z:\ ambedkar\vol 08\vol8 03.indd MK SJ+YS 28 9 2013 68
68 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
As a matter of history, there has been no one scientific boundary for India and different persons have advocated different boundaries for India. The question of boundaries has given rise to two policies, the “Forward” Policy and the “ Back to the Indus ” Policy. The “ Forward ” Policy had a greater and a lesser intent, to use the language of Sir George Macmunn. In its greater intent, it meant active control in the affairs of Afghanistan as an Etat Tampion to India and the extension of Indian influence upto the Oxus. In its lesser intent, it was confined to the absorption of the tribal hills between the administered territory (i.e. the Province of N.-W.F.) and Afghanistan as defined by the Durand Line and the exercise of British control right up to that line. The greater intent of the Forward Policy, as a basis for a safe boundary for India, has long been abandoned. Consequently, there remain three possible boundary lines to choose from: (1) the Indus River,
(2) the present administrative boundary of the N.-W. F. P. and (3) the Durand Line. Pakistan will no doubt bring the boundary of Hindustan Back to the Indus, indeed behind the Indus, to the Sutlej. But this “Back to the Indus” policy was not without its advocates. The greatest exponent of the Indus boundary was Lord Lawrence, who was strongly opposed to any forward move beyond the trans-Indus foot-hills. He advocated meeting any invader in the valley of the Indus. In his opinion, it would be an act of folly and weakness to give battle at any great distance from the Indus base; and the longer the distance an invading army has to march through Afghanistan and the tribal country, the more harassed it would be. Others, no doubt, have pointed out that a river is a weak line of defence. But the principal reason for not retiring to the Indus boundary seems to lie elsewhere. Mr. Davies gives the real reason when he says that the
“ ‘ Back to Indus ’ cry becomes absurd when it is examined from the point of view of the inhabitants of the modern North-West Frontier Province. Not only would withdrawal mean loss of prestige, but it would also be a gross betrayal of those peoples to whom we have extended our beneficent rule.”
In fact, it is no use insisting that any particular boundary is the safest, for the simple reason that geographical conditions are not decisive in the world today and modern technique has