Date: 24 June 1909
Location: London
Speaker: Aga Khan III
Source: Speeches of Aga Khan III – K K Aziz
Full Text
League London: 24 June 1909 Numerical strength of the Muslim community in India – their welfare and progress are of concern to the entire Islamic world the London League’s work for the Muslim cause – Muslim loyalty to Britain – Muslim demand for an equitable share in the consti tutional privileges being granted to Indians – Indian reforms doomed to failure if pledges made to Muslims are not fulfilled loyalty to the British sovereign – fusion of Hindus and Muslims cannot be imposed.
The Aga Khan said that many people in this country, even in circles usually well-informed, hearing of the Musulman “min ority” in India, failed to realize that it numbered at the last census nearly 62 millions; that its percentage to the total population of India had been steadily rising since the decennial enumeration begun nearly forty years ago; and that it now constituted 21_1/ 4 per cent. of the total – a figure exclusive of the numerous and martial border tribes included within the political frontier of the Indian Empire. Not only was it the case that the Musulmans to be found within the administrative limits of the dependency substantially outnumbered the entire population of Germany, but their welfare and progress was a matter of concern to that vast brotherhood known as the Islamic world, stretching in unbroken line from the Asiatic seaboard of the Pacific to the Mrican coast of the Atlantic, and numbering considerably more than 250 millions, or 15 per cent. of the entire human race. (Cheers). The King-Emperor had far more Mahomedan subjects than any other Sovereign. In spite of the deeply-rooted prejudices and difficulties that they had to meet, the members of ·the [London] branch [of the All India Muslim League], by force of sound argument and indisputable fact, had succeeded in convin cing the fair-minded people of this country [Britain] that the Indian Moslems, though they might be unversed in the arts of rhetoric, were entitled to consideration. (Cheers). The soundness and justice of their claims in connexion with the reforms had been recognized by an overwhelming proportion of the leading organs of public opinion, and particularly by the foremost of them all, The Times. Yet this fact, encouraging and gratifying in itself, had been used against them in unlooked-for quarters. He was never more astonished than when he read in The Times of March 6 a message of the Special Correspondent in India stating that high officials in Northern India were expressing alarm as to the advocacy that the claims of the Mahomedans were securing.
The “alarm” arose from a fear that such advocacy might “produce an undue exaltation in the minds of Mahomedans”. (Laughter).
Had these high officials forgotten that throughout the storm and stress of the last few years the Musulmans had remained unswerving in their devoted loyalty to the King-Emperor? (Cheers). They had never indulged in violent agitation, nor had they adopted reprehensible methods of attracting attention to grievances, real or nominal. They had not claimed “self-govern ment”, whether on the so-called “colonial basis” or any other.
They had remained law-abiding when, in some parts of the country, they were under strong provocation to resent and resist actively the illegal pressure put upon them by persons who seemed bent on undermining British authority. (Cheers). They had asked nothing more than an equitable share in the consti tutional privileges now being granted to the Indian peoples. If the independent advocacy of such a demand had caused misgiv ings in certain official quarters it could only be because the troubles of the last few years had tended to distort the perspective open to them, and because sinister influences were at work.
They had been looking through the wrong end of the telescope (Laughter), and it was to be hoped that their apprehensions would in the future be apportioned on juster lines. Undoubtedly early in March there was widespread satisfaction among the Mus ulmans arising from the specific and unreserved announcement that Lord Morley had made a few days before, that their claims in respect to the electoral system would be met “to the full”. But he had not found in any Indian newspaper, whatever its politics, or in his large correspondence from India, one iota of evidence that the Musulmans were at that time “exalted above measure” (Laughter). There was certainly no danger of undue exaltation at the present moment. Notwithstanding the pledges given by the Viceroy to the deputation which he had the honour to intro duce nearly three years before, and Lord Morley’s p~edges of the present year, the Musulmans were even now, when the eleventh hour was far spent, still called upon to press for the practical recognition of their rights. They had still to urge their claims for simple justice; they had still to press the arguments. and reasons that had been officially accepted long ago without qualification – accepted, that was, so far as words went.
The measures which the Government of India was about to take fell far short of the promises given. At Oxford the other day, Lord Morley claimed to have fulfilled the pledges given to the people of India; but unhappily this could not be said to be the case so far as the special pledges to the Mahomedans were concerned. Speaking with a full sense of responsibility as presi dent of their [All India Muslim] League, and after fully weighing his words, he said unhesitatingly that if in the final shaping of the plans of the Government those pledges were not carried out to the full, in the spirit as well as in the letter, the Indian reforms were doomed to failure (loud cheers). It was impossible any where, and least of all in a country like India, to work a constitutional scheme satisfactorily with one large and important section of the people disappointed and left without real represen tation, and another section exultant and triumphant because they had been permitted to attain a virtual monopoly of political representation.
Because they declined to accept such a position with com placency, they were spoken of as “Separatists”. As a matter of fact no community in India excelled their own in working for the cause of true unity among the Indian peoples … When the time was ripe they would be ready to co-operate and unite with any section that did not contain elements of hostility, whether open or covert, to the strength and permanence of the rule of their Sovereign, or to the British agency in India by which it was repesented. Subject to the acceptance of that indispensable con dition, the Indian Musulmans had no intention or desire to hold permanently aloof from any feature of, or element in, Indian public life. But fusion could not be effectively brought about by legislative or administrative fiat- it must come along the lines of natural evolution; and that evolution must be social and indus trial, as well as political. (Cheers). He rejoiced to think that that necessity was recognized by the best minds among the Hindu thinkers of today, being strongly emphasized, for example, by Mr. Justice Sankaran Nair in his last presidential address at the Indian Social Conference. He would appeal to the leaders of Hindu political thought generally to adopt that sound view in the shaping of their policy; to admit the soundness of their position; and thus to co-operate with them in a policy which, rightly understood, so far from retarding, would hasten the day of evolutionary unity of the Indian peoples. They simply asked that indisputable facts should be recognized in rearing the new electoral fabric. (Cheers).
Source: The Times, London, 25 June 1909.
This should be read with Sayyid Ameer Ali’s letter to The Times, written on 14 May 1909 and published in the issue of 20 May.