Short-sighted View
It is not I who am offering them anything; it is for the people of Bengal to make and transmute their destiny by remaining together. It is a very short sighted view to adopt the present, with its tremendous limitations, as a guide to the shape of things to come in Independent Bengal.
Further, cannot Mr. Mukherjee visualize that there is a vast difference between the problem of Bengal and of India; that because Bengalees are one race and have one language and have many points in common and are capable of understanding each other, and working for the common good, it does not follow that persons living within the subcontinent of India also belong to one race, speak the same language, have the same interests or even have the same history? In India, as well as in most of the provinces the Hindus are in a considerable majority, whereas in Bengal the majority margin of the Muslims is narrow and will be narrower still in greater Bengal.
The Hindus of Bengal by virtue of their position and their status and their numbers hardly stand in need of any protection or safeguards, whereas in India the Muslims with their inferiority in numbers and resources do stand in need of such protection as is given by a partition. In Bengal the Hindus have their own language, their culture, their system of education and a free exercise of their religion. In India the language of the Muslims it being tampered with, their literature is being distorted, their education is being affected and in place after place laws have been framed which prohibit the full and free exercise of their religion.
Big Share For Hindus
In India and in most of the provinces the Muslims will have a negligible share if any at all, in the administration but in Bengal the share of the Hindus is bound to be considerable and about equal to the share of the Muslims. Hence if there is a partition of India for the purpose of giving protection to the Muslims of India, it does not follow that there should be a partition of Bengal for the purpose of giving protection to the Hindus of Bengal.
I need not stress these obvious differences any further. Mr. Mukherjee is of opinion that two areas predominantly Hindu on the one hand and predominantly Muslim on the other are a solution. Far from being a solution this overwhelming predominance will give rise to a sense of submission, which will retard the growth of the moral stature of the minority and affect their very culture and mode of life.
Is not the alternative which I propose, namely, complete co-operation which is bound to exist where the majority and minority communities are almost equal in number and where the influence of the minority community balances its minority status, as in an undivided Bengal, is not this far better than a sense of repression brought about in the minorities of the two sections? There can be no one party rule under the scheme which I propose. The desire that the Bengal state should be linked to the centre seems to have been prompted by the belief that if it is linked to the centre, which will be predominantly Hindu, the life and liberty and culture of the Hindus of Bengal will be saved, otherwise they will perish in a united Bengal.
