Date: 1 October 1914
Location: London
Speaker: Aga Khan III
Source: Speeches of Aga Khan III – K K Aziz
Full Text
Indian Field Ambulance Corps – significance of service to the Empire – mutual co-operation among different communities rebuke to Lloyd George for comparing the German Kaiser to Prophet Muhammad – Germany’s policy and actions – the Cawn pore mosque case.
I am unable to tell you the feelings of pride and joy with which I address my fellow countrymen here whose spontaneous desire to actively serve the King-Emperor in this supreme hour in the destinies of Europe and the Empire has found action in the for mation of the Indian Field Ambulance Corps. For weeks past, first under Dr. James Cantlie (cheers) and now under Colonel Baker (cheers) you have been preparing yourselves by diligent training for the task now definitely allotted to you by the War Office and by the Red Cross Society. It will be the proud privilege of most of you to go to the front to minister to the medical and hospital needs of soldiers of our own nationality engaged for the first time in history in fighting on West European soil for the great Empire to which we belong. (Cheers). It is in fact a unique occasion.
You represent a spirit which is universal amongst our countrymen in India and here. Some of them in provincial centres, being fewer in number, have not facilities for combined training equal to yours, but I believe they are no less eager to serve the Empire; and I am glad to know ‘that in some of the University towns young Indians have been attached for training to the Red Cross Section of the Officers Training Corps. A few have quietly offered themselves for Lord Kitchener’s New Army, and I believe they have been welcomed, and are welcomed, on passing the same physical tests as are applied to their English comrades. I can only say that I envy them the opportunity of combat, and I envy you the equally necessary, though not equally dangerous, if perhaps not so picturesque, service of which you have taken advantage. I shall be very proud and happy to be one of their number, which I may add is by no means improbable. (Cheers). Do not forget, however, that the services you are about to render are in some ways even more glorious than those of the men in the fighting line. You have to expose yourselves constantly to danger, and you cannot actually take a part in the fighting, so that you will not have the benefit of the excitement that comba tant work brings, that helps one to go through. From the very first day when the war commenced our noble and high-souled chairman, Mr. Gandhi, (cheers) whom those who know his work in South Mrica cannot help but revere (cheers) urged that there should be no picking and choosing, but that we as Indians must at once go and do any work that came to our hands.
That spirit of patriotism finds expression in the intimation of your Committee to the India Office placing your services unconditionally at the disposal of the authorities, as a proof of India’s desire to share the responsibilities, no less than the privi leges, of membership of this great Empire. That you should be actuated by these high standards of public duty is in accordance with the confident expectation of those who, like myself, have been closely familiar with the thoughts and the noble aspirations of my educated fellow countrymen. Mter all, you do but mirror in a different environment the wave of loyal enthusiasm which has swept through our Motherland, and to which I· shall make further reference. I feel confident that these patriotic concep tions will actuate all who have undergone training when the time comes for most of you to proceed to the Continent, and for the others to remain behind, for, as you are aware, some are sure to be wounded and many more are sure to come back ill and broken in health. For these reasons I feel sure that many who are remaining behind will be required to go to the front later on. I feel confident that the many wastages that will occur will be easily replaced by further volunteers who will be trained in this country.
In this hour of India’s and the Empire’s difficulties, happily no differences of race and creed exist in India. They do not count. (Cheers). And the Indian blood that will be shed on the fields of France and Belgium, and, I hope, Germany (loud cheers) will not have been shed in vain if it leads to a permanent disappearance of racial and religious antagonism, or any other suspicion in India. (Cheers). We are absolutely united in the common purpose of taking our full share in the trials and sorrows of the Empire, and in contributing to the sacrifices entailed by the unconquerable determination of the British Empire and her Allies to win through. (Cheers) .
