By
Mahatma Gandhi
BROTHERS AND SISTERS,
You see Khwaja Saheb¹ sitting to my right. I told you earlier how I once went to his house with Swami Satyadev. At that time Swami Satyadev would not even drink water offered by a Muslim. But Khwaja Saheb was not offended and warmly welcomed him. He was then a trustee of the Aligarh University. Later he resigned the trusteeship to join the nonco-operation movement. I seem to remember that at the time I went to his house a meeting of the League was in progress there. Was there any satyagrahi in that assembly?—I asked. The Maulanas Mohammed Ali and Shaukat Ali were in jail and everyone was feeling discouraged. Khwaja Saheb told me that I could have two satyagrahis and a half. One was Shuaib Qureshi, who was a well-known and courageous young man. Then there was another gentleman, present there, who was a staunch satyagrahi. He had once been assaulted by a mob and injured in two places on his arm. But though he was strong he remained calm and did not offer physical resistance. Lastly, Khwaja Saheb said, he himself was half a satyagrahi. From then on he has been like a brother to me.
He did not want the country to be divided. Nevertheless it has happened and he has come to me to lament it. I told him that we would not weep and I made him laugh.
Sapru Saheb too has felt hurt by what has happened. Well, the League wanted it, but the Congress did not like it. How long can a thing over which the two are not agreed last? Geographically we may have been divided. But so long as hearts too have not been divided, we must not weep. For all will be well so long as our hearts remain whole. The country may well be divided today into Pakistan and Hindustan. In the end we have to become one. Not that they will come and join us through vexation. Our behaviour will be such that even if they want to they will not be able to keep themselves away from us.
It irks Jawaharlal that the rest of the country should be called Hindustan. When one part is now Pakistan, how can the other part be Hindustan, he asks. He is right. For it will mean that it belongs to the Hindus. What then would the Christians, the Jews and the Muslims left here do? Must they leave? Must Pantji ask Khwaja Saheb, who belongs to U. P. and is a friend of his, to leave U. P.? If this happens, Mr. Jinnah will have been proved right in his assertion that the hearts were already divided.
But this is not what history says. I told you about the letter I had from the well-known historian Shri Jai Chandra Vidyalankar. He says that even when Hindus and Muslims fought against each other they never killed in the name of religion. In our childhood also we never felt that we had separate identities. In days gone by when, accompanied by Hindus, Jainuluddin² set out on a pilgrimage to Kashi, he got repaired all derelict temples he passed on the way. The name of Allah is inscribed on the Victory Tower of Chittor.
Why should our hearts now become so soiled that we cannot sit together or see each other with a kindly eye?
Assuming that a few Muslims have become wicked, shall we then also become wicked? This is not what Jawaharlal wants. He says that so long as Muslims were part of the country the name Hindustan was fine for the understanding was that anyone born in Hindustan belonged to Hindustan, whatever his religion. Now Hindustan will imply that the country belongs to Hindus. And who among the Hindus? Only the caste Hindus. But as I have said the caste Hindus—Brahmins, Kshatriyas and Vaishyas— are a very small part of the population. The vast majority consists of untouchables and Adivasis. Will they be ruled by the few caste Hindus? True, today it is they who rule the roost. But if the untouchables and the Adivasis are allowed to fall under the domination of the caste Hindus, Mr. Jinnah will have been proved right in saying that a handful of caste Hindus want to keep all the rest under their heel. Could we be such fools? Could we accept the two-nation theory of Mr. Jinnah? It would mean that if my son becomes a Muslim he becomes a national of another country. If we segregate three-quarters of our fellow countrymen and keep them away from the governance of the country, our Hindustan will be just as Mr. Jinnah has pictured it.
Then there will be a Parsistan, a Sikhistan, separate bits for the untouchables, the Adivasis and so forth and Hindustan will no longer remain Hindustan. It will undergo Balkanization.
If this is what the English desire there will be no place left in the world for them.
So we must not weep over what has happened. Jawaharlal has suggested Union of Indian Republic as the name for the country. That is, all will live together here. If a part wants to secede we shall not force it to remain, but those that remain shall live as brothers. We shall so treat them that they will not want to break away, they will not feel that they are separate. All will be loyal to the Union and serve it.
Today someone asked me why we should still continue with Hindustani. Such a question should not be raised. If we adopt the attitude that since Urdu will be the language of Pakistan we should have Hindi as our language then the charge of separatism against us also will be proved. Hindustani means an easy language to speak, read and write. It used to be one language at one time but lately we have Urdu loaded with Persian expressions which the people cannot understand and Hindi crammed with Sanskrit words which also people cannot understand. If we used that language we should have to eject from our midst people like Sapru. Although a Hindu, his mother tongue is Urdu. If I start talking to him in Sanskritized Hindi he will not be able to make head or tail of it. We should therefore continue the work of Hindustani—of the Hindustani Sabha—and prove our love for those whose language is Urdu.
I see God’s will in what has happened. He wants to test us both to see what Pakistan will do and how generous India can be. We must pass the test. I am hoping that no Hindu will be so mad as to show inadequate respect for things the Muslims consider sacred or fail to accord the same status to the Aligarh University as he does to Malaviyaji’s Hindu University. If we destroy their sacred places we shall ourselves be destroyed.
Similarly we should protect the fire temples of Parsis and the synagogues of Jews as we protect Hindu temples. I must also say that untouchables will be treated here on par with the people of the highest caste. True Hinduism embraces all religions.
We must see that we have a hundred per cent success in this. We cannot act on the principle of tit for tat. That is an obsolete principle. The times have changed. Now if someone abuses us we have to answer him by love. We have to answer lies with truth and meanness with generosity. Always and in every situation our eyes, ears and hands should remain pure. Only then can we save ourselves; only then can the world survive. I have not the least doubt of it. We must not run away with the idea that now that we have given the Muslims what they wanted we can do what we like.
[From Hindi]
Prarthana Pravachan—I, pp. 150-4
Notes
- 1. Khwaja Abdul Majid, President, All-India Nationalist Muslim Majlis
- 2. Sultan of Kashmir; contemporary of Rana Kumbha of Chittor, the great-grandfather of Rana Pratap
Notes
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