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Afghani’s views were astonishingly correct for those times; he advocated nationalism of a linguistic and territorial variety, implying a unity of Hindus and Muslims, with little said about unity amongst Indian Muslims or with Muslims of other lands. He was not a pan-Islamist, at least not then, effectively refuting such notions through his writings. ‘There is no happiness except in nationality,’ he wrote, ‘and there is no nationality except in language, and a language cannot be called a language [until it] embraces all affairs that those [engaged] in manufacture and trade need for use in their work’. Which is perhaps why Afghani advocated the need for a common language so as to bring together individuals, tribes and groups into one unified national unit. This was an expression of a specific preference for the linguistic over religious nationalism, the former, in Afghani’s views, being more unifying and more durable: ‘In the human world the bonds that have been extensive… [are] two. One is … unity of language of which nationality and national unity consist, and the other is religion. There is no doubt that the unity of language is more durable for survival and permanence in this world than unity of religion since it does not change in a short time in contrast to the latter.’

He advocated the teaching and learning of the national language, which would then encourage development of ties to the nation’s past and make learning so much more accessible to so many more people than if the teaching was done in a foreign language. ‘Encouragement of a national language is a requisite to national unity and patriotism; thus Indians should translate modern knowledge into their own language, especially Urdu’. These views were astonishingly current, considering that they were expressed in mid-nineteenth century.

Excerpted from Page 31 of ‘Jinnah: India-Partition Independence’ by Jaswant Singh