I may speak of one matter of special interest to Mussulmans, for it is one in which I am confident we shall have the most cordial sympathy of our Hindu and Parsi brethren. Represen tations made to me from many quarters, as well as my own reading of the speech, showed that Moslem sensibilities have been deeply wounded by an observation, Mr. Lloyd George let fall in the otherwise inspired and splendid recruiting speech he delivered in London on the 19th September. The just scorn and ridicule that he poured upon the blasphemous claims of the Kaiser to be the weapon and the sword of the Almighty was followed by an unhappy and an unfortunate comparison that there has been nothing like it since the days of Mahomet. (Cries of Shame). It is most unfortunate that, at the time when the Mussulman subjects of the King Emperor, constituting nearly a quarter of the population within His Majesty’s Dominions, are eagerly responding to the call of the hour, a leading Minister of the Crown, whom we all respect, should have likened, or should have appeared to liken, the arch enemy of this Empire, who has wantonly plunged Europe and the world into unexampled suffering, with the Prophet of Islam. (Cries of Shame).
Gentlemen, the Chancellor of the Exchequer may not be able to reciprocate the veneration for the founder of our faith which we are taught from childhood, to give to the Founder of the Christian faith, but he might at least show towards him the respect and reverence we all accord to the memories of the great sons of Christendom who do not belong, so to speak, to our religion like the Founder of Christianity does.
It is, however, my personal belief and conviction that the obser vation coming from one who has never lived outside this country, or in contact with Moslem people, was, so to speak, an uncon scious sort of passing reference not really meant towards the Prophet of Islam personally … I am sure it was not meant to be offensive and was unpremeditated; but I vehture to urge that leading statesmen, and also publicists, should be careful not to play thus thoughtlessly and gratuitously into the hands of the enemies of the Empire. (Cheers). You are well aware that though I have always been convinced that Germany was the rnost dangerous enemy of Turkey and all other Moslem countries, for she was the one that was most anxious to annex by peaceful penetration Asia Minor and Southern Persia (Laughter). She has been at the same time posing for years past to serve her own needs as a sort of protector of Islam. Heaven forbid that we should have such an immoral protector! (cheers) and is only too eager to turn to mischievous account such unguarded expressions from Englishmen of eminence. Happily, so far as the Moslem and other subjects of the King Emperor are concerned, these efforts of our enemies are absolutely futile. We will never break down, the strong wall of loyalty, based on the certainty and consciousness that not only our truest interests, religious as well as civil, are guaranteed to us by British rule more. securely than they could ever be otherwise, but that our ultimate aspirations to rise in everything to the standard of Europe and America can only be obtained through permanent association and union with British rule. (Cheers). We had evidence of this security of even comparatively small religious sentiments only a year ago in Lord Hardinge’s wise and courageous recognition of the justice of our complaints in the action of the local authorities in the Cawnpore Mosque case, which had perturbed Moslem feeling throughout the country. In the partnership of Empire to which we are all summoned by the life-and-death struggle of to-day, we Indians, of whatever race or creed, look with confidence to those in high places in the counsels of the Empire to reciprocate the sentiment of respect and goodwill we cherish towards all subjects and sec tions of His Majesty’s Empire. (Cheers) …
One small and humble personal explanation. If I do not get anything of a more combatant nature I hope to come with you as your interpreter, if I may. (Cheers). I know English, French, German and Hindustani, and I do not think you will find many interpreters so useful; so that I will earn my bread if I can there.
If I do not go it will be because of some force majeure, and not through any want of effort on my own part. (Loud cheers).
Source: The Times of India, Bombay, 26 October 1914.
The paper’s London correspondent reported that the meeting of the Indian Volunteers Committee was held at the Polytechnic, Regent Street. Mr. M. K Gandhi, the Chairman of the Committee, presided and in opening the proceed ings announced that His Highness the Aga Khan had handed him a cheque for £200 to be used to provide extra comforts for the corps at the front. He [Gandhi] said that by offering his services even as a private, His Highness had set a noble example to humbler individuals in readiness for any service for the Empire in such an hour as this.
The correspondent added that the Aga Khan was received with such deaf ening cheers that it was some time before he could proceed.