MAHARASHTRA AS A LINGUISTIC PROVINCE 127
Maharashtrians part with their territory to make Bombay greater and viable. What is more important is the scheme of greater Bombay casts responsibility upon the Linguistic Provinces Commission to decide whether they could, with justice force Maharashtrians not only to submit to the demand of the Gujarathis to give up Bombay but also to submit to their further demand to hand over a part of territory of Maharashtra to make Bombay a viable Province. The Commission cannot escape this responsibility.
- Maharashtra and Bombay are not merely inter-dependent, they are really one and integral. Severance between the two would be fatal to both. The sources of water and electricity for Bombay lie in Maharashtra. The intelligentsia of Maharashtra lives in Bombay. To sever Bombay from Maharashtra would be to make the economic life of Bombay precarious and to dissociate the masses of Maharashtra from its intelligentsia without whose lead the masses of Maharashtra will be nowhere.
Arbitration as a Solution
- I have seen a suggestion made in some quarters that problem of Bombay should be settled by arbitration. I have never heard of a more absurd suggestion than this. It is as absurd as the suggestion to refer matrimonial cause to arbitration. The matrimonial tie is too personal, to be severed by a third party. Bombay and Maharashtra are tied together by God to use a Biblical phrase. No arbitrator can put them as under. The only agency which is authorized to do so is the Commission. Let it decide.
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