuse to exist. But if the aims and object of the Maha Sabha mean anything
it is clear that it was not the outcome of any frothy effusion, any fussy agitation to remove a
grievance here or oppose a seasonal party there. The fact is that every organism whether, individual
or social which is living and deserves to survive throws out offensive and defensive organs as soon
as it is brought to face adversely changing environments. The Hindu Nation too as soon as it
recovered and freed itself from the suffocating grip of the pseudo-nationalistic ideology of the
Congress brand developed a new organ to battle in the struggle for existence under the changed
conditions of modem age. This was the Hindu Maha Sabha. It grew up of a fundamental necessity
of the National life and not of any ephemeral incident. The constructive side of its aims and objects
make it amply clear that its mission is as abiding as the life of the Nation itself. But that apart, even
the day to day necessity of adapting its policy to the ever changing political currents makes it
incumbent on Hindudom to have an exclusively Hindu organization independent of any moral or
intellectual servility or subservience to any non-Hindu or jointly representative institution, to guard
Hindu interests and save them from being jeopardised. It is not so, only under the present political
subjection of Hindustan but it will be all the more necessary to have some such exclusively Hindu
organization, some such Hindu Maha Sabha in substance whether it is identical with this present
organization or otherwise to -serve as a watchtower at the gates of Hindudom for at least a couple
of centuries to come, even after Hindustan is partially or wholly free and a National Parliament
controls its political destiny.
" Because, unless something altogether cataclysmic in nature upsets the whole political order of
things in the world which practical politics cannot envisage today, all that can be reasonably
expected in immediate future is that we Hindus may prevail over England and compel her to
recognise India as a self-governing unit with the status contemplated in the Westminster Statute.
Now a National Parliament in such a self-governing India can only reflect the electorate as it is, the
Hindus and the Moslems as we find them, their relations a bit bettered, perhaps a bit worsened. No
realist can be blind to the probability that the extraterritorial designs and the secret urge goading on
the Moslems to transform India into a Moslem stale may at any time confront the Hindustani state
even under self-government either with a Civil War or treacherous overtures to alien invaders by
the Moslems. Then again there is every likelihood that there will ever continue at least for a century
to come a danger of fanatical riots, the scramble for services, legislative seats, weightages out of
proportion to their population on the part of the Moslem minority and consequently a constant
danger threatening internal peace. To checkmate this probability which if we are wise we must
always keep in view even after Hindustan attains the status of a self-governing country, a powerful
and exclusive organization of Hindudom like the Hindu MahaSabha will always prove a sure and
devoted source of strength, a reserve force for the Hindus to fall back upon to voice their
grievances more effectively than the joint Parliament can do, to scent danger ahead, to warn the
Hindus in lime against it and to fight out if need be any treacherous design to which the joint state
itself may unwittingly fall a victim.
"The History of Canada, of Palesline,of the movement of the Young Turks will show you that in
every slate where two or more such conflicting elements as the Hindus and Moslems in India
happen to exist as constituents, the wiser of them has to keep its exclusive organization intact,
strong and watchful to defeat any attempt at betrayal or capture of the National State by the
opposite party; especially so if that party has extra-territorial affinities, religious or cultural, with
alien bordering states."
Having stated what is Hindustan, and what is Hindu Maha Sabha, Mr. Savarkar next proceeds to
define his conception of Swaraj. According to Mr. Savarkar : 7[f.7]
" Swaraj to the Hindus must mean only that in which their" Swaraj ", their " Hindutva " can assert
itself without being overlorded by any non-Hindu people, whether they be Indian Territorials or
extra-Territorials—-some Englishmen are and may continue to be territorially born Indians. Can,
therefore, the overlordships of these Anglo-indians be a " Swarajya " to the Hindus ? Aurangzeb or
Tipu were hereditary Indians, nay, were the sons of converted Hindu mothers. Did that mean that
the rule of Aurangzeb or Tipu was a "Swarajya" to the Hindus ? No ! Although they were
territorially Indians they proved to be the worst enemies of Hindudom and therefore, a Shivaji, a
Gobindsingh, a Pratap or the Peshwas had to fight against the Moslem domination and establish
real Hindu Swarajya. "
As part of his Swaraj Mr. Savarkar insists upon two things.
