Why Was There No Tranfer Of Population?

[G.Subramaniam]

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 of communal feeling in India
between—say 1920 and 1935 ? As has been recorded in the preceding pages, the history of India
from 1920 up to 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 1[f.1] 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."
* * * *
" 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 loyally 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 2 [f2] 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."
* * * *
" Is there a South African nation today ?
" There are certain factors in South African life which militate against an affirmative answer."
* * * *
" Among English-speaking South Africans there are found many tendencies inclined to hinder the
cause of national unity. With all the great virtues of the race they have its one cardinal defect—a
lack of imagination, a difficulty in putting one's self in the other man's place. Nowhere does this
come out more clearly than in the language question. Until recently comparatively few
English-speaking South Africans have studied Africans except as a business proposition or (as in
the Civil Service) more or less under compulsion; and fewer still have used it conversationally.
Many have treated it with open contempt—a contempt in inverse proportion to their knowledge of
it—and the majority with mere tolerance, exasperated or amused according to temperament."
Another witness on the same point may be heard. He is Mr. Manfred Nathan. 3 [f3] This is what he
has to say on the relations between the Boers and the British in South Africa :—
" They are also, in the main, both of them Protestant peoples—although this is not of too great
importance nowadays, when differences of religion do not count for much. They engage freely in
commercial transactions with each other."
* * * *
" Nevertheless it cannot with truth be said that hitherto there has been absolutely free social
intercourse between these two great sections of the white population. It has been suggested that this
is partly due to the fact that in the large urban centres the population is predominantly English, and
that the townsfolk know little of the people in the country and their ways of life. But even in the
country towns, though there is, as a rule, much greater friendliness, and much hospitality shown by
Boers to visitors, there is not much social intercourse between the two sections apart from
necessary business or professional relationship, and such social functions, charitable or public, as
require co-operation."
Obviously India is not the only place where there is communal antagonism. If communal
antagonism does not come in the way of the French in Canada living in political unity with the
English, if it does not come in the way of the English in South Africa living in political unity with
the Dutch, if it does not come in the way of the French and the Italians in Switzerland living in
political unity with the Germans why then should it be impossible for the Hindus and the Muslims
to agree to live together under one constitution in India?