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<div class="gmail-postComplete__post-header-wrapper"><div><h1 class="gmail-title"><span>Debate: Why Gandhi and Jinnah's Views on Language Politics Cannot Be Compared</span></h1><p class="gmail-shortDesc">Ramachandra
Guha evaluates the approaches of Gandhi and Jinnah to the language
problem and predictably finds Gandhi to have been oh-so-superior to the
leader of Pakistan. But the comparison itself involves a confusion of
categories.</p></div></div><div class="gmail-postComplete__post-image-wrapper"><div class="gmail-featured-image gmail-valign-wrapper gmail-wp-caption gmail-aligncenter"><img src="https://thewire.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/08/Gandhi_Jinnah_1944.jpg" alt="Debate: Why Gandhi and Jinnah's Views on Language Politics Cannot Be Compared" class="gmail-img-responsive"><p class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Muhammad Ali Jinnah and M.K. Gandhi. Credit: Wikimedia Commons</p></div></div><div class="gmail-postComplete__post-content-wrapper"><div class="gmail-col gmail-s12 gmail-m3"><div><div class="gmail-author"><div class="gmail-author-avatar-placeholder"><img src="https://cdn.thewire.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/09/10182426/madhava.jpg" alt="M. Madhava Prasad" class="gmail-circle gmail-responsive-img gmail-author__image"></div><div class="gmail-author__name"><a target="_blank" title="All Stories by M. Madhava Prasad" href="https://thewire.in/author/m-madhav-prasad">M. Madhava Prasad</a></div></div></div><div class="gmail-share-container gmail-col gmail-s12 gmail-m3 gmail-l3 gmail-xl12 gmail-share-container-mobile" id="gmail-share-305904" style="display:block"><div style="display:inline-block"><div class="gmail-social_count" id="gmail-social_count_box"><div id="gmail-total">172</div><span class="gmail-sharetext">interactions</span></div></div></div></div></div><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><span></span><div class="gmail-col gmail-s12 gmail-m12"><div class="gmail-top-space gmail-post__content-meta gmail-valign-wrapper"><span class="gmail-data-tag"><a title="Government" target="_blank" href="https://thewire.in/category/government/all"><div class="gmail-tag">Government</div></a><a title="History" target="_blank" href="https://thewire.in/category/history/all"><div class="gmail-tag">History</div></a><a title="Politics" target="_blank" href="https://thewire.in/category/politics/all"><div class="gmail-tag">Politics</div></a><a title="Rights" target="_blank" href="https://thewire.in/category/rights/all"><div class="gmail-tag">Rights</div></a></span><span class="gmail-posted-on">01/Nov/2018</span></div></div><div class="gmail-col gmail-s12 gmail-m10 gmail-postComplete__description"><p>The letter to the editor of <em>The Statesman</em> (August 12, 1947) by M.S. Ali of Dum Dum, Kolkata, discovered by Ramachandra Guha and discussed in his article for <em><a target="_blank" href="https://thewire.in/culture/language-politics-in-jinnahs-pakistan-has-parallels-in-modis-india">The Wire</a> </em>is
indeed a remarkable find. It shows that there were ordinary members of
the public in the sub-continent who had thought more deeply about the
vexed question of language faced by the two countries about to be born
than the leaders of the parties that had led them to independence.
