Makers of Modern India

by Ramachandra Guha

  The terms privileged and under-privileged are sometimes used in connection with the need for State assistance. Privilege—or the opposite of it, disability—applies to a condition determined by worldly possessions or caste conventions conferring material advantages or imposing disabilities. There is in India no question now of any legal status associated with caste. If any advantage or disability existed once upon a time, based on caste, it no longer exists. What exists is poverty in varying degrees. This is a condition demanding attention wherever it exists, that is to say, whatever caste the individual belongs to. Otherwise, if the individual should be benefited by a subsidy or a concession on account of his caste, it becomes a new privilege which it is not good policy to create or perpetuate. There should be no slackening or reduction of assistance to individuals deserving it. But it should not be done by reference to the caste to which the individual belongs.

  At the base of any programme of helping the backward, education must play the largest part. Boys and girls falling within the economic definition arrived at must be given education in schools organized for them, wherein all the facilities decided upon may be given to all the pupils without reference to castes or sub-castes for the purpose of giving such help, and without perpetuating a classification which we want to be forgotten. It would thus be all reduced to financial terms and be part of general financial policy instead of a kind of communal discrimination for purposes of uplift. We will have to allot funds for institutions in which there would be no charge for tuition or board for poor and deserving pupils. The present scheme of concessions has gone so far to perpetuate caste that Christians and Muslims classify themselves under their Indian caste names of origin, although when adopting these faiths the intention was to wipe out all forms of untouchability or isolation, and to forget it. The very agents who brought about the conversion to Islam or Christianity, plead for recognition of their ‘Harijan’ status in order to obtain the government concessions for their protégés …

  A simple economic basis unconnected with caste should be substituted for the caste basis on which the concessions are now given. It would stop the competition for backwardness and the increasing jealousies between community and community arising out of the grant of these concessions to some and refusal to others, although the individuals concerned are equally in need of them.

  Why We Need English

  Where Rammanohar Lohia had opposed the use of English as an official language in India, Rajagopalachari supported it. This was in part the product of a north-south divide—for southern politicians felt that English was more acceptable as compared to the northern language some wanted it to be substituted by, Hindi. In the next excerpt, Rajaji makes the case for English in his characteristically economical and direct prose.9

  All the reasons that have been advanced to retain English as the official language of the Union and not to seek to replace it by Hindi—and they are substantial reasons—have been left unanswered, but two arguments are repeatedly advanced by the Hindi protagonists. One is that English is a language of foreign origin and not one of the Indian languages, and therefore it would be derogatory to national prestige to allow it to continue as the medium of official work in India.

  Our national prestige has not suffered during these ten years after Independence and it is not going to be adversely affected if we make no change but go on indefinitely with English. Those whose mother-tongue is Hindi and who expected it to be made the official language not only in their own State governments but also at the Union level, may feel disappointed and even angry that they have had to yield to the protests of non-Hindi people, but this, far from lowering, will enhance the prestige of Indian democracy and strengthen confidence in India herself.

  English no doubt entered India as the language of the foreign people whom we allowed to take possession of India. But the secret of its strong entrenchment where it was placed, even though it was foreign soil, is that it has been to us the gateway of all modern knowledge and modern progress. It is erroneous to suppose that it has struck root in India by reason of official patronage. That we stuck to it even after Independence was not due to any pressure from abroad or force of habit only. It was due to our appreciation of its utility in more than one respect. All our hopes in the material plane are centred on the advancement of modern knowledge, and the English language cannot but be associated intimately with those hopes. It is the vast new knowledge that it brought, and has yet to bring, that is the secret of the widespread attachment in India to the English language. The claims of mere patriotic sentiment must recognize and yield to this.

  The other argument advanced for doing away with English in favour of Hindi is a doctrinal one. In a democracy, it is argued, there should be identity of medium between government and the people. The language of the people must be the official language, otherwise it would be a failure of democratic integration. I do not deny the force of this argument. But I claim that the doctrine of identity of language between government and the people is fulfilled if every one of the States in the Union functions in the language of the area. There are over a dozen languages in India and millions are the votaries of each one of them, and they are located in the territories of each linguistic State. If each State functions in the regional language, the doctrine of identity of medium is completely fulfilled. The whole is the sum of its parts, and nothing remains to be done to fulfil the demands of this doctrine. On the other hand, if Hindi is made the language of the Union Government, there will be no identity between that and the language of the people of Bengal or Madras or any other non-Hindi State. It is not, be it remembered, a matter of consent or protest but a question of identity of language and we can devise no trick by which we can discover a language for the Union Government which will not leave tens of millions and vast tracts outside its vogue. The argument that Hindi will help us to fulfil the doctrine of identity of language between the people and government is based on a delusion, either that consent makes up for a deficiency, or that two-fifths is enough fulfilment. It boils down, if we get rid of the fallacies, to a simple preference for an Indian to a foreign language, even though in either case the doctrine of democratic identity with the people’s language is not really satisfied. Once again therefore we go back to the sentimental argument against English.

