REPORT ON LINGUISTIC PROVINCES by Amatya, TRIVENI, February 1949

REPORT ON LINGUISTIC PROVINCES

 

By Amatya

No report that has been issued in recent times in India has become so much a source of controversy as the Report of The Linguistic Provinces Commission appointed by the President of the Constituent Assembly to go into the question of the demand for the new Provinces of Andhra, Karnataka, Kerala, and Maharashtra. The demand for such Provinces has been made on the ground that Provinces which as far as possible are mono-lingual can be better and more efficiently administered than those which are multi-lingual and this is the reason why the Commission itself came to be known as the Linguistic Provinces Commission. The Report however has become a subject of controversy not only because of the recommendations it contains but also because of the unconvincing nature of the arguments put forward in support of these recommendations and the confusion or issues on which the conclusions are based on the whole. No report is so full of mutually contradictory statements as this. It also contains a number of propositions which ignore completely the trend of events and public policies in the country at the present day. It is therefore desirable that the public should get themselves acquainted with the Report so that they might be in a better position to appreciate the action, if any, that may be taken upon it by the three-man committee appointed by the Indian National Congress at the Jaipur session and later on by the Constituent Assembly for whose enlightenment the Commission was originally appointed.

Four questions were referred to it for consideration and report. They are:

(1)   What are the new Provinces that should be created?

(2)   What broadly should be their boundaries?

(3)   What would be the administrative, economic, financial, and other consequences in each Province so created?

(4)   What would be the consequences in the adjoining territories?

The Commission reported that no new Provinces should be formed for the present; and in view of this finding they did not answer the other three questions though they made a cursory reference to them in the course of their report.

Although they arrived at this conclusion there are certain points in the arguments of those that have been demanding the formation of linguistic Provinces which the Commission found it necessary to concede. Among these are the following: (1) The existing Indian Provinces are administrative units of British imperialism. They came into existence in a somewhat haphazard way and were not designed to work democratic institutions; they are certainly susceptible of more scientific and rational planning (Para 130). (2) The existing Provinces of Madras, Bombay, and the Central Provinces and Berar hold together within their respective territories large linguistic groups which are unequallymatched for the struggle for existence or for the struggle for political power. In the struggle for political power, which British imperialism and subsequently democracy under British rule introduced in this country, these heterogeneous elements were not completely successful in producing harmonious governments, with the result that the demand grew up in course of time on the part of the groups, which felt that they had suffered in the struggle, for a separate Government of their own (Para 121). It is true that these linguistic groups, who are clamouring for separate Provinces, are not happy in their present surroundings and the friction and differences which subsist between them constitute a serious threat to good government. This has already become a major administrative problem. (Para 139). The clash and conflict which exists between them has brought the administration in Madras to a breaking point, and in C.P. and Berar are also showing signs of going the same way” (Para 135). (3) These linguistic Provinces make a strong appeal to the imagination of many of our countrymen and there exists a large volume of public support in their favour....The non-fulfillment of a demand of this nature may easily lead to a sense of frustration, and there is a grave risk in turning it down (Para 146). (4) The demand for linguistic Provinces has an early association with the struggle for Indian independence. Since 1921 the Congress has discarded British administrative Provinces for its work and has created Provinces many of which are more or less linguistic…..In 1928 the Nehru Report fully endorsed the Congress view. And since then the Congress has included in its election manifesto the formation of linguistic Provinces as one item of its programme and various Congress legislatures have passed resolutions in support of the demand. And lastly on November 27, 1947, in the Constituent Assembly the Prime Minister on behalf of the Government accepted the principle underlying the demand for linguistic Provinces.

In spite of the recognition by the Commission that the existing Provinces are not rationally planned and are not designed to work democratic institutions, that they are making government unworkable and leading to an administrative break-down, that the Congress is pledged to the principle of linguistic Provinces and that the Government will be taking a great risk in not redistributing Provinces on a linguistic basis, the Commission has coolly recommended that such Provinces should not be formed. It has not drawn from the premises the only conclusion that has to be logically drawn. But the Commission has even gone a step further. It has laid down that, not only for the present but also for all time to come, Provinces should not be formed on exclusively or mainly linguistic considerations, and that oneness of language should not be the decisive or even the main factor in the formation of the new Provinces. Herein lies the difference between the Commission and several other critics of linguistic Provinces–critics like Pandit Nehru–who have been contending not so much against the principle as against putting it into effect in the immediate future. If the Government and the Constituent Assembly are to be guided by the findings of the Commission, there is no hope at all of homogeneous linguistic Provinces ever coming into existence. It has dealt a fatal blow to the linguistic movement round which centred the aspirations of the Andhras, the Kannadigas, the Keraliyas, and the Maharashtrians for a whole generation.

