Let’s examine two quotes by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi:

1. Hindi is that language which both Hindus and Muslims speak and is written in Nagri and Persian script. This Hindi is not completely Sanskritised, nor is it loaded with Persian vocabulary… [Address to the eighth Hindi Sahitya Sammelan in Indore on 29th March 1918] 2. An average Bengali can really learn Hindustani in two months if he gave it three hours per day and a Dravidian in six months at the same rate. Neither a Bengali not a Dravidian can hope to achieve the same result with English in the same time. A knowledge of English opens up intercourse only with the comparatively few English-knowing Indians, whereas a possible knowledge of Hindustani enables up to hold intercourse with the largest number of our countrymen…It is impossible for the young men of Bengal…Gujarat…the Deccan to go to the Central Provinces…the United Provinces…the Punjab and all those vast tracts of India which speak nothing but Hindustani, and therefore I ask you to learn Hindustani also in your leisure hours. Do not consider for one moment that you can possibly make English a common medium of expression between the masses. Twenty-two crores of Indians know Hindustani — they do not know any other language. And if you want to steal into their hearts, Hindustani is the only language open to you. [Young India, 2 February 1921. Emphasis added.]

At the heart of both quotes clearly resides Gandhi’s noble impulse of amassing as many Indians as possible for the freedom struggle. Still, as history shows, using language as yet another device to attain the elusive Hindu-Muslim unity spectacularly failed.

But had the urge to learn Hindi/Hindustani been restricted to bolster the cause of freedom struggle, things could’ve perhaps turned out differently. And post-freedom, people should’ve been, well, free to make their own decisions for themselves. But then, language too was added to the list of the innumerable, Nehru-imposed tragedies that set India at a disadvantage after freedom.

The ambitions of the…landowners and middlemen lay behind the demand for the creation of linguistic states and the controversy over a national language. The boundaries created by integration of princely states with the old provinces of British India were generally assumed to be temporary. The essential criterion had been speedy integration not rationalization. But even during the years 1948–9 the demand for reorganisation along linguistic lines was already becoming vocal. A commission of inquiry was set up and delivered its opinions at the end of 1948. The commission’s view was that things should be left as they were. The provinces of British India had the sanction of the years. It was recognized that the old boundaries contained dominant linguistic groups…No new boundaries could remedy this. The commission most strongly criticized the creation of linguistic states on the grounds that they would inspire linguistic and therefore local patriotisms which would inhibit the growth of a national consciousness and the acceptance of a national language which was fundamental to such growth. [Nehru: A Biography, Michael Edwardes, Pg 250]

This status quo was maintained for a brief interim. After the phenomenal victory of the Congress Party in the 1951 general elections, rumblings began in Madras. The then Chief Minister’s differences with “Lion of Andhra” T. Prakasam erupted into clashes between Tamil and Telugu speakers which soon manifested as a demand for a separate state for Telugu speakers.

Nehru’s government was in a bind: the Congress poll manifesto of 1951 had explicitly stated that “on the matter of states reorganization, the democratic right of the people to express their opinion would be taken into consideration.” But now since the demand had been made, all Nehru could muster on the weight of the aforementioned commission’s report was to thunder that he would “not be intimidated by such tactics.”

Enter Potti Sriramulu, the highly revered Telugu leader who took a leaf out of Gandhi’s book and announced a fast-until-death. Nehru was still courage personified, roaring that he wouldn’t “yield to blackmail.” But Nehru’s bravado instantly evaporated when Potti Sriramulu actually died and the Prime Minister caved in. Michael Edwardes describes his death as a

consummation then unique in the history of fasting as a modern political weapon — Nehru gave in and even referred to Sriramulu’s ‘sacrifice’ with admiration during a debate in parliament. His speech was an open invitation to extra-democratic pressure. In order, it seemed to underline his capitulation to violence…Nehru personally attended the inauguration of the new state of Andhra in October 1953. The message was immediately read by other special-interest groups — the Government was susceptible to mass agitation…Pressure built up so rapidly that less than three months after…the formation of Andhra, the Government announced the appointment of a States Reorganization Commission. [Page 252–53. Emphasis added]

The Commission submitted its report in October 1955. In its wake, rioting and violence followed in Orissa, Bengal, Bihar, Bombay, Ahmedabad and Punjab.