On the inauguration of the Muslim League (Dacca, December, 1906) MUSHTAQ HUSSAIN (1841–1917)

On the inauguration of the Muslim League (Dacca,
December, 1906)
MUSHTAQ HUSSAIN (1841–1917)

In October 1906, thirty-five rich and influential Muslims met the Viceroy,

Lord Minto, in Simla. In their address to Minto, they spoke about the

‘national interests’ of Indian Muslims and appealed to the British

government for assistance against the ‘unsympathetic’ Hindu majority.

Minto gave a hearty welcome to the deputation and assured them that the

interests of Muslims would be safeguarded by the British administration.

e meeting was timely because the British were poised to make important

changes in the way they ran their Indian empire. ey wanted to include a

certain degree of Indian participation in decision-making bodies so it was

important for the Muslims to organize themselves into a party that

represented their interests. In November, the Nawab of Dacca, Salimullah

Khan invited Aligarh’s Mohammedan Educational Conference to Dacca for

its annual meeting. He also mooted the idea that a Muslim All India

Confederacy be organized in his city. is led to the first meeting of the

Muslim League in Shah Bagh in Dacca on December 30 with fifty-eight

delegates from all over India. Mushtaq Hussain from Hyderabad was the

first president and he emphasized that while the Muslim League had no

quarrel with the Congress so long as the latter did not oppose British rule

and hurt the interests of the Muslims. e seeds of a Muslim opposition to

a Congress-led national movement were already evident.

I have no words with which to thank you for the honour you have done me

in electing me as your Chairman today. e place could have well been filled

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by many others in the community who are present here, but now that you

have commanded me to fill it, I can only obey your wishes and discharge

the duties of a Chairman of such an assembly to the best of my powers. I

have, however, to thank the Hon’ble Nawab Salim-ul-lah Bahadur of Dacca

specially, for the title which he has unconsciously given to me. I have my

doubts about being Viqarul-Mulk or ‘the pride of the country’, but I can

assure you I am, as I have always been, ‘Mushtaq-ul-Mulk’ or ‘the lover of

my country’. For us old men creeping every day nearer and nearer to our

graves, what is left to do, but to be Mushtaq-ul-Mulk and Mushtaq-ul-

Qaum, lovers of our country and lovers of our race. I feel that the unwitting

recognition of my love of my people, for which I have to thank my Hon’ble

friend the Nawab Bahadur of Dacca, is my greatest claim to fill the chair

you are now offering me. May I long deserve this title.

I believe you all know what you have come to discuss. As this deliberation

on political questions will be a free one, I trust no person who is a

government servant will take part in it, as the tie which binds him to the

government precludes the possibility of our regarding him free in the sense

in which non-official members of any community can be. Moreover, the

discussion of such grave problems requires maturity and experience on the

part of us all, so that young men who are still in school and college cannot

be expected to offer to us a fair share of either. At the present stage of their

lives they should learn and not teach. ey should therefore not be

encouraged to leave the hard task of mastering things for the more pleasant

one perhaps, of dictating to others. When they have graduated and stepped

into the arena of the world, we shall welcome their participation, but not

yet. So, if there is any gentleman present here who is a government servant,

he should withdraw, and if he is a student in a college or school, I shall

request him not to come forward to participate actually in this discussion.

Gentlemen, that which has drawn us here today is not a need which has

only now been felt by us. When the National Congress was founded in

India, the need had even then been felt, and the late Sir Syed Ahmed Khan,

to whose foresight and statesmanship Musalmans should always be grateful,

had made great endeavours to impress upon ‘Musalmans the belief that

their safety and prosperity lay in their keeping aloof from the Congress.’

is view has been proved to be so far right that though Sir Syed Ahmed

Khan is no more among us, the Mohammedans are still firm in that belief,

and as time passes they will feel more and more that, in order to protect and

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advance their political rights and interests, it will be necessary for them to

form their own separate organization. Five years ago, in October 1901,

some Musalmans from various provinces had assembled at Lucknow, and,

after careful consideration of the matter, they had come to the conclusion

that the time for the formation of such an organization had come, and

consequently the work of organizing such a body in the United Provinces

was going on when new events followed close upon each other in Bengal;

and impressed by the commotion caused by the direct and indirect influence

of the National Congress, and finding that the Government intended to

increase the representative element in its Legislative Councils, Musalmans,

as a community, sent a Deputation to the Viceroy to Simla last October,

and represented their needs, and the disadvantages under which their

community had been labouring, before His Excellency. All these

proceedings, together with the Viceroy’s reply to the Deputation, have

already been fully reported in the press and made familiar to the country. I

need not allude to them in detail now. On that occasion, those

representatives of the community who had assembled as members of the

Deputation had, after a careful consideration of the ways and means by

which the political rights and interests of their co-religionists could be

permanently safeguarded, decided that in December next, delegates from

different provinces should be asked to assemble at Dacca and discuss this

momentous question. In the meantime, the Nawab Bahadur of Dacca had

framed a scheme for the same purpose and circulated it for our

consideration. Today we have assembled here to settle finally the lines of

action in a question, the settlement of which has so long been postponed.