The grounds put forward by the Commission for this conclusion are numerous although they are not of a convincing character. Provinces based on linguistic homogeneity will serve as focii for the growth of sub-nationalism (?) and retard the growth of national unity. They do this in several ways. National unity needs a strong Central Government and a common national language. The linguistic principle however–it is contended by the Commission would bring into existence Provinces with a sub-national bias at a time when nationalism is yet in its infancy and is not in a position to bear any strain” (Para 129) “Nationalism and sub-nationalism are two emotional experiences which grow at the expense of each other. In a linguistic Province sub-nationalism will always be the dominant force and will always evoke greater emotional response; and, in a conflict between the two, the nascent nationalism is sure to lose ground and will ultimately be submerged” (Para 137). “If India is to live, there simply cannot be an autonomous State (?) anywhere in India for any group, linguistic or otherwise; and no national sub-province can be formed without preparing the way for ultimate disaster” (Para 141). These statements from the Report make it clear that the Commission was dominated by the view that while the existing multilingual provinces are no obstacle in the way of nationalism and a strong Centre, mono-lingual Provinces will constitute such an obstacle. Referring to the conflict between a national language and regional languages the Report observes: “Indian nationalism is deeply wedded to its regional languages; Indian patriotism is aggressively attached to its provincial frontiers” Para 133). “The only good that we can see in a linguistic Province is the possible advantage it has in working the Legislature in the regional language. But this is more than counterbalanced by the obstruction the linguistic Provinces will inevitably cause to the spread of national language or national feeling in the country.” Evidently the idea of the Commission is that even for purposes of provincial administration the national language and not the regional language should be used. And they think that it is only when a Province is multi-lingual and when people suffer from the disadvantage of having too many languages being used in the Legislature that they will reconcile themselves to the use of national language even for provincial purposes. The attack on linguistic Provinces is thus a veiled attack on the use of regional languages even in provincial administration and a veiled plea for forcing Hindi or Hindustani in a sphere where it is not needed and where it will prove injurious. Let it be noted that Hindi is culturally not superior to any of the other Indian languages. Because some common language is needed for purposes of national administration, and because Hindi is already spoken by a fairly large section of the people, the non-Hindi speaking sections of the people have reconciled themselves to its being adopted as the language carrying on the government and administration of the Centre. To try to make it the language of provincial administration is to repeat with less excuse what the British imperialists did in the past in forcing their language on the people. The excuse is less, because while English has a cultural value Hindi has no claim to it. Sanskrit would have been an ideal national language but very few have been its advocates.

In the conflict ascribed by the Commission between sub-nationalism and nationalism there are several fallacies. The first fallacy is to think that what the Commission means by sub-nationalism is a special characteristic of linguistic Provinces and there will be no scope for it in a multilingual province. This is not a correct line of thought. Every Province–whatever be the basis of its organisation–creates a sub-national feeling which is merely a feeling of attachment to the Province. This is a natural instinct of man and is of the same character as his attachment to his village and to his district. It is born out of the advantages which he gets from the Province, the district or the village as the case might be. And it is impossible to eradicate this. The so-called sub-nationalism of a linguistic Province is only of this type. Even today there is a Madrasi feeling, and there is a Bombay feeling. The second fallacy lies in the assumption that, because we are attached to our Province or to our sub- nation, we are not attached to the country as a whole. The attachment to the Province is not exclusive. It is only when it becomes exclusive that it becomes a disruptive force. There is nothing however to indicate that such exclusive loyalties are developing, and even if they develop they will be the outcome not of linguistic Provinces but of other and deeper forces. To love the whole country, to respect her traditions and culture, it is not necessary to cease to be loyal to the provincial cultures or traditions. And it is a very-serious mistake to suppose that all sub-national attachment should be killed for nationalism to thrive. Each stands for certain essential values and any attempt to destroy the one for fostering the other is a hopeless task. We are at the same time Andhras and Indians, or Kannadigas and Indians. Of course this is not the first time when we meet with this fallacious argument. The revolutionary philosopher Rousseau was of the opinion that no groups or bodies should intervene between the State and the individual, and all such groups and bodies should be put an end to in order that the citizen might be wholly loyal to the national community. It was on this that he based his distinction between the General Will and the Particular Will. But all attempts at destroying the intermediary groups ended in failure and the nineteenth century saw a much more vigorous and varied development of group life –Trade Unionism, Churches, Chambers of Commerce, Professional Associations etc.,–than at any other time in the modern age and gave rise to the doctrine of pluralism. To embark therefore on a policy of destroying sub-nationalism in the interests of nationalism is to intensify the former without correspondingly strengthening the latter. No well-wisher of nationalism will embark on such a policy. He will, in its pursuit, only be behaving like the mad King Lear who wanted that his daughter Cordelia should have no divided loyalties, should not love her husband but concentrate all her affection on her father. What deserves to be condemned is exclusive loyalty but not a plurality of loyalities.

