Bombay Test

...But there is an "Asia" out of a deeper nihilistic need...

...The logic of his position would be to undercut them and make Bombay a Marathi state...

...Linguistic identification, tenuous as it is, is the basic source of group and cultural identity in India...

...It was called originally by Sukarno to divert Indonesian attention from an internal mess of corruption and discontent—which ultimately could not be diverted...

...For years, he was working to spread socialist influence among the Gujerati, only to find this work completely repudiated by the Praja Socialists in Bombay, who are overwhelmingly Maharashtrians...

...And they have no other cement to keep them united...

...If Nehru were to die tomorrow, it is possible that Congress would fall apart...

...In Calcutta, the Bengali middle classes voted Communist in protest against Congress spoliation...

...Asia, left to itself, will find itself, as it already is, wracked internally by all sorts of linguistic, religious, tribal and national differences...

...The Congress political machines, as in Bihar where a famine threatens, are split badly...

...The other parties did not, and a strange electoral alliance was produced in which the Socialists, the Communists, the right-wing Jan Singh and the religious parties united in a coalition called the Samiti and proceeded, to the surprise of all commentators, to make spectacular advances in the recent state elections...

...And it proclaimed color consciousness as the overriding tie to overcome all other differences...

...rarely in the complex, intramural maneuverings for power and party position...

...Some because they devoutly believe in him...

...India has 400 million people and seven major tongues—as well as over 30 local dialects...

...Not by any criterion, economic, political, linguistic or cultural, which has hitherto defined any large heterogeneous land mass...

...A great moral figure, with tremendous personal magnetism, he is a secular sadhu (holy man) who, following the path of self-renunciation, lives in the villages and believes that individual moral transformation through such instrumentalities as boodhan (or voluntary land gifts) is the path for India...

...Bombay has a large commercial class of Guje-ratis and a small but extremely civic-minded group of Parsis (originally Persians, and Zoroastrians by religion) who, as the traditional outsiders, have sought to secure their place in Bombay by giving generously to the city...

...All other parties are subject to divisive linguistic, tribal and local pressures—even the Socialist party, which is today a conglomeration of separate linguistic groups...

...The dead are laid on the roof, where the vultures and kites pick their flesh clean and the hot, bleaching sun turns the bones brittle and into dust, whereupon they are swept by the wind into the core of the tower...

...A spit of land edging into the ocean, it is bright and clean (the cows are segregated in pastures outside the city), with pleasant if not architecturally distinguished buildings, waving palm trees, and a long, lovely marine drive, formed by a sweeping curve of beach and reclaimed from the ocean, on which front long rows of cream-colored and pastel-shade apartment buildings...

...the other, Kerala, a new linguistic state in southern India, is now governed by the Communists...

...Throughout India, states have been created on a linguistic basis, following the sensible rule that political units should he composed of likespeaking people...

...In many states, corruption and nepotism are rife...

...From the hanging gardens of Malabar hills, the city looks like Nice or a pleasant Italian Riviera city...

...But Congress itself is an uneasy coalition of landlords, corrupt political machines, businessmen, peasants and technocrats, committed to a socialist program only because of the dominating personality of Nehru...

...But there are, for example, 30 million Marathi-speaking people in Maharashtra and nearby areas, and their intellectuals are concerned to save the language...

...Bandung is the exemplar and the way...

...The two remarked: "We are surprised and not a little amused to find that our colleagues have seen far more "voluntariness' in the formation of the cooperatives than the Chinese themselves...

...Now Nehru has proclaimed that Hindi will be the national tongue...

...The Communists, he points out, are the ones who will gain most by the linguistic agitation...

...And officials with dissenting opinions find it difficult to get them published: Because Nehru recently approved China's collectivization program as a model for Indian agriculture, two members of the Planning Commission's delegation to China, leaders of India's cooperative movement, found themselves under tremendous pressure against releasing their dissent...

...The large Tata clan, for example, whose enterprises are the largest and most progressive in India, is Parsi...

...from Burma, where national unity is precarious...

...They lead inexorably to one question...

...Nehru, however, decided that Bombay should be a bi-lingual state, which inflamed the Marathis and set off riots throughout the city...

...From Mehta's point of view, only the Congress party can unite India, since it is the only all-Indian party...

...They have demanded that Bombay become a Marathi city...

...Economic development may be the moral equivalent of war...

...The countries of Asia, as Toynbee once put it, are the "external proletariat...

...The logic of his position leads thus to support of Nehru...