Before I proceed with the work we have in hand today, I feel it necessary to

say that, no matter what the general principles of British administration

may be, and no matter what rights may be vouchsafed by the generosity and

love of justice of the British nation to its Indian subjects, we who have not

yet forgotten the tradition of our own recent rule in India and elsewhere,

and are more intimately acquainted than other communities of India with

the proper relations which should subsist between the government and its

subjects, should accept it as a rule of our conduct that the plant of the

political rights of a subject race thrives best in the soil of loyalty, and

consequently the Musalmans should prove themselves loyal to their

government before they can ask for a recognition of any of their rights. e

Musalmans are only a fifth in number as compared with the total

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population of the country, and it is manifest that if at any remote period the

British Government ceases to exist in India, then the rule of India would

pass into the hands of that community which is nearly four times as large as

ourselves.

Now, gentlemen, let each of you consider what will be your condition if

such a situation is created in India. en, our life, our property, our honour,

and our faith will all be in great danger. When even now that a powerful

British administration is protecting its subjects, we the Musalmans have to

face most serious difficulties in safeguarding our interests from the grasping

hands of our neighbours, instances of which are not rare in any province or

district, then woe betide the time when we become the subjects of our

neighbours, and answer to them for the sins, real and imaginary, of

Aurangzeb, who lived and died two centuries ago, and other Musalman

conquerors and rulers who went before him. And to prevent the realization

of such aspirations on the part of our neighbours, the Musalmans cannot

find better and surer means than to congregate under the banner of Great

Britain, and to devote their lives and property in its protection. I must

confess, gentlemen, that we shall not be loyal to this government for any

unselfish reasons; but that it is through regard for our own lives and

property, our own honour and religion, that we are impelled to be faithful to

the government; and consequently the best security for our good faith is the

undoubted fact that our own prosperity is bound up with, and depends

upon our loyalty to British rule in India. I shall be the last person,

gentlemen, to suspect our neighbours of civil intentions, but I do not

hesitate in declaring that unless the leaders of the Congress make sincere

efforts as speedily as possible, to quell the hostility against the government

and the British race, which is fast increasing in a large body of their

followers, the necessary consequence of all that is being openly done and

said today will be that sedition would be rampant, and the Musalmans of

India would be called upon to perform the necessary duty of combating this

rebellious spirit, side by side with the British Government, more effectively

than by the mere use of words.

It is however our duty towards our neighbours that as far as our influence

may reach and our persuasion may work, we must prevent our friends and

neighbours from going on the wrong path, and as their neighbours it is

always one of our first duties to deal with them with fairness and courtesy

and, without prejudice to our legitimate rights and interests, to carry on

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with them an intimate social intercourse, maintain our sympathy, and

strictly avoid all forms of hostility towards them. I would go even a step

further, and impress upon you, gentlemen, that there is no quarrel between

us and the National Congress and Congress people, nor do we oppose or

disagree with every one of their acts and views. Indeed we are thankful to

them for the efforts which they have made in causes common to us both,

and procured certain advantages in which they and we have equally shared,

and it is quite possible that we may regard in the future a part of their

programme is perfectly justified. All the differences that now exist between

us and them, or shall exist at a future date, must fall under one or other of

three heads. Either they will relate to those demands of theirs which, if

granted, would endanger the continuance of British rule in India; or they

will relate to those efforts of theirs which are directed against our own

legitimate interests; or they will fall under the head of that want of

moderation and respect which are due from the subjects to their sovereign.

And this leads me to say that we must bear in mind that moderation and

respectfulness shall have to be the essential characteristics of any political

organization which the Musalmans assembled here today would form.

I cannot help recalling the pleasure which I experienced when, in reply to

the Address of the Musalmans’ deputation to the Viceroy, of which I had

the honour to be a member, His Excellency said that Musalmans of Eastern

Bengal had behaved with remarkable moderation and courtesy under the

most trying circumstances, and I have to congratulate the Hon’ble Nawab

Salim-ul-lah Bahadur of Dacca and the Hon’ble Khan Bahadur Syed

Nawab Ali Chowdhury on a result so eminently successful, which was

brought about by their own efforts and the great influence they wield in

Eastern Bengal: and we can all rely that this influence will be used in the

future, as it has been in the past, on the side of moderation, law, justice and

courtesy.