Firstly, the retention of the name Hindustan as the proper name for lndia 8[f.8] " The name "
Hindustan " must continue to be the appellation of our country. Such other names as India, Hind,
etc., being derived from the same original word Sindhu may be used but only to signify the same
sense—die land of the Hindus, a country which is the abode of the Hindu Nation. Aryavarta,
Bharat-Bhumi and such other names are of course the ancient and the most cherished epithets of
our Mother Land and will continue to appeal to the cultured elite. In this insistence that the Mother
Land of the Hindus must be called but " Hindustan ", no encroachment or humiliation is implied in
connection with any of our non-Hindu countrymen. Our Parsee and Christian countrymen are
already too akin to us culturally and .arc too patriotic and the Anglo-indians too sensible to refuse
to fall in line with us Hindus on so legitimate a ground. So far as our Moslem countrymen are
concerned it is useless to conceal the fact that some of them are already inclined to look upon this
molehill also as an insuperable mountain in their way to Hindu-Moslem unity. But they should
remember that the Moslems do not dwell only in India nor are the Indian Moslems the only heroic
remnants of the Faithful in Islam. China has crores of Moslems. Greece, Palestine and even
Hungary and Poland have thousands of Moslems amongst their nationals. But being there a
minority, only a community, their existence in these countries has never been advanced as a ground
to change the ancient names of these countries which indicate the abodes of those races whose
overwhelming majority owns the land. The country of the Poles continues to be Poland and of the
Grecians as Greece. The Moslems there did not or dared not to distort them but are quite content to
distinguish themselves as Polish Moslems or Grecian Moslems or Chinese Moslems when occasion
arises, so also our Moslem countrymen may distinguish themselves nationally or territorially
whenever they want, as" Hindustance Moslems "without compromising in the least their
separateness as Religious or Cultural entity. Nay, the Moslems have been calling themselves as "
Hindustanis " ever since their advent in India, of their own accord.
" But if inspite of it all some irascible Moslem sections amongst our countrymen object even to this
name of our Country, that is no reason why we should play cowards to our own conscience. We
Hindus must not betray or break up the continuity of our Nation from the Sindhus. in Rigvedic days
to the Hindus of our own generation which is implied in " Hindustan ", the accepted appellation of
our Mother Land. Just as the land of the Germans is Germany, of the English England, of the Turks
Turkistan, of the Afghans Afghanistan—even so we must have it indelibly impressed on the map of
the earth for all times to come a " Hindustan "—the land of the " Hindus ".
The second is the retention of Sanskrit as sacred language, Hindi as national language and Nagari
as the script of Hindudom. 9[f.9]
"The Sanskrit shall be our " Deva Bhasha)" 10[f.10] our sacred language and the "Sanskrit
Nishtha" 11[f.11] Hindi, the Hindi which is derived from Sanskrit and draws its nourishment from
the latter, is our ' 'mr' ' (Rashtra Bhasha) 12[f.12] our current national language—-besides being
the richest and the most cultured of the ancient languages of the world, to us Hindus the Sanskrit is
the holiest tongue of tongues. Our scriptures, history, philosophy and culture have their roots so
deeply imbedded in the Sanskrit literature that it forms veritably the brain of our Race. Mother of
the majority of our mother tongues, she has suckled the rest of them at her breast. All Hindu
languages current today whether derived from Sanskrit or grafted on to it can only grow and
flourish on the sap of life they imbibe from Sanskrit. The Sanskrit language therefore must ever be
an indispensable constituent of the classical course for Hindu youths.
" In adopting the Hindi as the National tongue of Hindudom no humiliation or any invidious
distinction is implied as regards other provincial tongues. We are all as attached to our provincial
tongues as to Hindi and they will all grow and flourish in their respective spheres. In fact some of
them are today more progressive and richer in literature. But nevertheless, taken all in all the Hindi
can serve the purpose of a National Pan-Hindu language best. It must also be remembered that the
Hindi is not made a National Language to order. The fact is that long before either the English or
even the Moslems stepped in India the Hindi in its general form had already come to occupy the
position of a National tongue throughout Hindustan. The Hindu pilgrim, the tradesman, the tourist,
the soldier, the Pandit travelled up and down from Bengal to Sind and Kashmere to Rameshwar by
making himself understood from locality to locality through Hindi. Just as the Sanskrit was the
National Language of the Hindu intellectual world even so Hindi has been for at least a thousand
years in the past the National Indian Tongue of the Hindu community.....