  But let us see whether and how far the same doctrine of identity between government and the people is fulfilled in the case of the English language. All the educated people of India in all the States, all the officials of the Union and State governments all over India, have a very fair acquaintance with and command over the use of English, whereas the same is not the case by any means with Hindi or any variant of it. So then it will be seen that, although there are a dozen languages spoken in India, the educated section in any part of India commands a knowledge of English and no other single language has this vogue.

  And this will continue to be so, because it is admitted on all hands that a sound knowledge of English is an essential part and will continue to be an essential part of education in India in all the States, whereas a knowledge of Hindi is still only a desideratum in most parts of India, and is still a controversial item in certain educational circles. The fact of the matter is that interest in language goes hand in hand with the modern knowledge it brings. The substance of knowledge, for which English books serve as medium, is the motive power behind the attention to that language. What modern knowledge now or in the future will Hindi bring? Can we be really dependent on translated material, translated not by men eminent in the science or the technology of which the book is an exposition but by mere translators of words? The fact of the matter is that new knowledge brings its own language, the language of the men who have made and are making that science or other branch of modern knowledge. Anything else is second-hand and we have no time, neither we nor the young people in schools and colleges, to waste on prestige when progress depends on knowledge.

  Then there is a third fallacy. We have to discard the maaya that Hindi
is rich enough and good enough for all our purposes. Government is not an easy or simple affair in the present days. The semi-educated may fancy that his mother-tongue is as good as English and can serve every purpose. The educated may fancy that with a little exertion all deficiencies may be supplied. But language is not a mere collection of symbols made and brought together anyhow and we cannot but go terribly wrong if we think we can make Hindi as rich as English straightaway.

  It is a delusion again that Hindi, such as it is, is easy to learn for all the people of India. It is by no means easy for the millions whose languages are not of the same stock. There are fundamental differences that make it difficult. Yet, I know that most Hindi protagonists who have no knowledge whatsoever of the Southern languages honestly believe that it is only laziness or cussedness that prevents Hindi being learnt. Everyone believes that his mother-tongue is the easiest of all languages and those who object to learn it are just unwilling people. The claim made on behalf of Hindi has a subtle illusion behind it. Those who speak Hindi and who find it spoken all round them, believe that it will one day become the mother-tongue of all the peoples of India. I need hardly point out that this fourth delusion is a dangerous and vain notion. The other languages of India will not die, leaving place for Hindi to become the mother-tongue of the people now speaking Tamil, Kannada or Bengali. It is not like the case of a few settler-families adopting the language of the place and forgetting their own mother-tongue. The mass and the distribution of the people speaking languages other than Hindi render any such hope an unthinkable proposition.

  Fifthly and lastly, there is the greatest fallacy of all, the notion that unity is brought about by the adoption of Hindi as the official language of the Union. What is brought about is protest, dissatisfaction and discord, not unity. Hostility can be overcome by political dodging or pressure but that way heart-rankling is produced, not unity. Where the principle of justice is materially ignored, we cause a wound which will not heal easily. He who points this out is not the offender, but he who inflicts the wound.

  I appeal to my brethren and friends in the North to abstain from this plan and to join with me in asking that Part XVII of the Constitution be suspended10 as an erroneous step taken when thought was not ripe. It would be a gesture of great value for the unity and emotional integration of India. Let no one imagine that I have lost my love for India or my concern for all its parts. Indeed it is greater than ever, and it is that which now makes me talk and write in this unpleasant way. The Hindi-speaking people injure themselves in the long run by pressing that their mother-tongue should be accepted as the Union official language by those who do not speak it. I beg of them to concentrate on their work at State-level and declare the match drawn at the Union level and leave the status quo intact with no threats hanging over the heads of people. Let English continue.

  ‘This stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.’ So the Psalmist sang. The builders had rejected it as being of curious shape, not a rectangle and none of its sides square or oblong. But it became the key-stone of the arch and its strange shape was its merit. Not one of our own languages but this strange one will keep the arch firm and all the languages together. It is the Lord’s doing and marvellous in our eyes! So be it.

  The India We Want

  Our last excerpt from Rajagopalachari is from an essay he wrote in October 1961, after his old friend-turned-political adversary, Jawaharlal Nehru, had visited Madras and made some critical remarks about him at a public meeting. Nehru had referred to Rajaji as being ‘continually angry’.11

  Nehru came to Madras with all the paraphernalia of the Prime Minister of India and attempted in his speech to answer my oft-repeated charges; he made counter-charges against me of speaking in anger and in the confusion of mind caused by unaccountable anger. I am grateful for the respect he continues to have for me. He wants me to say precisely what I want and paint the picture of India as I desire it to be. The Swatantra manifesto answers this challenge and not even adverse newspapers have found it wanting in definiteness or clarity. But [as] Nehru has had no time to read it, here is my picture.

