(...Contd)

Shri K. P. S. Menon
The present reorganisation of States, based on the linguistic principle, has come to stay. It cannot be reversed or materially modified. In this connection, let us take comfort from the thought that there are other countries where the linguistic principle operates without detriment to the State and the people. The States in the USSR are now practically based on the linguistic principle.
We in India, too, are seeking to establish a new society without discarding our philosophy and traditions. Will our people feel that they are all participants in the great adventure of nation-building? If the answer is in the affirmative, linguism will fall into a secondary place, as it has done in the Soviet Union, and it need not be a bar to India’s progress.

Sir H. P. Mody
Ever since the fatal decision was taken to divide the country into linguistic units, the process has gone on uninterrupted, until the country’s integrity has been all but destroyed. The concept of a united India, divided into a number of States organised for the purpose of administrative efficiency and viability, has almost disappeared, and it looks as if the people of India will once again be what they were until the British came to India--a number of disparate communities lacking in cohesion and fundamental loyalties.
It is unthinkable that, at a time when the country’s economy is in such a perilous state, its political stability should be allowed to be threatened by methods of coercion. Every fresh division adds to the cost of administration and retards the economic growth of the units concerned. In view of all this, any surrender to the forces of disintegration must be regarded as criminal folly and weakness. The problem is bristling with difficulties and a long-term solution must undoubtedly take time. Meanwhile, the Government must emphatically declare its determination not to entertain any more demands in respect of territorial divisions, adjustments, boundary disputes and the like if India is not to head toward political anarchy.

Kakasaheb Kalelkar
Linguism is a ‘manufactured’ danger. Gandhiji wanted small provinces throughout India on a linguistic basis. I still cling to that view. Personally, I wanted India to be divided into forty or fifty small provinces or states with limited autonomy. It is not necessary that people speaking one language should necessarily form one state. All that was necessary is that people of one administrative unit, province or state should have one people’s language. No administration could be called Swarajya administration if it is not carried on in the local language of the people.Small states with limited autonomy make the Centre strong and the Centre becomes a binding force.We mismanaged and created linguism and we allowed it to be championed by people who subordinate nationalism and national solidarity to party ambitions.