There are a number of unilingual Provinces–U.P., Behar, West Bengal, and Orissa–now existing in the country. The Commission has not been able to demonstrate that there is more of sub-nationalism in them than in the multi-lingual Provinces. It has not also recommended that they should be made multi-lingual. The fact is that the members of the Commission all hail from Provinces which are unilingual and therefore do not know what the difficulties of multi-lingualism are. More-over they are all Hindi-speaking and believe in the enforced spread of Hindi over the whole country.

Other grounds put forward by the Commission against the formation of new linguistic Provinces may be briefly noted. (1) They will bring into existence a new kind of minority problem which did not exist before….“The best illustration of this tendency is to be found in the Telugus of Orissa and the Tamils of Southern Tranvancore, and, in a minor degree, in the complaints of minorities in all border districts.” The kind of minority problem referred to here exists whether the Provinces is in the main unilingual or multi-lingual. Even in multi-lingual Provinces there are areas where it is difficult to say what the administrative language should be, as people speaking a particular language may be small in numbers. Questions regarding the medium of instruction in schools also arise in such areas. There is such a problem today in the City of Madras and in some of the taluks bordering the City. In a big country with people speaking different languages, and with complete freedom for them to go and live anywhere and carry on business anywhere, linguistic minorities will be inevitably found. There are such South Indian minorities in Calcutta, Delhi, and Bombay. In the second place what happened in Orissa was the injustice done to the Telugus when even the Telugu majority areas were incorporated into that Province. It is this injustice that has to be repaired and when this is done the acuteness of the situation will become eased. In the third place it is just to remedy the situation created by the presence of linguistic minorities that fundamental rights of a justiceable character have been incorporated into the new Constitution. And this will give to the minorities concerned a great deal of relief. The minority problem is not therefore peculiar to linguistic Provinces. (2) There will be difficulties in settling the boundaries of the new Provinces. The answer to this is that these difficulties are not insuperable. Disputes regarding boundaries between one Province and another within the same State are not like disputes between two independent sovereign States. They do not lead to war and what is needed is to settle them through judicially minded tribunals and not through political influence. (3) There is no unanimity of opinion in favour of the formation of the proposed linguistic Provinces. For instance, the Commission points out that “there can be no doubt that one section of Rayalaseema opinion is definitely opposed to the formation of the proposed Andhra Province.” (Para 21). Similar differences regarding Maharashtra exist between the Maharashtrians of Berar, Konkan, and Desh. Two comments have to be made on this. In a matter like this it is difficult to get unanimity of opinion. It is just like the old British argument that Swaraj could not be granted unless there was complete agreement among all the communities in the country. In the second place there is no reason why weight should be attached only to the opinion of those who oppose the formation of the Province and why the opinion of the supporters should be completely neglected, especially as the Commission observe that they are not in a position to judge the relative strength of these opinions. (4) There are difficulties about settling the future of Bombay and Madras cities. This, in the view of the Commission, is a very strong argument against the formation of linguistic Provinces. Here again the point to be noted is that the difficulties are not insuperable and suggestions have been made as to how they might be overcome. One of these suggestions may be accepted–their constitution as Chief Commissioner’s Provinces under the direct control of the Centre.

The Commission has also pointed out that financially the linguistic Provinces will not be self-supporting. They will have a deficit and will have to depend on the Central Government for subventions even for running the ordinary routine administration. They will therefore not be in a position to undertake the work of nation-building and economic development. They will have to incur huge expenditure in building their capital cities at a time when money is urgently required for defence and other essential services. Any such expenditure is also bound to intensify the evils of inflation. This is perhaps the strongest argument against the creation of linguistic Provinces.