Limiting himself to the Pakistan side of the problem, Ali proposes in
the most economical terms, a plan that nevertheless attends to every
pertinent aspect of the problem.</p>
<p>Surprisingly, having lavished praise on Ali’s efforts, Guha does not
proceed to examine the suitability of this proposal for resolving
India’s language problem, as one might have expected. Instead, he
switches to a comparative evaluation of the respective approaches of
M.K. Gandhi and Muhammad Ali Jinnah to the problem, predictably finding
Gandhi to have been oh-so-superior to the leader of Pakistan.</p>
<p><ins>Also Read: <a target="_blank" href="https://thewire.in/culture/language-politics-in-jinnahs-pakistan-has-parallels-in-modis-india">Language Politics in Jinnah’s Pakistan Has Parallels in Modi’s India</a></ins></p>
<p>One might say that this comparison itself involves a confusion of
categories, insofar as Jinnah was for Pakistan both spiritual leader and
lawgiver, whereas Gandhi’s spiritual leadership of Indian politics had
to be supplemented by the law-making efforts of others like Jawaharlal
Nehru. Thus a gap arises between Gandhi’s views and the actual policy
decisions of the Nehruvian state, which renders any comparison of Jinnah
and Gandhi an exercise in futility. What corresponds on the Indian side
to Jinnah’s views and decisions is the effective policy decisions of
the Nehru government, not the thoughts of Gandhi.</p>
<dl>But even if we agree to compare Jinnah and Gandhi on the language
question, surely Gandhi’s views were not as unambiguously or
consistently on the right side as Guha makes them out to be.</dl>
<p>When this comparison is made, it is clear that the approaches of the
two ‘central’ leaderships of the respective national movements were
nearly identical in nature. Both are entirely lacking in the sagacity of
Ali’s carefully thought out plan. Both are ‘high command’ decisions
imposed on masses of people who, lacking political existence, were in no
position to resist these impositions. One difference is perhaps that
while Jinnah proclaimed his unilateral decision in imperious
non-negotiable terms – as is evident from Guha’s quotations from his
speech, the Indian leadership adopted evasive tactics bordering on
subterfuge.</p>
<p>It suffices to read the writings of M.P. Desai, a Gandhian, to
realise that decisions with regard to language policy, even the one
favoured by Gandhi, were subject to counter-revolutionary pressures from
the colonial bourgeoisie (whose privileges would vanish without the
perpetuation of English in precisely the way that Ali warns against).
The men who held the reins of power were susceptible to the appeals and
threats of this class, even at the cost of subverting from within, the
proclaimed democratic republic. That Hindi at once is and is not the
‘national language’ of India is also a result of the supplementation of
policies with informal practical arrangements.</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_255182" style="max-width:756px" class="gmail-wp-caption gmail-aligncenter"><img class="gmail-wp-image-255182 gmail-size-full" src="https://cdn.thewire.in/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/30160250/Screen-Shot-2017-12-14-at-4.02.30-PM1.png" alt="Vijaya Lakshmi Pandit with Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. A cropped version of this iconic photograph showing only the two leaders became very popular shortly after independence. Courtesy: Manjari Mehta/CWDS" width="746" height="503"><p class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Gandhi’s
spiritual leadership of Indian politics had to be supplemented by the
law-making efforts of others like Jawaharlal Nehru. Courtesy: Manjari
Mehta/CWDS</p></div>
<p>But even if we agree to compare Jinnah and Gandhi on the language
question, surely Gandhi’s views were not as unambiguously or
consistently on the right side as Guha makes them out to be. To be sure,
from his time in South Africa, where he had the opportunity to compare
the Boers’ language pride with the absence of any such sentiment among
the Indians he worked with, Gandhi took a keen interest in matters of
language.</p>
<p>He found time to explore issues which might have appeared to others
as trivial but in which he found a greater significance. For instance,
he was quite puzzled and annoyed by the fact that the word Mahasabha,
which had been in usage in the modern vernaculars to refer to the
Congress, had come to be used exclusively to refer to the Hindu
Mahasabha, while the Congress now came to be referred to only by its
English name.</p>
<p>He took the modern position on language in education, refusing to
leave the matter to be decided by professors who were inclined to ditch
the vernaculars and use only English.</p>
<p>But like Jinnah who chose Urdu, Gandhi also insisted that Hindi must
be the national language. The reason being that it had to be an
indigenous language in order to reflect the autonomy and the freedom
achieved. He preferred to call it Hindustani and saw it as preserving
its hybrid character as well as transcending it. He subscribed to
fantastical ideas which smacked of a dissimulative sentimentalism and
were symptomatic of a gap between professed ideas and harboured
feelings.</p>
<p><ins>Also Read: <a target="_blank" href="https://thewire.in/politics/tamil-nadu-anti-hindi-protests">Making Sense of Tamil Nadu’s Anti-Hindi Protests</a></ins></p>
<p>What was said on trips to the Madras presidency did not always agree
with what was said in exchanges with those who funded his Hindi
propagation efforts. For example, he appealed to the people of the north
to learn a south Indian language, thus reciprocating the south’s
acceptance of Hindi as national language. A distinguished educationist
once described this as a case of making children bear the costs of the
problems created by adults. The people of the north wisely ignored this
melodramatic appeal. He also seemed to think that great feats of
linguistic engineering were possible, such as transforming Hindi into a
truly national language by adding to it words taken from all the
languages of the country!</p>
<p>Ali’s views are entirely different from either Gandhi’s or Jinnah’s,
or for that matter Nehru’s. What distinguishes his remarks is his
perception that the space that all these leaders refer to as ‘national’
is, or ought to be perceived as, the space of meta-management of the
affairs of a federation. Gandhi would insist on his southern sojourns
that Hindi would only be a link language. But he does not seem to have
asked himself why, in that case, it has to be an indigenous language.