...But, as he quips, the Praja Socialist party, the only one which could do this, is inspired by a leader (Narayan) who doesn't believe in political parties and headed by a leader (Asoka Mehta) who believes that, because of the sacrifices and compulsions necessary in building up a backward society, political opposition should be minimal...

...If linguistic passions seem strange, one need only recall the fierceness with which Macedonians, Montenegrins, Ruthenians and other tiny ethnic groups have fought for self-determination...

...So they have built a large cement tower, open at the top, with an empty core in the center...

...Individuals seeking to attend foreign conferences whose purposes are not approved of by the Ministry of External Affairs find it difficult to obtain exit visas...

...the respected Indian Socialist...

...When Javaprakash Naravan...

...An outsider finds it difficult to offer any judgment, especially when those to whom he has talked are so divided...

...They arose, bound together out of a sense of resentment, in the struggle against their former masters...

...Punjabi and other smaller groups— have been largely excluded from municipal and even universitv posts...

...And in Bombay there is also, perhaps, the vision of a future...

...others because their businessmen owners fear loss of import licenses or other retaliation from the Congress political machine...

...The Parsis, who in their religion believe that earth, air, fire and water are the four elements which make up the world, can defile none by burying their dead or burning their bodies...

...For, while the Gujeratis run the town economically, the largest single group of persons are the Maharashtrians (the Marathi-speaking people!, who make up the laboring population...

...Is there an Asia...

...It has, as Nehru has admitted, lost almost all the major cities of India, and remains in power because of its strength in the peasant areas...

...The soil has been prepared...

...But he speaks Gujerat, and his chief support is from Parsi and Gujerat groups...

...The future of the Congress party is itself in doubt...

...It is clear—from Ceylon, where the Sinhalese and Tamils are at each other's throats...

...Asoka Mehta, a sad-eyed, soft-spoken idealist, who has been in jail many times for his convictions (the last time j ailed by Nehru, when he led tenant farmers to take possession of land—what was permissible under the British, he was told, was impermissible now that India had become sovereign), feels that the linguistic strains offer the greatest threat to India...

...from Pakistan, where nationhood hangs on the thin thread of an army and an alien language (English) ; and from India—that not religious but linguistic passions are the strongest sources of internal conflict...

...But the division of class has a counterpart in linguistic divisions that theaten to tear Bombay, and even all India, apart...

...A. D. Gorwala, one of the most respected independent commentators in India, believes that the prime necessity for democracy is the creation of a responsible and critical opposition...

...But Nehru's critics are unsure as to the best course...

...Minoo R. Masani, the spokesman for a mixed economy, argues that Nehru's neutralism and the growing Communist party offer the greatest threats to Indian democracy...

...Criticism is a precious thing in India today...

...It needs just a little more time for germination and a prophet who will reap the wind...

...Hitherto, English has been the common tongue for India, as it has been for the intellectuals of all Southeast Asia...

...and the only solution is an external enemy...

...Congress is the only strong national party in India (the others are religious, tribal and linguistic), with about 65 per cent of the seats in the all-India Parliament...

...This color consciousness is the political and economic capital of Asia, and it is this color consciousness that will be the chief investment for political growth...

...An erratic postal censorship still operates, a hangover of wartime powers that have not been abrogated...

...If one seeks to account for the difference between Bombay and Calcutta, one finds it in the character of the city's dominant classes...

...It rules twelve of the country's thirteen states...

...Masani talks of a new all-party movement, uniting sections of Congress and the Socialists under the leadership of Narayan...

...It is called the Tower of Silence...

...from Indonesia, where Sumatrans and Javanese are in conflict...

...The Congress party endorsed Nehru's stand...

...Once Nehru has spoken, few newspapers will dare cross him: most fawn upon him...

...The trouble with this is Narayan himself...

...Bombay has become a test case of linguistic policy...

...but, like any such moral equivalent, it lacks a satisfying passion...

...If Nehru functions actively for another decade—he is 65 now—he might be able to remold the Congress party, but at the price, perhaps, of effectively eliminating criticism in India...

...The Marathis, who make up 45 per cent of the population—the remainder is divided into Gujerati, Parsi (who speak Gujerat...

...I attended a discussion by some 30 Marathi writers on this problem, and the questions of relating individual and group identity in a multi-lingual state were as complex as the relations of the various Slavic and other groups in the Austro-Hun-garian Empire...

...Such charismatic figures find their opportunity, usually, when an amorphous social movement is striving for a goal and needs a moral standard...

...issued a statement denouncing Krishna Menon while Menon was contesting a Parliamentary seat in Bombay, none of the Bombay newspapers printed his attack...