(The
author of the following piece is a well known progressive Gandhian and a
Supreme Court lawyer. The reference in the opening paragraph is to the
'liberalist' correctness of some intellectuals who denounced a recent
governemental ban on the performance of a Marathi play with strong
fascist overtones. This ban was won after a bitter struggle by the
democratic opinion against a most unwilling central governement ruled by
BJP-combine and an adamant stand in favour of the play by the ruling
Shiv Sena-BJP combine in Maharashtra.)
It is
difficult to share the certitude of those who have been opposing as
"nonsense" a ban on the play glorifying Gandhi's assassin.
Liberal opinion, or what passes for it, h
as tended
to invoke freedom of expression to compare the restrictions, illusory as
they maybe, with Mr. M F Hussain's recent unpleasant experiences. This
comparison is erroneous Mr. Hussain's paintings did not preach violence
or the politics of assassination.
If there
were a play which sought to justify Adolf Hitler and to 'give his
perspective' on why it became 'necessary' to eliminate millions of Jews,
or a play justifying the anti-Sikh pogrom in Delhi in 1984, would this
also now be justified as an exercise of freedom of expression? The
glorification of the sati incident in Rajasthan was rightly interdicted
by an ordinance; also the local public demonstration in support of the
Bhagalpur blindings -- on the ground that those blinded were criminals
-- was condemned by civil society.
Rude
Shock
That a
columnist of Harijan and former editor of that paper and of Young India
should be shot dead by the editor of Hindu Rashtra was an extraordinary
way to settle a political argument. Imagine an editor today killing
another editor and a play justifying that killing being bruited about as
an exercise of the freedom of expression. The matter is therefore, not
as simple as has been made out. After all, what must a play contain
before its performance may be validly restricted as a permissible
'reason-able restriction' on freedom of expression as envisaged by the
Constitution?
One can,
however, be more open to a position which, while admitting that the play
deserves a legal ban, asserts that the misinformation contained in it
needs to be tackled politically. The play is supposedly based on the
statement, which the convicted murderer made in the course of his trial.
That statement is a tissue of suppressio veri suggestio falsi. The role
played by the Hindu Mahasabha at each stage from 1928 onwards in
complicating settlement of the communal problem is throughout
sup-pressed from the statement. Nor does Gandhi's assassin mention the
fact that the two- nation idea was propounded by Savarkar in the
presidential speech from the Hindu Mahasabha platform in December 1939.
In this
speech, Savarkar attacked the territorial concept of nation: "This
conception has...received a rude shock in Europe itself from which it
was imported wholesale to India and the present war has justified my
assertion by exploding the myth altogether"...Instead he propounded
the alternative conception that "...we Hindus are marked out as an
abiding Nation by ourselves". (Indian Annual Register I 939, Vol.
II, p. 317).
Jinnah's
formal adoption of the two-nation theory came soon after this and is
simply the other side of the coin. Savarkar, the assassin's ideological
mentor and co-accused, then, must rank among the ideological forebears
of Pakistan. Similarly, having spoken of equal rights for all in
Pakistan in August 1947, Jinnah relapsed to speak Savarkar's language in
December 1947. At the League Council meeting in Karachi, Jinnah spoke of
Pakistan as a "Muslim State" (though not an ''ecclesiastical
state"). And on March 28,1948, apparently unmoved even by Gandhi
having staked his life for a composite concept of Indian nationhood,
Jinnah said: "Pakistan is the embodiment of the unity of the Muslim
nation and so it must remain". (Jinnah's speeches and statements as
Governor General of Pakistan, 1947-48, pp. 211-212). On August 15, 1943
Savarkar declared: "I have no quarrel with Mr. Jinnah's two-nation
theory. We Hindus are a nation by ourselves and it is a historical fact
that Hindus and Muslims are two-nations". (Indian Annual Register,
1943,Vol. 2, p. 10)
Different
definition
The vital
difference between Gandhi's approach and the Savarkar line, to which the
assassin subscribed, is thus not mentioned in the court statement. This
lay in their entirely different definition of the nation. Gandhi's
definition of nation was one of composite Indian nationhood while
Savarkar's concept of nation, like Jinnah's was religion-based. Gandhi's
understanding of Indian nationhood is summed up succinctly in a
statement he issued a fortnight before his death:
"Delhi
is the Metropolis of India. If therefore we really in our hearts do not
subscribe to the two-nation theory, in other words, if we do not regard
the Hindus and the Muslims as constituting two distinct nations, we
shall have to admit that the picture that Delhi presents today is not
what we have envisaged always of the capital of India. Delhi is the
Eternal City, as the ruins of its forerunners Indraprastha and
Hastinapur testify. It is the heart of India. Only a nitwit can regard
it as belonging to the Hindus or the Sikhs only. It may sound harsh but
it is the literal truth. From Kanya Kumari to Kashmir and from Karachi
to Dibrugarh in Assam, all Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Parsis, Christians
and Jews who people this vast sub-continent and have adopted it as their
dear motherland, have an equal right to it. No one has a right to say
that it belongs to the majority community only and that the minority
community can only remain there as the underdog. Whoever serves it with
the purest devotion must have the first claim. Therefore, anyone who
wants to drive out of Delhi all Musalmans as such must be set down as
its enemy No. l and, therefore, enemy no. l of India. We are rushing
towards the catastrophe. It is the bounden duty of every son and
daughter of India to take his or her full share in averting it".
(Letter to Men and Women of Gujarat, Jan14, 1948, Selected Letters,
Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, p. 324).
Composite
Nation
Over-emphasis,
especially in Anglo-centric writings, on Gandhi's religiosity has
sometimes blinded scholars to the fact that Gandhi's definition of
nation is emphatically non-religious, non-denominational and secular in
every sense of the term, while Savarkar's and Jinnah's definition of
nation is religion-based. Gandhi's concept of nation was and is shared
by millions of Muslims, Hindus Sikhs, Christians and others while the
Savarkar-Jinnah definition of nation was and is a source of communal
conflict and made anti-humanistic demands for exchanges of population
and eviction. Hindu Mahasabha and RSS members prior to independence
acted especially to injure the concept of a composite Indian nation. As
the veteran socialist, NG Goray, wrote in the Congress Socialist of May
14, 1938, the Mahasabhaites and RSS workers attacked the May Day
procession, tore up the nationalist flag and beat up leaders like
Senapati Bapat and Kanitkar.