The Muslims of India (Allahabad, December 1930) MUHAMMAD IQBAL (1877–1938)

The Muslims of India (Allahabad, December 1930) MUHAMMAD IQBAL (1877–1938)

Muhammad Ali Jinnah invited the poet Muhammad Iqbal to preside over

the session of the Muslim League in 1930. In his address Iqbal voiced for

the first time the idea of a north-west Indian Muslim State. He thought

this to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of North-West India.

e immediate impact of Iqbal’s speech was limited since this session of the

Muslim League was poorly attended, even Jinnah could not be present. But

Iqbal’s idea was taken to its logical conclusion in a pamphlet published from

Cambridge in 1932 called Now or Never: Are We to Live or Perish for Ever?

e author was Choudhary Rahmat Ali, a thirty-five year old ‘student’ who

claimed to be the ‘founder of the Pakistan national movement’. He said he

had three associates, all three ‘students’ in Cambridge: Mohammad Aslam

Khan, Sheikh Mohammad Sadiq, and Inayatullah Khan. is was the first

time that the name Pakistan came to be publicized though the original idea

was embedded in Iqbal’s speech.

main speech

Gentlemen, I am deeply grateful to you for the honour you have conferred

upon me in inviting me to preside over the deliberations of the AlI-India

Muslim League at one of the most critical moments in the history of

Muslim political thought and activity in India. I have no doubt that in this

great assembly there are men whose political experience is far more

extensive than mine, and for whose knowledge of affairs I have the highest

respect. It will, therefore, be presumptuous on my part to claim to guide an

assembly of such men in the political decisions which they are called upon

to make today. I lead no party; I follow no leader. I have given the best part

of my life to a careful study of Islam, its law and polity, its culture, its

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history and its literature. is constant contact with the spirit of Islam, as it

unfolds itself in time, has, I think, given me a kind of insight into its

significance as a world fact. It is in the light of this insight, whatever its

value, that while assuming that the Muslims of India are determined to

remain true to the spirit of Islam, I propose, not to guide you in your

decision, but to attempt the humbler task of bringing clearly to your

consciousness the main principle which, in my opinion, should determine

the general character of these decisions.

It cannot be denied that Islam, regarded as an ethical ideal plus a certain

kind of polity—by which expression I mean a social structure regulated by a

legal system and animated by a specific ethical ideal—has been the chief

formative factor in the life-history of the Muslims of India. It has furnished

those basic emotions and loyalties which gradually unify scattered

individuals and groups, and finally transform them into a well-defined

people, possessing a moral consciousness of their own. Indeed it is no

exaggeration to say that India is perhaps the only country in the world

where Islam, as a ‘people-building’ force, has worked at its best. In India, as

elsewhere, the structure of Islam as a society is almost entirely due to the

working of Islam as a culture inspired by a specific ethical ideal. What I

mean to say is that Muslim society, with its remarkable homogeneity and

inner unity, has grown to be what it is, under the pressure of the laws and

institutions associated with the culture of Islam. e ideas set free by

European political thinking, however, are now rapidly changing the outlook

of the present generation of Muslims, both in India and outside India. Our

younger men, inspired by these ideas, are anxious to see them as living

forces in their own countries, without any critical appreciation of the facts

which have determined their evolution in Europe. In Europe, Christianity

was understood to be a purely monastic order which gradually developed

into a vast church-organization. e protest of Luther was directed against

the church-organization, not against any system of polity of a secular

nature, for the obvious reason that there was no such polity associated with

Christianity. And Luther was perfectly justified in rising in revolt against

this organization; though, I think, he did not realize that, in the peculiar

condition which obtained in Europe, his revolt would eventually mean the

complete displacement of the universal ethics of Jesus by the growth of a

plurality of national and hence narrower systems of ethics. us, the upshot

of the intellectual movement initiated by such men as Rousseau and Luther

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was the break-up of the one into a mutually ill-adjusted many, the

transformation of a human into a national outlook, requiring a more

realistic foundation, such as the notion of country, and finding expression

through varying systems of polity evolved on national lines, that is, on lines

which recognize territory as the only principle of political solidarity. If you

begin with the conception of religion as complete other-worldliness, then

what has happened to Christianity in Europe is perfectly natural. e

universal ethics of Jesus is displaced by national systems of ethics and polity.

e conclusion to which Europe is consequently driven is that religion is a

private affair of the individual and has nothing to do with what is called

man’s temporal life.