  I want an India clear of the atmosphere of fear in which it is now enveloped, where honest men engaged in the difficult tasks of production or trade can carry on their occupation without fear of ruin at the hands of officials, ministers and party bosses.

  I want an India where talent and energy can find scope for play without having to cringe and obtain special individual permission from officials and ministers, and where their efforts will be judged by the open market in India and abroad.

  I want the dense permit-licence fog not to sit on us. I want Statism to go and Government reduced to its proper functions.

  I want the inefficiency of public management to go where the competitive economy of private management can look after affairs.

  I want the corruptions of this permit-licence raj to go.

  I want the officials appointed to administer laws and policies to be free from the pressures of the bosses of the ruling party, and gradually restored back to the standards of fearless honesty which they once maintained.

  Nehru says he has not been approached by any permit-seeker. True. But he has an army of 150 ministers under him and numerous professional Congressmen busy in this new occupation of assisting men to get quotas and permits.

  I want real equal opportunities for all and no private monopolies created by the permit-licence raj.

  I want an India where the peasants are not intimidated or beguiled into giving up their lands … to build castles in the air through co-operative farming.

  I want security for all owners of property, land or other forms of acquisitions, without a Sword of Damocles hanging over them threatening expropriation without payment of just and full compensation as fixed by judicial authorities on correct principles and not according to the dictation of political legislation.

  I want the fundamental rights to be restored to their original shape and kept intact.

  I want an India where heavy direct and indirect taxes do not prevent the building-up of private capital, discouraging enterprise and effort.

  I want an India where the budget of the Centre does not cause inflation and soaring prices.

  I want an India where the State does not tax for capital investment, making the present generation’s life miserable.

  I want the money power of big business to be isolated from politics. Democracy is hard to be worked and it should not be ruined by money power and rendered into a simulacrum by expensive elections and big business supporting the ruling party with funds in return for privileges or in fear of the State’s regulatory powers …

  I want the spirit of compassion and benevolence to have free play and not be stifled by State schemes of monopolizing all welfare by over-taxation and over-centralization.

  I want the State to know its limitations and function in humility and the citizens to realize spirituality through the traditional channels inherited by them in that regard.

  I want a strong party to be in real opposition to the ruling party—whichever party it may be—so that the wheels of democracy may run on the straight road.

  I want India to regain her moral stature abroad and I do not want our people to be bamboozled into thinking that we have not lost what moral authority we commanded during Gandhiji’s days.

  * * *

  Chapter Twenty

  The Defender of the Tribals

  Verrier Elwin

  In about 1900 Gopal Krishna Gokhale wrote that ‘the India of the future could not now be only a Hindu India or a Muhammedan India; it must be compounded of all elements which existed in India—Hindu, Muhammedan, Parsee, Christian, aye, and the Englishman who adopted India as his country’. In adding that last caveat Gokhale may have had in mind the founder of the Indian National Congress, Allan Octavian Hume, as well as the Irishwoman who had recently made her home in India, Annie Besant. At any rate, the remark was prescient as well as generous,
opening the way for other British men and women to exchange their nationality for that of a country which had once been under their subjection.

  A remarkable Englishman-turned-Indian was Verrier Elwin, the Oxford scholar who became the foremost spokesman for India’s tribal peoples. Born in 1902, the son of a colonial bishop, Elwin was reared in a fiercely evangelical family. It was to escape this background that he came to India in 1927, a freshly ordained priest, with first-class degrees in English and theology under his belt. He joined the Christa Seva Sangh (CSS), an organization that sought to root Christianity in Indian soil and whose members wore homespun cloth, ate vegetarian food and incorporated Indian motifs into their liturgy.

  The CSS was based in Poona. Elwin thus became acquainted with that city’s reformist and liberal traditions. He also befriended Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, who was living in Poona in the late 1920s. But his most consequential contact was with Gandhi, who often visited Poona and whose own ashram in Ahmedabad was but a night’s train journey away. Elwin was deeply attracted to Gandhi, whom he saw as the finest modern interpreter of the message of Christ himself.

  In 1931 Elwin left the CSS to engage more directly with the lives of the Indian poor. He first thought of making his home in an Untouchable quarter of Bombay, but eventually decided to work with the tribal people of central India. With a CSS friend, Shamrao Hivale, he moved to a village in the upper Narmada valley, where he sought to bring modern education and health care to the Gond tribals. Seeking to uplift the tribals, he was converted by them instead, enchanted by their love of music and dance and their liberated attitude to sex and marriage. At the same time, he was greatly exercised by their economic plight, the loss of their land to moneylenders and the loss of their forests to the state.