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336 T HEMES IN INDIAN H ISTORY – PART III to power the Centre would not interfere. After Discuss... Partition most nationalists changed their position What different arguments because they felt that the earlier political pressures were put forward by those for a decentralised structure were no longer there. advocating a strong Centre? There was already a unitary system in place, imposed by the colonial government. The violence of the times gave a further push to centralisation, now seen as necessary both to forestall chaos and to plan for the country’s economic development. The Constitution thus showed a distinct bias towards the rights of the Union of India over those of its constituent states. 5. The Language of the Nation How could the nation be forged when people in different Source 10 regions spoke different languages, each associated with its own cultural heritage? How could people listen What should the to each other, or connect with each other, if they did not qualities of a national language be ? know each other’s language? Within the Constituent Assembly, the language issue was debated over many months, and often generated intense arguments. A few months before his death By the 1930s, the Congress had accepted that Mahatma Gandhi reiterated his views on the language Hindustani ought to be the national language. question: Mahatma Gandhi felt that everyone should speak in a language that common people could easily understand. This Hindustani should be Hindustani – a blend of Hindi and Urdu – was a popular neither Sanskritised Hindi language of a large section of the people of India, and nor Persianised Urdu but a happy combination of it was a composite language enriched by the interaction both. It should also freely of diverse cultures. Over the years it had incorporated admit words wherever words and terms from very many different sources, and was therefore understood by people from various necessary from the different regional languages and regions. This multi-cultural language, Mahatma also assimilate words from Gandhi thought, would be the ideal language of foreign languages, provided communication between diverse communities: it could that they can mix well and unify Hindus and Muslims, and people of the north easily with our national and the south. language. Thus our national language must develop From the end of the nineteenth century, however, into a rich and powerful Hindustani as a language had been gradually changing. As communal conflicts deepened, Hindi and instrument capable of Urdu also started growing apart. On the one hand, expressing the whole gamut of human thought and there was a move to Sanskritise Hindi, purging it of feelings. To confine oneself all words of Persian and Arabic origin. On the other to Hindi or Urdu would be hand, Urdu was being increasingly Persianised. As a crime against intelligence a consequence, language became associated with the and the spirit of patriotism. politics of religious identities. Mahatma Gandhi, HARIJANSEV, 12 OCTOBE1947 however, retained his faith in the composite character of Hindustani. Reprint 2026-27