NAGPUR: “There can be two nations in India, but one State,” asserted Mr. V.D. Savarkar, President of the Hindu Mahasabha, at a Press conference here this afternoon [Aug 16].

He said: “For the last 30 years we have been accustomed to the ideology of geographical unity of India, and the Congress is the strongest advocate of that unity, but suddenly the Muslim minority, which had been asking for one concession after another, has, after the communal award, come forward with the claim that it is a separate nation. I have no quarrel with Mr. Jinnah’s two-nation theory. We, Hindus, are a nation by ourselves and it is a historical fact that the Hindus and Muslims are two nations.”

Mr. Savarkar said that the mere fact that Hindus and Muslims are separate nations, either because of the Muslims’ claim of separate nationhood or because of historical fact, is no bar to achievement of unity. Like England, Scotland and Wales, which are united into Great Britain, or like Germany, which welded into one nation different States and principalities, we can come to an agreement over the formation of an Indian State.

Replying to a question, Mr. Savarkar said that he did not agree that the Indian question was largely an economic one.

Published in Dawn, August 19th, 2018