Why not English?</p>
<p>If the national leaderships of the two countries had faced up to the
reality that English was a colonial legacy that could not be easily
dislodged from its important position in every aspect of life in India,
they could have devised a policy that takes this into consideration and
makes a provision for its use which is of a universal character, in
keeping with democratic state-form: in other words, education in the
people’s languages and universal provision for the teaching of English
to all from a certain age.</p>
<div id="gmail-attachment_296241" style="max-width:969px" class="gmail-wp-caption gmail-aligncenter"><img class="gmail-wp-image-296241 gmail-size-full" src="https://cdn.thewire.in/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/01135136/gandhi.png" alt="" width="959" height="437"><p class="gmail-wp-caption-text">Gandhi
appealed to the people of the north to learn a south Indian language,
thus reciprocating the south’s acceptance of Hindi as national language.
Credit: Pixabay</p></div>
<p>The clashing ideas of federalism and Indian nationalism blocked
access to this simple idea, which Ali has adumbrated so clearly. Though
he begins with the idea of boards of language specialists at all levels
to deal with inter-state and state-Centre relations, he realises that it
may not be easy to implement and suggests the alternative of using
English for such purposes. The important thing is that the kind of use
of English he has in mind would not contribute to the perpetuation of
social privileges of the kind enjoyed by the Anglophone colonial
bourgeoisie, nor feed into the implicit inferiorisation of people’s
languages, both of which have come to pass because English was allowed
to stay on as official language primarily to protect the interests of a
privileged class than with a genuinely universalist intent.</p>
<p><ins>Also Read: <a target="_blank" href="https://thewire.in/politics/the-economic-basis-of-assams-linguistic-politics-and-anti-immigrant-movements">The Economic Basis of Assam’s Linguistic Politics and Anti-Immigrant Movements</a></ins></p>
<p>Sometimes the true meaning of an event is better grasped by attending
to its consequences rather than by searching for its origins. The true
meaning of the dual official language (English and Hindi) policy of the
Centre reveals itself in the non-Hindi speaking regions of the country:
one language for the masters and one for the servants. This has been the
intention all along. This is the Congress formula.</p>
<p>The BJP, on the other hand, wants to Sanskritise the vernaculars and
bring them closer to the Sanskritised Hindi that their leaders and
cadres speak, and most likely a long-term plan for the gradual
reabsorption of the vernaculars into Sanskrit-Hindi. They are building
on a foundation already laid by the Congress leaders of the past, rather
than introducing anything new. The damage done to democratic
aspirations by the current crisis has its roots in the choices made at
the time of assuming charge of a colonial legacy.</p>
<p>It would not be an exaggeration to say that in a way, Ali saw this
coming. In the details of his proposal, so different from anything
Gandhi ever said, lies the answer to our current predicament.</p>
<p><em>M. Madhava Prasad is a professor at the department of cultural studies, English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad.</em></p></div>
<br>-- <br><div dir="ltr" class="gmail_signature" data-smartmail="gmail_signature">=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+<br><br> Harold F. Schiffman<br><br>Professor Emeritus of <br> Dravidian Linguistics and Culture <br>Dept. of South Asia Studies <br>University of Pennsylvania<br>Philadelphia, PA 19104-6305<br><br>Phone: (215) 898-7475<br>Fax: (215) 573-2138 <br><br>Email: <a href="mailto:haroldfs@gmail.com" target="_blank">haroldfs@gmail.com</a><br><a href="http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/" target="_blank">http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/~haroldfs/</a> <br><br>-------------------------------------------------</div></div>