Islam does not bifurcate the unity of man into an irreconcilable duality of

spirit and matter. In Islam, God and the universe, spirit and matter, church

and state, are organic to each other. Man is not the citizen of a profane

world to be renounced in the interest of a world of spirit situated elsewhere.

To Islam matter is spirit realizing itself in space and time.

Europe uncritically accepted the duality of spirit and matter probably from

Manichaean thought. Her best thinkers are realizing this initial mistake

today, but her statesmen are indirectly forcing the world to accept it as an

unquestionable dogma. It is then, this mistaken separation of spiritual and

temporal which has largely influenced European religious and political

thought, and has resulted practically in the total exclusion of Christianity

from the life of European states. e result is a set of mutually ill-adjusted

states dominated by interests, not human but national. And these mutually

ill-adjusted states, after trampling over the moral and religious convictions

of Christianity, are today feeling the need of a federated Europe, the need

of a unity which the Christian church-organization originally gave them,

but which, instead of reconstructing in the light of Christ’s vision of human

brotherhood, they considered it fit to destroy under the inspiration of

Luther.

A Luther in the world of Islam, however, is an impossible phenomenon; for

here there is no Church-organization, similar to that of Christianity in the

Middle Ages, inviting a destroyer. In the world of Islam, we have a

universal polity whose fundamentals are believed to have been revealed, but

whose structure, owing to our legists’ want of contact with the modern

world, today stands in need of renewed power by adjustments. I do not

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know what will be the final fate of the national idea in the world of Islam.

Whether Islam will assimilate and transform it, as it has before assimilated

and transformed many ideas expressive of a different spirit, or allow a

radical transformation of its own structure by the force of this idea, is hard

to predict. Professor Wensinck of Leiden (Holland) wrote to me the other

day: ‘It seems to me that Islam is entering upon a crisis through which

Christianity has been passing for more than a century. e great difficulty is

how to save the foundations of religion when many antiquated notions have

to be given up. It seems to me scarcely possible to state what the outcome

will be for Christianity, still less what it will be for Islam.’ At the present

moment, the national idea is racializing the outlook of Muslims, and this is

materially counteracting the humanizing work of Islam. And the growth of

racial consciousness may mean the growth of standards different and even

opposed to the standards of Islam.

I hope you will pardon me for this apparently academic discussion. To

address this session of the All-India Muslim League, you have selected a

man who is not despired of Islam as a living force for freeing the outlook of

man from its geographical limitations, who believes that religion is a power

of the utmost importance in the life of individuals as well as of states, and

finally, who believes that Islam is itself Destiny and will not suffer a destiny!

Such a man cannot but look at matters from his own point of view. Do not

think that the problem I am indicating is a purely theoretical one. It is a

very living and practical problem calculated to affect the very fabric of Islam

as a system of life and conduct. On a proper solution of it alone depends

your future as a distinct cultural unit in India. Never in our history has

Islam had to stand a greater trial than the one which confronts it today. It is

open to a people to modify, reinterpret, or reject the foundational principles

of their social structure; but it is absolutely necessary for them to see clearly

what they are doing before they undertake to try a fresh experiment. Nor

should the way in which I am approaching this important problem lead

anybody to think that I intend to quarrel with those who happen to think

differently. You are a Muslim assembly, and, I suppose, anxious to remain

true to the spirit and ideals of Islam. My sole desire, therefore, is to tell you

frankly what I honestly believe to be the truth about the present situation.

