Date: 1 December 1930
Location: London
Speaker: Aga Khan III
Source: Speeches of Aga Khan III – K K Aziz
Full Text
Conversation with Mrs. Asquith – interest in horses – personal ‘concern for India and its welfare – citizen of the world – the First World War – English literature – mistakes of the Treaty of Versailles – prevent another war.
One of the things that made an immense difference to me is that twenty years ago I sat next at table to Lady Oxford – Mrs.
Asquith as she was then.
It must always matter supremely to a man that he sits next to that admirably witty lady. But this was something out of the ordinary.
She told me of a medicine. And that medicine has made all the difference to me physically. Otherwise I should have probably been a hopeless neurasthenic.
Oh yes, I was in a fair way to become that, I know the extent of my debt. There can scarcely be a greater one.
Now, as to my racing. Plainly, that has mattered a good deal to me. But, then, racing has always been part of my natural life. My father and my grandfather raced. I was always among horses. I loved them.
I rode a pony when I was two. Probably before that I rode a wooden horse in a nursery. Yes, racing is a great game. And more than a game, when you remember what horses have meant to man.
Some people wonder why, with Turkey against us, I could be on the side of the Allies during the war.
I was able to do it because I belong to two worlds, and I am a link between them. There is my Arabian and Persian descent.
My descent from the Prophet has mattered supremely.
But I was born in India. And I• regard myself as a member of that community. India and her welfare are very dear to me. India matters very much. The problem of her destiny occupies my mind to-day.
But for many years now I have been a citizen of the world, above all of Europe. And let me say here how much it matters that I should know well the languages of Europe.
It is not merely a new speech that is open to you, but a new culture and a new world. To have your own race, your own country, and then to have all these other countries. To be able to live the life of many nations, not as an outsider, but as one of themselves.
Yes, that is a tremendous privilege that has mattered very much indeed.
You will understand, then, how dreadful to me was the out break of the war. That, I think, has mattered to me more than anything else in my life.
You see, I had been convinced that such a war was impossible.
I had said so.
And then the whole world went to pieces. My whole world went to pieces.
I had believed in the hereditary principle. But now I was forced to say that if the ruling classes could bring us to this they had failed, they were no longer fit to rule.
I don’t say that England could have avoided the war. The Germans were not evil men. But they were – impossible. They had their obsession. Which was symbolised by the goosestep.
They were impossible. But …. anyhow, I concluded that heredi tary rule, class rule, was discredited.
And that, to me, was a catastrophic conclusion to be forced to.
It changed my whole scheme of things.
What of the native States of India? Well, they are on their trial.
They must prove themselves – now. This Round-Table Confer ence is of great importance.
It matters much to me, more to India, and most of all to the native princes. They have to prove themselves. I sincerely trust that they will do so.
English literature has mattered very much to me. Shakespeare, of course. The greatest of them all. But before the war I’d read many novels.
After re-reading them all, I found that none of them – Dickens, Thackeray, Eliot – were so much to my mind as three of the moderns, first of all Conrad, and then Wells (I love all of Wells) and Arnold Bennett.
But that is past. Since the war I have read nothing but books about it. I have read everything – on the causes of it, the course of it, and the lamentable things that happened after it, beginning with the most lamentable event of all – the Treaty of Versailles.
I think that, next to the war, the Treaty was the most shocking thing that has happened to the world in modern times.
The opportunities that were missed! The old animosities that were maintained, and the new ones that were aroused!
Yes, if the war discredited the ruling classes, what shall be said of the Peace?
And now I use my opportunities of mixing with people of influence to tell them that another war like the last would finish us, would abolish civilisation, would plunge us into barbaric chaos; and that the world is drifting steadily towards that war.
It is! It is! And the rulers of the civilised world obstinately shut their eyes to it.
Nothing matters to me now as much as this: to use all my influence – in Europe and in Asia – to prevent another war.
Source: The Daily Herald, London, 2 December 1930.
The interviewer was W. R. Titterton. The report was published under the headline “The Aga Khan … My Life Moulded by Religion, Racing and the War,” in the series “Things That Matter to Me”.