Guha's India after Gandhi..Redrawing the Map.

We learn that Congress party was in favor of creating linguistic provinces right in 1917. Gandhi was for it and wrote on 10 Oct 1947 'I do believe that we should hurry up with the reorganisastion of linguistic provinces....' . Nehru while appreciative of the need 'It is axiomatic that the masses can only grow educationally and culturally through the medium of their own language' seemed to have second thoughts after Independence. 'Nehru's reluctance to superimpose divisions of language on the recent division by religion had the support of both Vallabhbhai Patel and Rajagoplachari'.

We can appreciate this reluctance (on the part of the new 'rulers' of the country) and it is no surprise that the so-called JVP committee, consisting of Nehru, Patel and Pattabhi Sitaramayya argued against the division based on language with 'language was not only a binding force but also a separating one'. (It is unlikely that they could have taken a grip of the situation if the fall out was similar to that of the division according to religion.) Added to this was the effort by Master Tara Singh to achieve independence for the Sikhs.

What Nehru could not imagine was that 'the most vigorous movement for linguistic autonomy' by the Telegu speakers would force his hand, when Potti Sriramalu died 'Fifty-eight days' into his fast and he had to give in and announce that 'a state of Andhra would come into being'. The rest of the story after the formation of Andhra is as gripping as ever. The setting up of State Reorganisation Commission and 'the creation of linguistic states was, among other things, a victory of popular will'.

(Looking back it appears that the people concerned managed the division reasonably well. While it is true that the benefits are only apparent now, I am still bemused about our destiny if the language issue takes an ugly turn. While our family has lived for generations in and around Bangalore, we speak a dialect of Tamil at home, Kannada with friends. I am not sure whether I will be admitted as a member to the Kannada Chaluvaligaru association if I applied. Added to this My daughters having grown up in Pune are maharastrian by domicile and a son-in-law of ours is a Gujarati from Mumbai! I cannot escape the feeling that we have become second class citizens and a 'silent' minority as we do not have the means to combat this at present.

I recall in my early days in Pune, I was really taken aback when a kindly old person did not appreciate the fact the I had come all the way from Bangalore to work there. He felt that if your parents were living and you had a home in the place you were born, there was no need to move. It was unnecessary according to him. He was not rude but was just being conservative. Luckily these sentiments did not prevail in private industries, I remember even the State Electricity Board had non-maharastrian senior engineers working for them. Later a kannadiga became the principal of the Pune Engineering college. However, we are not sure when these pragmatic sentiments may get overtaken by rabid chauvinists. We have seen that happen and we can only hope that it is all a thing of the past.

I also feel sad that Nehru and his team had no 'Honey-moon period' for their governament. It began with trauma of partition and as new challenges continued, they never could sit back and relax. I suppose that it is the nature of politics. Why would people not trust Nehru and others, who fought for our independence to do the right thing, at a time they thought was more suitable? It appears that the impression he had become autocratic and rigid prevailed)