"By Hindi we of course mean the pure "Sanskrit Nistha" Hindi, as we find it for example in the "
Satyartha Prakash " written by Maharsi Dayananda Saraswati. How simple and untainted with a
single unnecessary foreign word is that Hindi and how expressive withal ! It may be mentioned in
passing that Swami Dayanandaji was about the first Hindu leader who gave conscious and definite
expression to the view that Hindi should be the Pan-Hindu National language of India. " This
Sanskrit Nistha " Hindi has nothing to do with that hybrid, the so-called Hindusthani which is being
hatched up by the Wardha scheme. It is nothing short of a linguistic monstrosity and must be
ruthlessly suppressed. Not only that but it is our bounden duty to oust as ruthlessly all unnecessary
alien words whether Arabian or English, from every Hindu tongue—whether provincial or
dialectical. . . . . . .
"....... Our Sanskrit alphabetical order is phonetically about the most perfect which the world has
yet devised and almost all our current Indian scripts already follow it. The Nagari Script too
follows this order. Like the Hindi language the Nagari Script too has already been current for
centuries all over India amongst the Hindu literary circles for some two thousand years at any rate
in the past and was even popularly nick-named as the " Shastri Lipi " the script of our Hindu
Scriptures. ....It is a matter of common knowledge that if Bengali or Gujarathi is printed in Nagari it
is more or less understood by readers in several other provinces. To have only one common
language throughout Hindustan at a stroke is impracticable and unwise. But to have the Nagari
script as the only common script throughout Hindudom is much more feasible. Nevertheless, it
should be borne in mind that the different Hindu scripts current in our different provinces have a
future of their own and may flourish side by side with the Nagari. All that is immediately
indispensable in the common interest of Hindudom as a whole is that the Nagari Script must be
made a compulsory subject along with the Hindi language in every school in the case of Hindu
students. "
What is to be the position of the Non-Hindu minorities under the Swaraj as contemplated by Mr.
Savarkar ? On this question, this is what Mr. Savarkar has to say : 13[f.13]
"When once the Hindu Maha Sabha not only accepts but maintains the principles of" one man one
vote " and the public services to go by merit alone added to the fundamental rights and obligations
to be shared by all citizens alike irrespective of any distinction of Race or Religion . . .. any further
mention of minority rights is on the principle not only unnecessary but self-contradictory. Because
it again introduces a consciousness of majority and minority on Communal basis. But as practical
politics requires it and as the Hindu Sanghatanists want to relieve our non-Hindu countrymen of
even a ghost of suspicion, we are prepared to emphasise that the legitimate rights of minorities with
regard to their Religion, Culture, and Language will be expressly guaranteed: on one condition only
that the equal rights of the majority also must not in any case be encroached upon or abrogated.
Every minority may have separate schools to train up their children in their own tongue, their own
religious or cultural institutions and can receive Government help also for these,—but always in
proportion to the taxes they pay into the common exchequer. The same principle must of course
hold good in case of the majority too.
"Over and above this, in case the constitution is not based on joint electorates and on the unalloyed
National principle of one man one vote, but is based on the communal basis then those minorities
who wish to have separate electorate or reserve seats will be allowed to have them,—but always in
proportion to their population and provided that it does not deprive the majority also of an equal
right in proportion of its population too."
That being the position assigned to the minorities, Mr. Savarkar concludes 14 [f.14] that under his
scheme of Swaraj :
"The Moslem minority in India will have the right to be treated as equal citizens, enjoying equal
protection and civic rights in proportion to their population. The Hindu majority will not encroach
on the legitimate rights of any non-Hindu minority. But in no case can the Hindu majority resign its
right which as a majority it is entitled to exercise under any democratic and legitimate constitution.
The Moslem minority in particular has not obliged the Hindus by remaining in minority and
therefore, they must remain satisfied with the status they occupy and with the legitimate share of
civic and political rights that is their proportionate due. It would be simply preposterous t endow
the Moslem minority with the right of exercising a practical veto on the legitimate rights and
privileges of the majority and call it a " Swarajya ". The Hindus do not want a change of masters,
are not going to struggle and fight and die only to replace an Edward by an Aurangazeb simply
because the latter happens to be born within Indian borders, but they want henceforth to be masters
themselves in their own house, in their own Land. " And it is because he wants his Swaraj to bear
the stamp of being a Hindu Raj that Mr. Savarkar wants that India should have the appellation of
Hindustan.
This structure has been reared by Mr. Savarkar on two propositions which he regards as
fundamental.
