India after Gandhi: The History of the World's Largest Democracy

by Ramachandra Guha

The linguistic reorganization of the Congress was encouraged and supported by Mahatma Gandhi. When Independence finally came Gandhi thought that the states of the new nation should be defined on the basis of language. Shortly afterwards, on 10 October 1947, he wrote to a colleague: ‘I do believe that we should hurry up with the reorganization of linguistic provinces . . . There may be an illusion for the time being that different languages stand for different cultures, but there is also the possibility [that with the creation] of linguistic provinces it may disappear. I shall write something [about it] if I get the time . . . I am not unaware that a class of people have been saying that linguistic provinces are wrong. In my opinion, this class delights in creating obstacles.’