z:\ ambedkar\vol 08\vol8 03.indd MK SJ+YS 28 9 2013 138
138 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
view that Hindi should be the Pan-Hindu National language of India. “This Sanskrit Nistha” Hindi has nothing to do with that hybrid, the so-called Hindustani which is being hatched up by the Wardha scheme. It is nothing short of a linguistic monstrosity and must be ruthlessly suppressed. Not only that but it is our bounden duty to oust as ruthlessly all unnecessary alien words whether Arabian or English, from every Hindu tongue—whether provincial or dialectical ...........
“.......... Our Sanskrit alphabetical order is phonetically about the most perfect which the world has yet devised and almost all our current Indian scripts already follow it. The Nagari Script too follows this order. Like the Hindi language the Nagari Script too has already been current for centuries all over India amongst the Hindu literary circles for some two thousand years at any rate in the past and was even popularly nick-named as the “ Shastri Lipi” the script of our Hindu Scriptures .......... It is a matter of common knowledge that if Bengali or Gujarathi is printed in Nagari it is more or less understood by readers in several other provinces. To have only one common language throughout Hindustan at a stroke is impracticable and unwise. But to have the Nagari script as the only common script throughout Hindudom is much more feasible. Nevertheless, it should be borne in mind that the different Hindu scripts current in our different provinces have a future of their own and may flourish side by side with the Nagari. All that is immediately indispensable in the common interest of Hindudom as a whole is that the Nagari Script must be made a compulsory subject along with the Hindi language in every school in the case of Hindu students.”
What is to be the position of the Non-Hindu minorities under the Swaraj as contemplated by Mr. Savarkar ? On this question, this is what Mr. Savarkar has to say : *
“When once the Hindu Maha Sabha not only accepts but maintains the principles of “one man one vote” and the public services to go by merit alone added to the fundamental rights and obligations to be shared by all citizens alike irrespective of any distinction of Race or Religion .... any further mention of minority rights is on the principle not only unnecessary but self-contradictory. Because it again introduces a consciousness of majority and minority on Communal basis. But as practical politics requires it and as the Hindu Sanghatanists want to relieve our non-Hindu countrymen of even a ghost of suspicion, we are prepared to emphasise that the legitimate rights of minorities with regard to their Religion, Culture, and Language will be expressly guaranteed : on one condition only that the equal rights of the majority also must not in any case be encroached upon or abrogated. Every minority may have separate schools to train up their children in their own tongue, their own
- Ibid., p. 4.