THOUGHTS ON LINGUISTIC STATES 143
This scheme of dividing India in the name of Linguistic States cannot be overlooked. It is not so innocuous as the Commission thinks. It is full of poison. The poison must be emptied right now.
The nature of Union of India expresses only an idea. It does not indicate an achievement. Bryce in his “ American Commonwealth” relates the following incident which is very instructive. This is what he says :
“A few years ago the American Protestant Episcopal Church was occupied at its annual conference in revising liturgy. It was thought desirable to introduce among the short sentence prayers a prayer for the whole people ; and an eminent New England Divine proposed the words ‘O Lord, bless our Nation’. Accepted one afternoon on the spur of the moment, the sentence was brought up next day for reconsideration, when so many objections were raised by the laity to the word, ‘Nation’, as importing too definite recognition of national unity, that it was dropped, and instead there were adopted the words, ‘O Lord, bless these United States.’ ”
India is not even mentally and morally fit to call itself the United States of India. We have to go a long way to become the United States of India. The Union of India is far, far away, from the United States of India. But this consolidation of the North and balkanisation of the South is not the way to reach it.
PART II
THE LIMITATIONS OF LINGUISM
CHAPTER 3
THE PROS AND CONS OF A LINGUISTIC STATE
“One State, one language” is a universal feature of almost every State. Examine the constitution of Germany, examine the constitution of France, examine the constitution of Italy, examine the constitution of England, and examine the constitution of the U.S.A. “One State, one language” is the rule.
Wherever there has been a departure from this rule there has been a danger to the State. The illustration of the mixed States are to be found in the old Austrian Empire and the old Turkish Empire. They were blown up because they were multi-lingual States with all that a multi-lingual State means. India cannot escape this fate if it continues to be a congery of mixed States.
The reasons why a unilingual State is stable and a multi-lingual State unstable are quite obvious. A State is built on fellow-feeling. What is this fellow-feeling ? To state briefly it is a feeling of a corporate sentiment of oneness which makes those who are charged with it feel that they are kith and kin. This feeling is a double-edged feeling. It is at once a feeling of