The first is that the Hindu are a nation by themselves. He enunciates this proposition with great
elaboration and vehemence. Says 15[f.15] Mr. Savarkar :
" In my Presidential speech at Nagpur I had, for the first time in the history of our recent politics
pointed out in bold relief that the whole Congress ideology was vitiated ab initio by its unwitted
assumption that the territorial unity, a common habitat, was the only factor that constituted and
ought to and must constitute a Nation. This conception of a Territorial Nationality has since then
received a rude shock in Europe itself from which it was imported wholesale to India and the
present War has justified my assertion by exploding the myth altogether. All Nations carved out to
order on the Territorial design without any other common bond to mould each of them into a
national being have gone to rack and ruin, tumbled down like a house of cards. Poland and
Czechoslovakia will ever serve as a stem warning against any such efforts to frame heterogeneous
peoples into such hotch-potch Nation, based only on the shifting sands of the conception of
Territorial Nationality, not cemented by any cultural, racial or historical affinities and consequently
having no common will to incorporate themselves into a Nation. These treaty-Nations broke up at
the first opportunity they got: The German part of them went over to Germany, the Russian to
Russia, Czechs to Czechs and Poles to Poles. The cultural, linguistic, historical and such other
organic affinities proved sponger than the Territorial one. Only those Nations have persisted in
maintaining their National unity and identity during the last three to four centuries in Europe which
had developed racial, linguistic cultural and such other organic affinities in addition to their
Territorial unity or even at times in spite of it and consequently willed to be homogeneous National
units—such as England, France, Germany, Italy, Portugal, etc.
" Judged by any and all of these tests which go severally and collectively to form such a
homogeneous and organic Nation, in India we Hindus are marked out as an abiding Nation by
ourselves. Not only do we own a common Fatherland, a Territorial unity, but what is scarcely
found anywhere else in the world, we have a common Holy Land which is identified with our
common Fatherland. This Bharat Bhumi, this Hindustan, India is both our 1^^ and gi^. Our
patriotism therefore is doubly sure. Then, we have common affinities, cultural, religious, historical,
linguistic, and racial which through the process of countless centuries of association and
assimilation moulded us into a homogeneous and organic nation and above all induced a will to
lead a corporate and common national life. The Hindus are no treaty Nation—but an organic
National Being.
" One more pertinent point must be met as it often misleads our Congressite Hindu brethren in
particular. The homogeneity that wields a people into a National Being does not only imply the
total absence of all internal differences, religious, racial or linguistic, of sects and sections amongst
themselves. It only means that they differ more from other people as a national unit than they differ
amongst themselves. Even the most unitarian nations of today—say the British or the French—
cannot be free from any religious, linguistic, cultural, racial or other differences, sects or sections or
even some antipathies existing amongst themselves. National homogeneity connotes oneness of a
people in relation to the contrast they present to any other people as a whole.
" We Hindus, in spite of thousand and one differences within our fold, are bound by such religious,
cultural, historical, racial, linguistic and other affinities in common as to stand out as a definitely
homogeneous people as soon as we are placed in contrast with any other non-Hindu people— say
the English or Japanese or even the Indian Moslems. That is the reason why today we the Hindus
from Cashmere to Madras and Sindh to Assam will have to be a Nation by ourselves ". . .
The second proposition on which Mr. Savarkar has built up his scheme relates to the definition of
the term Hindu. According to Mr. Savarkar a Hindu is a person:
" ...... who regards-and owns this Bharat Bhumi, this land from the Indus to the Seas, as his
Fatherland as well as his Holy Land;—i.e., the land of the origin of his religion, the cradle of his
faith.
The followers therefore of Vaidicism, SanaUmism, Jainism, Buddhism, Lingaitism, Sikhism, the
Arya Samaj, the Brahmosamaj, the Devasamaj, the Prarlhana
Samajandsucholherreligionsofindianorigin are Hindus and constitute Hindudom, i.e., Hindu people
as a whole.
Consequently the so-called aboriginal or hill-tribes also are Hindus : because India is their
Fatherland as well as their Holy Land whatever form of religion or worship they follow. The
definition rendered in Sanskrit stands thus:
ASINDHU SINDH PANYANTA YSMA BHARAT BHUMIKA I
PRITIBHU H PUNDYABHOOSHRAIV SA VAI HINDURITISMRITAH II
This definition , therefore, should be recognized by the Government and made the test of '
Hindutva * in enumerating the population of Hindus in the Government census to come. "
This definition of the term Hindu has been framed with great care and caution. It is designed to
serve two purposes which Mr. Savarkar has in view. First, to exclude from it Muslims, Christians,
Parsis and Jews by prescribing the recognition of India as a Holy Land as a qualification for being a
Hindu. Secondly, to include Buddhists, Jains, Sikhs, etc., by not insisting upon belief in the sanctity
of the Vedas as an element in the qualifications.
Such is the scheme of Mr. Savarkar and the Hindu Maha Sabha. As must have been noticed, the
scheme has some disturbing features.