In this way alone is it possible for me to illuminate, according to my light,

the avenues of your political action.

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What, then, is the problem and its implications? Is religion a private affair?

Would you like to see Islam, as a moral and political ideal, meeting the

same fate in the world of Islam as Christianity has already met in Europe?

Is it possible to retain Islam as an ethical ideal and to reject it as a polity, in

favour of national politics in which the religious attitude is not permitted to

play any part? is question becomes of special importance in India where

the Muslims happen to be in a minority. e proposition that religion is a

private individual experience is not surprising on the lips of a European. In

Europe, the conception of Christianity as a monastic order, renouncing the

world of matter and fixing its gaze entirely on the world of spirit, led, by a

logical process of thought, to the view embodied in this proposition. e

nature of the Prophet’s religious experience, as disclosed in the Quran,

however, is wholly different. It is not mere experience in the sense of a

purely biological event, happening inside the experiment and necessitating

no reactions on its social environment. It is individual experience creative of

a social order. Its immediate outcome is the fundamentals of a polity with

implicit legal concepts whose civic significance cannot be belittled merely

because their origin is revelational. e religious ideal of Islam, therefore, is

organically related to the social order which it has created. e rejection of

the one will eventually involve the rejection of the other. erefore, the

construction of a polity on national lines, if it means a displacement of the

Islamic principle of solidarity, is simply unthinkable to a Muslim. is is a

matter which, at the present moment, directly concerns the Muslims of

India. ‘Man,’ says Renan, ‘is enslaved neither by his race, nor by his religion,

nor by the course of rivers, nor by the direction of mountain ranges. A great

aggregation of men, sane of mind and warm of heart, creates a moral

consciousness which is called a nation.’ Such a formation is quite possible,

though it involves the long and arduous process of practically remaking men

and furnishing them with a fresh emotional equipment. It might have been

a fact in India, if the teaching of Kabir and the ‘Divine Faith’ of Akbar had

seized the imagination of the masses of this country. Experience, however,

shows that the various caste units and religious units in India have shown

no inclination to sink their respective individualities in a larger whole. Each

group is intensely jealous of the collective existence. e formation of the

kind of moral consciousness which constitutes the essence of a nation in

Renan’s sense, demands a price which the peoples of India are not prepared

to pay. e unity of an Indian nation, therefore, must be sought, not in the

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negation, but in the mutual harmony and co-operation of the many. True

statesmanship cannot ignore facts, however unpleasant they may be. e

only practical course is not to assume the existence of a state of things

which does not exist, but to recognize facts as they are, and to exploit them

to our greatest advantage. And it is on the discovery of Indian unity in this

direction that the fate of India as well as of Asia really depends. India is

Asia in miniature. Part of her people have cultural affinities with nations in

the East, and part with nations in the middle and west of Asia. If an

effective principle of co-operation is discovered in India, it will bring peace

and mutual goodwill to this ancient land which has suffered so long, more

because of her situation in historic space than because of any inherent

incapacity of her people. And it will at the same time solve the entire

political problem of Asia.

It is, however, painful to observe that our attempts to discover such a

principle of internal harmony have so far failed. Why have they failed?

Perhaps, we suspect each other’s intentions, and inwardly aim at dominating

each other. Perhaps, in the higher interests of mutual co-operation, we

cannot afford to part with the monopolies which circumstances have placed

in our hands, and conceal our egoism under the cloak of a nationalism,

outwardly simulating a largehearted patriotism, but inwardly as narrowminded

as a caste or tribe. Perhaps, we are unwilling to recognize that each

group has a right to free development according to its own cultural

traditions. But whatever may be the causes of our failure, I still feel hopeful.

