Date: 12 August 1908
Location: Poona
Speaker: Aga Khan III
Source: Speeches of Aga Khan III – K K Aziz
Full Text
The new forces affecting India – what patriotism and love for India mean – violent disturbances arrest the forces of progress unification of India a slow process – alternatives to British rule: internal anarchy or unsympathetic foreign domination.
My dear Mr. President. It was my earnest desire to attend the first meeting of the League of Moslems of the Deccan, and to discuss with them the questions which must be stip-ing all thoughtful, patriotic Indians at the present juncture. But unfortu nately business of the most urgent character has called me away; I can only briefly write the views which I should have liked personally to put before the League.
The times are such when no true Indian patriot can remain silent. We find the country in the grip of new forces, quivering with new emotions. Amid much that is good we see, alas! a growing indiscipline and contempt for authority, striving after change without perceiving whither that change would lead us, and the setting up of false and impracticable constitutional ideals which will mislead the unthinking. No man who loves his country, as we do, can stand idly by, and see India drift into courses leading irrevocably to disaster.
I have referred to the duty of patriotic Indians. What do we mean by patriotism? Love of one’s country. This is no cold and abstract sentiment, like the love of beauty and the arts. It is a constant and fixed desire, like the longing for health and strength – it is a passion which fills our lives and colours all our ideals, aiming always at serving our country and maintaining its laws and institutions. In India, patriotism, and love of country, must mean the desire to see its people happy and prosperous and contented; its soil and natural resources developed; its intel lectual life quickened, ennobled by example, stimulated towards progress. But these ends – ends which must be the goal of every true patriot – can only be reached by the processes of develop ment and evolution working on natural lines. Violent disturbances arrest the growth of the forces which make for progress, perhaps for generations.
But these processes of evolution and development, which are the fundamental bases of national progress, imply the existence of a strong, just and stable Government: a Government strong enough to resist external aggression and maintain internal order: a Government powerful enough to protect the interests of the weak against the pressure of the strong, and prevent minorities from being crushed by the weight of powerful majorities: a Government which will secure justice and equality of opportunity for all. In Europe and America, the various races have been moulded into homogeneous States by centuries of combined self sacrifice and by unity of ideals. It took a century to weld Norman and Saxon into England; another six centuries to amalgamate England and Scotland into Great Britain. Ten centuries elapsed between the death of Charlemagne and the dissolution of his premature Empire, and the union of the German States under one head. Even in America, built out of ready-made European human materials, union came only after one of the fiercest wars in the history of the world. In India no such union as is essential to the creation of a strong, independent, homogeneous State is possible without centuries of consolidation. Even if we assume that the forces tending to unification are quickened by the machinery of modern civilisation, generations must pass before India is a nation. In very truth we can detect no signs of the advent of that unity which is the first essential to the creation of a modern State.
Is it not abundantly clear then that until such unity is attained the maintenance of British rule is an absolute, a paramount necessity? India must have a strong and effective Government.
Great Britain alone can give her the protection and guidance which are essential to her progress and prosperity … Assuming that [“Swaraj”] were possible of attainment, it would, by throwing the country into inextricable confusion, arrest the march of all those forces which are steadily, if slowly, pressing India forward in the paths of industrial, economic, social and intellectual advancement. But we all know that neither now nor in the per ceptible future is “Swaraj” possible of attainment.
There is no alternative between British rule and internal anarchy or some other form of foreign dominatio·n. Will any man who can think clearly say that any other form of foreign domination could do for India a tithe of what Great Britain has done in the past: would hold out the prospect of a, tithe of the progress which is possible under British rule in the future?
Let us look these facts squarely in the face. If we do we cannot fail to see that until the Indian peoples are so united that out of them can be fashioned a homogeneous, independent State, British rule – not only a titular supremacy but a vigorous force permeating every branch of administration – is an absolute necessity. Therefore, I put it to you that it is the duty of all true Indian patriots to make that rule strong. I do not mean strong in the physical sense. That is the duty of Great Britain, which she is perfectly able to discharge. Moreover, Great Britain’s mission in the East is not and never has been one of force, but of the peace and liberality, which have brought the tens of millions in Asia the comfort, the prosperity, and opportunities of intellectual advancement which they now enjoy. No! I mean strong in its hold on the mind, the affection, the imagination of the peoples of India. This is a duty which lies not only upon Muhammadans, but equally upon Hindus, Parsis and Sikhs, upon all who are convinced of the benevolence of British rule. If there are any amongst the less thoughtful members of the Hindu community who think they can snatch temporary advantage by social supremacy, let them pause upon all they would lose by the with drawal of that British control under which has been effected the amazing progress of the past century.
These are the patriotic ideals which, I think, should animate the Muhammadan community at the present juncture. Recog nising, as we must do, that British rule is essential to India – that it is the only rule which can preserve us from internal anarchy or unsympathetic foreign domination, that it is the only rule under which India can march steadily along the paths of peace, contentment, and moral and intellectual progress by which we have advanced so far – let us bend all our energies to making that rule strong in its hold upon the imagination and affection of the people of India. Ours must be no lukewarm patriotism, no passive unemotional acquiescence in the established order. It must be a living, controlling, vitalising force, guiding all our actions, shaping all our ideals.
Here in the Deccan we should pursue these ideals and combat the disruptive, retrograde forces at work in no sectarian spirit.
Rather, should it be our task to persuade by precept and example those Hindus who have strayed from the path of true progress to return to it. But because I see so clearly the chaos and retro gression which threaten India from the growth of some of the new forces we find at work, because I shudder at the anarchy, the loss, the moral and material suffering which must befall our country if they are allowed to spread, I say from the bottom of my heart that it is the duty of all true Indian patriots not only to accept British rule as the indispensable condition of natural advancement, but to make the strengthening of that rule the fixed purpose of their lives.
Source: The Civil and Military Gazette, Lahore, 18 August 1908.
This first meeting of the Deccan League was held at the Band Cottage, Poona, on Wednesday, 12 August 1908. Delegates from all the important districts of the provinces and leading Muslims of the city of Poona were present. Mawlawi Rafiuddin Ahmad was in the chair, and at the end of his speech he announced that the Aga Khan had accepted “the offer of permanent Presidentship of the League, made to him by your Committee”. As the Aga Khan was unable to attend, his inaugural address was read out to the session by Rafiuddin Ahmad.