But here also there are certain circumstances which considerably modify the strength of the argument. (1) The correctness of the figures of revenue and expenditure utilised by the Commission has been questioned. With respect to Andhra, for instance, there is the evidence given by S. V. Ramamurty, one of the most distinguished members of the Indian Civil Service, formerly Adviser to the Governor of Madras and acting Governor of Bombay. He has been able to show that so far as Andhra is concerned the deficit is not six crores as estimated by the Commission but only about Rs. 168 lakhs, that the deficits caused by the introduction of prohibition will have to be made good not merely in the linguistic but also in all the Provinces by new taxation, that so far as taxable capacity is concerned there are potential resources which will enable the deficit to be met, and that the proposals of the Secretary of the Commission in regard to adjustments in the Andhra budget are one sided and based on a lack of full understanding of the position. Moreover there is nothing unsound under a federal system in the Centre making subventions to the units–a feature found in all federation. The Centre has no stronger claim over the private purse of the citizen than the units. It is only to maintain uniformity that certain taxes are levied by the Centre.

There are numerous observations made by the Commission in the course of its Report which show how reactionary their general outlook is and how confused are their political ideas. They do not have any clear idea about terms like sub-nationalism, autonomy, State, etc. They do not realise that there is no analogy between the creation of a new Province and the creation of a new State, independent and sovereign. They have made a number of astounding statements regarding the nature of linguistic Provinces and the effects their formation will produce, and some of these statements do not make much sense. Take for instance the statement that an autonomous linguistic Province means an autonomous linguistic State and autonomous linguistic State means that its territories are inviolate. How can a Province mean a State? How can territories be kept inviolate when the new Constitution contains articles for the creation of new Provinces? The Commission also has no idea whatever of the present trend of events in Constitution-making. It has lost sight of the fact that there is a Constituent Assembly sitting in Delhi and engaged in framing a federal Constitution, the essence of which is the creation of autonomous States independent of the Centre in a sphere of their own. But still the Commission speaks of a period of transition, a period of trial and error during which India will have to prepare for its destiny, and during which the Centre must possess large overriding powers of control and direction….Till nationalism has acquired sufficient strength to permit the formation of autonomous Provinces, the true nature and function of a Province under our Constitution should be that of an administrative unit functioning under delegated authority from the Centre and subject to the Centre’s overriding powers in regard to its territory, its existence and its functions….” This is taking the country back to the Charter Act of 1833 and the over-centralisation which it brought about. That a Commission in 1948 should seriously speak of this kind of centralisation shows how blind it is to the moving forces of the present day. But the Commission considers that without such powers the Centre cannot mitigate the rigour of government by linguistic majorities of today, prevent a breakdown of administration on account of disputes amongst linguistic groups, check fissiparous tendencies and strengthen national feeling, and above all to build up an Indian State” (Para 134). The Commission has not cared to consider whether there is any prospect of such an overriding Centre being tolerated at the present day. Its faith in a strong Centre is almost religious, and in its zeal for this it has not refrained from suggesting that the pledges given by the Congress in the past in favour of linguistic Provinces need not be honoured today. It observes: “In view of the dangers which now surround our country, and in the circumstances that now exist, Congress stands relieved of all past commitments.” (Para 140).

Although the Commission has laid down that, in any rational and scientific planning that may take place in regard to the Provinces of India in the future, emphasis should be primarily placed on administrative convenience it has not cared to suggest what factors and elements go to determine this convenience, and it has not at all considered whether it is not a very important matter of administrative convenience that the language of the Legislature and of administration should be the language spoken by the people in the Province. After all it is on this that the demand for linguistic Provinces is based primarily. It has ignored the administrative difficulties inevitable in any attempt to work democracy through a multilingual Legislature.

Even the formation of Provinces on administrative grounds has in the view of the Commission to wait for decades. For the conditions which the Commission considers it necessary to exist before such work may be undertaken are conditions which are not likely to be fulfilled in the near future and there are no objective criteria by which one can judge whether they have been fulfilled at all. India should be physically and emotionally integrated (whatever this may mean), the Indian States problem should be solved, and the national sentiment should be strengthened before the scientific, planning of existing Provinces can be taken on hand. “However urgent the problem of redistribution of provinces may be it is not more urgent than the defence problem, the inflation problem, the refugee problem, the food problem, the production problem, and many other problems with which India is burdened today. All these must get priority.” It is in this strain that the Report has been drawn by the Commission.

No sane-minded person with an eye to the realities of political life in the country today will attach much weight to the conclusions of a Commission so reactionary, so given to the worship of the status quo and so confused in considering the relevant issues in the problem. The best course will be to ignore the Report and proceed on the basis of the principles accepted for a generation by the Indian National Congress and blessed by Gandhiji himself, form linguistic provinces, and include them in the Schedule of the new Constitution. [TRIVENI, February 1949]

* * * * *