Events seem to be tending in the direction of some sort of internal

harmony. And as far as I have been able to read the Muslim mind, I have no

hesitation in declaring that, if the principle that the Indian Muslim is

entitled to full and free development on the lines of his own culture and

tradition in his own Indian homelands, is recognized as the basis of a

permanent communal settlement, he will be ready to stake his all for the

freedom of India. e principle that each group is entitled to free

development on its own lines is not inspired by any feeling of narrow

communalism. ere are communalisms and communalisms. A community

which is inspired by a feeling of ill-will towards other communities is low

and ignoble. I entertain the highest respect for the customs, laws, religions

and social institutions of other communities. Nay, it is my duty, according

to the teaching of the Quran, even to defend their places of worship if need

be. Yet I love the communal group which is the source of my life and behaviour;

and which has formed me what I am by giving me its religion, its literature, its

thought, its culture, and thereby recreating its whole past, as a living operative

factor, in my present consciousness. Even the authors of the Nehru Report

recognize the value of this higher aspect of communalism. While discussing

the separation of Sind, they say: ‘To say from the view-point of nationalism

that no communal provinces should be created is, in a way, equivalent to

saying from the still wider international view-point that there should be no

separate nations. Both these statements have a measure of truth in them.

But the staunchest internationalist recognizes that without the fullest

national autonomy, it is extraordinarily difficult to create the international

State. So also, without the fullest cultural autonomy—and communalism in its

better aspect is culture—it will be difficult to create a harmonious nation.’

Communalism, in its higher aspect, then, is indispensable to the formation

of a harmonious whole in a country like India. e units of Indian society

are not territorial as in European countries. India is a continent of human

groups belonging to different races, speaking different languages, and

professing different religions. eir behaviour is not at all determined by a

common race-consciousness. Even the Hindus do not form a homogeneous

group. e principle of European democracy cannot be applied to India

without recognizing the fact of communal groups. e Muslim demand for

the creation of a Muslim India within India is, therefore, perfectly justified.

e resolution of the All-Parties Muslim Conference at Delhi is to my

mind wholly inspired by this noble ideal of a harmonious whole which,

instead of stifling the respective individualities of its component wholes,

affords them chances of fully working out the possibilities that may be

latent in them. And I have no doubt that this House will emphatically

endorse the Muslim demand embodied in this resolution.

Personally, I would go further than the demands embodied in it. I would like

to see the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan

amalgamated into a single State. Self-government within the British Empire, or

without the British Empire, the formation if a consolidated North-West Indian

Muslim State appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims, at least of

North-West India. e proposal was put forward before the Nehru

Committee. ey rejected it on the ground that, if carried into effect, it

would give a very unwieldy State. is is true in so far as the area is

concerned; in point of population, the State contemplated by the proposal

would be much smaller than some of the present Indian provinces. e

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exclusion of Ambala Division, and perhaps of some districts where non-

Muslims predominate, will make it less extensive and more Muslim in

population… so that the exclusion suggested will enable this consolidated

State to give a more effective protection to non-Muslim minorities within

its area. e idea need not alarm the Hindus or the British. India is the

greatest Muslim country in the world. e life of Islam as a cultural force in

this living country very largely depends on its centralization in a specified

territory. is centralization of the most living portion of the Muslims of

India, whose military and police service has, notwithstanding unfair

treatment from the British, made the British rule possible in this country,

will eventually solve the problem of India as well as of Asia. It will intensify

their sense of responsibility and deepen their patriotic feeling. us,

possessing full opportunity of development within the body-politic of India,

the North-West Indian Muslims will prove the best defenders of India

against a foreign invasion, be that invasion one of ideas or of bayonets. e

Punjab with a 56 percent Muslim population supplies 54 percent of total

combatant troops in the Indian army; and if the 19,000 Gurkhas recruited

from the independent State of Nepal are excluded, the Punjab contingent

amounts to 62 percent of the whole Indian Army. is percentage does not

take into account nearly 6,000 combatants supplied to the Indian Army by

the North-West Frontier Province and Baluchistan. From this, you can

easily calculate the possibilities of North-West Indian Muslims in regard to

the defence of India against foreign aggression. e Right Hon’ble Mr

Srinivasa Shastri thinks that the Muslim demand for the creation of

autonomous Muslim states along the North-West border is actuated by a

desire ‘to acquire means of exerting pressure in emergencies on the

Government of India’. I may frankly tell him that the Muslim demand is

not actuated by the kind of motive he imputes to us; it is actuated by a

genuine desire for free development, which is practically impossible under

the type of unitary government contemplated by the nationalist Hindu

politicians with a view to securing permanent communal dominance in the

whole of India.

