[Reader-list] Unfolding the "Hindi Pradesh" Controversy (Posting 4)

[himanshu ranjan]

Unfolding the "Hindi Pradesh" Controversy (Posting 4)
 
Madan Mohan Malviya was whole-heartedly involved in the Hindi-Devanagri movement of the Benaras School and had prepared the ground for the forthcoming Allahabad phase. He led the Nagari movement and won.
At the behest of the Nagri Pracharni Sabha and almost in its sponsorship, a new leading organisation the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan was formed in 1910 and the movement was launched more vigorously in the leadership of Malviyaji.So many Hindi literary figures and virtually the leaders of Hindi of both the cultural centres collaborated and met a joint effort for the cause, but now the full fledged venue was Allahabad itself. A parallel institution was the Indian Press which came into existence a bit earlier, gave its services to the cause on a different plane.with a number of grand publications in humanities in its fold, it also started a leading jounal of Hindi "The Saraswati". Mahavir Prasad Dwivedi took charge of the magazine as its editor in 1903 and silently worked for about 20 years. He was not a Hindi leader like those of the Nagri Pracharni Sabha and the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan, but to his credit, there is a vast and multifaceted work for the developement of Hindi language and
 literature, the standadisation of the language being one of them. His tremendous contribtion has rightly been termed as "Hindi Navjagran" by Ram Bilas Sharma.
     In the meantime the Nationalist Movement under the leadership of the Indian National Congress had travelled a long distance. In the previous century Dayanand Saraswati had made Hindi the vehicle for his reform movement. Now Gandhiji upgraded it as "Rashtrabhasha" along with the political plank of the nationalist movement. At the advice of his friends and followers he attached himself with the Hindi Sahitya Sammelan. He presided over the Sammelan convention of 1917. Actually he made a lot through the Sammelan and Rashtrabasha Prachar Samitis in the south and elsewhere and gave a national stature to Hindi in the real sense of the term.Undoubtedly he was the sole leader in command of the Congress in twenties and onwards. A big team of Hindi leaders was incorporated in his political following of the Congress. The most important thing he did, was his command and control over the national character of Hindi. It was being developed like the link language among the different states of
 different language origins and, in the national vision of Gandhiji, it was going to challenge and replace English, a symbol of the imperialist oppression. Hindi was getting warm welcome throughout the country. The Hindu Hindi agenda was checked and postponed as was as Gandhiji was there. None of the Hindi leaders could dare to defy him. 
     But everything was not going to be smooth and ok. The communal passion of the previous century, going slow up till now, errupted with vehemence and the politics of the Mulsim League was very much there making a parallel space in the nationalist movement. No doubt, greater sections of the Muslim community had a whole-hearted adherence to the Congress and Gandhiji, but the elitist leaders like Jinnah, who joined the Muslim League very late, indulged openly in the power play. Being throughout his career a mordern secularist politician, he ultimately stood by the communalist politics and used it as an instrument to establish himself as 'the sole spokesman' of the Muslims of India. He was nothing to do with Islam and perhaps did not know Urdu well, which had acquired a communal colour till then. Gandhiji was puzzuled. He tried his best to check the communal divide. But the Hindu card players in the Congress had been bold enough to defy Gandhiji shamlessly. The secular combine of
 Gandhi-Azad-Nehru could not make and maintain the balance, and there was a more cunning tug-of-war between the Congress and the League. Gandhi, with his strong ethical appeal, continued his compromise drive throughout his life, but failed, as his compromise formula on language plane could not do. A strong propagator of Rashtrabhasha Hindi, Gandhi took a peculiar turn and coined 'Hindustani' as a common language for both Hindus and Muslims. Neither Hindi, nor Urdu, but Hindustani. Gandhiji was not a linguist, nor a literary figure who could deal with the delicate intricacies of the domain. Still a literary stalwart like Prem Chand stood by him and a number of historians, jurists, and men of other discliplines were in favour of his compromise coinage 'Hindustani'. But the leaders of the sammelan like Purshotam Das Tandan outrightly rejected Hindustani and thereby Gandhiji had to disassociate himself from the sammelan. The battle was ultimately faught on the constitutional plane, the
 constituent assembly debates making a documental landmark of the whole episode. The Hindustani Academy of Allahabad stands still today as a historic symbol of Gandhiji's vision of HIndustani and the goodwill behind it. A trio of Gandhiji's followers - Pt. Sunder Lal, B.N. Pandey and Mahmud Ahmed Huner - also launched a Hindustani magazine 'The Naya Hindustan' which was printed in both Nagri and Urdu script side by side.
     The silent academic workers in the tradition of Saraswati and Mahabir Prasad Dwivedi remained almost aloof, but made a nationlity oriented structure of Hindi language. Rahul Sankrityayan and Dhirendra Verma were two such personalities, the former being rather a mobile propagator as well. Rahul's contribution is in researching and discovering the historicity of the language whereas Verma made a spatial and geographical outline of 'Madhyadesh', the area which the Hindi speaking people belong to. This very M'adhyadesh' was developed later on as 'Hindi Pradesh' by Ram Bilas Sharma, though the thesis being very controversial today.
     I am sticking on the controversy and trying to unfold the unscientific, rather 'imagined' formulations behind it.
                                                                         Himanshu Ranjan
                                                                   An independent CSDS Fellow
 

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