How language triggered the start of Partition of Akhand Bharat.

1. Language,Politics & Partition
“​A Pen is more mightier than sword​” “​कलम तलवार से ताकतवर होता है”
Human history has seen various pages,both dark and white which justifies the above
saying. The one which i am writing about created a red black page in the history of Hindustan.
Black because it laid the stone for the Partition of India and Red because due to its consequence a
lot of bleeding happened. I am referring to the 1871-72 Census. Prior to the census, everyone was
living with harmony. Hindu and Muslims used to be neighbours. They used to celebrate festivals
together. In some of the areas they used to speak same languages “Hindustani”. There was no
hatred feeling because everyone had local knowledge. Nobody knew who was in majority and who
was in minority at pan india level. They even didn’t care. But the cunning britishers had to rule
India for a long period. Recent attempts to topple British Rule made britishers to think of some
new strategies to rule for a longer time. “Divide and rule” was the idea. It was implemented in the
1871 Census. The form of census asks indians to tell their religion, caste, class, nationality and
race. It was more of a social engineering(Brainwash) attempt by the Britishers. Based on the
outcome of Census the then Governor Lord Curson divided the Bengal Presidency into the Muslim
majority province and Hindu majority province. The order lead to Swadeshi campaign and later
violences at various places mostly by Hindus. This was the first time, when the Muslim elites
feared to be ruled by the majority Hindus. This lead to the foundation of All India Muslim League.
The two-nation theory is the ideology that the primary identity and unifying denominator
of Muslims in the Indian subcontinent is their religion, rather than their language or ethnicity, and
therefore Indian Hindus and Muslims are two distinct nations regardless of such commonalities.
The two-nation theory was a founding principle of the Pakistan Movement (i.e. the ideology of
Pakistan as a Muslim nation-state in South Asia), and the partition of India in 1947. This theory
was undertaken by jinnah who termed it as awakening of Muslims for the creation of Pakistan.
Congress was in government in most provinces of India in 1935. When WW II outbroke,
British PM declared war on behalf of India without consulting indian leaders. Congress ministers
resigned to protest. The muslim league on other hand supported britishers in the war effort. When
British PM met national leaders, he described Congress as “Hindu Organisation”.
The Quit India Movement was launched in 1942 by Congress asking for major
constitutional changes which the britishers saw as the most serious threat to their rule. Hence
most of the Congress leaders were jailed for a period of 3 years. This was the period, Jinnah gained
large popularity which made him a leader equal to Gandhi. This gave him the power to ask for a
separate Muslim land.
The morning of the 16th August,1946 shattered the dreams of a united India when the
then League’s CM of Bengal gave an indirect indications to the Muslim public that “You can act

2. with impunity, that neither the police nor the military would be called out and that the ministry
would turn a blind eye to any action they unleashed in the city. “ On the same evening, hindus were
attacked by muslims. This lead to large communal violences in different parts of the country.
People were identified based on their identity markers whether dress, speech or neighbourhood
and killed by the people of different identity. This large scale killing strengthened the idea of
Partition of India in Sardar Patel’s mind because he knew it was better to divide India into two
states instead of many different states due to various princely states in India. Sir Radcliffe was
given the task to make demarcation line between India and Pakistan. Bengal and Punjab province
was divided on the basis of majority population, numbers of which came from the previous indian
censuses.
Conclusion​ : To dominate the Indians and to rule for a larger period Britishers used language as a
medium to incorporate their divide and rule policy. Introduction of English language in education
system and daily government functioning was one of the attempts to it. Even the Classification of
languages on the basis of religion: “Hindu - Hindi” and “Muslim-Hindi” was another such attempt.
But the 1872 census was the masterstroke of britishers to divide the INDIANS on the basis of
religion by introducing the fear of majority ruling over the minority which lead to the birth of
religious party like All India Muslim League whose sole purpose was to get a separate land for
Muslims. President of Muslim League, Jinnah created a sense of fear in the mind of Muslims by
preaching that they will be ruled by the Hindus. Communities who were before living peacefully
were now in a constant fear and fear comes with action. This fear lead to a large violence which
forced the Indian leaders to accept the Partition.
I sometimes think that “WHAT IF HINDUSTAN WAS NOT DIVIDED? I THINK IT WOULD HAVE
BEEN A MORE PROSPEROUS, HEALTHY, HAPPY COUNTRY THAN IT IS NOW”
“Akhand Bharat - Shresta Bharat”
Reference : Wikipedia