Nor should the Hindus fear that the creation of autonomous Muslim states

will mean the introduction of a kind of religious rule in such states. I have

already indicated to you the meaning of the word religion, as applied to

Islam. e truth is that Islam is not a church. It is a State, conceived as a

contractual organism long, long before Rousseau ever thought of such a

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thing, and animated by an ethical ideal which regards man not as an earthrooted

creature, defined by this or that portion of the earth, but as a

spiritual being understood in terms of a social mechanism, and possessing

rights and duties as a living factor in that mechanism. e character of a

Muslim state can be judged from what e Times of India pointed out some

time ago in a leader on the Indian Banking Inquiry Committee. ‘In ancient

India’, the paper points out, ‘the State framed laws regulating the rates of

interests; but in Muslim times, although Islam clearly forbids the realization

of interest on money loaned, Indian Muslim states imposed no restrictions

on such rates.’ I therefore demand the formation of a consolidated Muslim

State in the best interests of India and Islam. For India, it means security

and peace resulting from an internal balance of power; for Islam, an

opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian Imperialism was forced

to give it, to mobilize its laws, its education, its culture, and to bring them

into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the spirit of modern

times.

us it is clear that, in view of India’s infinite variety in climates, races,

languages, creeds and social systems, the creation of autonomous states

based on the unity of language, race, history, religion and identity of

economic interests, is the only possible way to secure a stable constitutional

structure in India. e conception of federation underlying the Simon

Report necessitates the abolition of the Central Legislative Assembly as a

popular assembly and makes it an assembly of the representatives of federal

states. It further demands a redistribution of territory on the lines which I

have indicated. And the report does recommend both. I give my wholehearted

support to this view of the matter; but I venture to suggest that the

redistribution recommended in the Simon Report must fulfil two

conditions. It must precede the introduction of the new constitution, and it

must be so devised as to finally solve the communal problem. Proper

redistribution will make the question of joint and separate electorates

automatically disappear from the constitutional controversy of India. It is

the present structure of the provinces that is largely responsible for this

controversy. e Hindu thinks that separate electorates are contrary to the

spirit of true nationalism, because he understands the word ‘nation’ to mean

a kind of universal amalgamation in which no communal entity ought to

retain its private individuality. Such a state of things, however, does not

exist. Nor is it desirable that it should exist. India is a land of racial and

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religious variety. Add to this the general economic inferiority of the

Muslims, their enormous debt, especially in the Punjab, and their

insufficient majorities in some of the provinces, as at present constituted,

and you will begin to see clearly the meaning of our anxiety to retain

separate electorates. In such a country and in such circumstances, territorial

electorates cannot secure adequate representation of all interests, and must

inevitably lead to the creation of an oligarchy. e Muslims of India can

have no objection to purely territorial electorates if provinces are

demarcated so as to secure comparatively homogenous communities,

possessing linguistic, racial, cultural, and religious unity.

But in so far as the question of the powers of the Central Federal State is

concerned, there is a subtle difference of motive in the constitutions

proposed by the Pandits of India and the Pandits of England. e Pandits

of India do not disturb the central authority as it stands at present. All that

they desire is that this authority should become fully responsible to the

Central Legislature which they maintain intact, and where their majority

will become further reinforced on the nominated element ceasing to exist.

e Pandits of England, on the other hand, realizing that democracy in the

Centre tends to work contrary to their interests and is likely to absorb the

whole power now in their hands, in case a further advance is made towards

responsible government, have shifted the experiment of democracy from the

Centre to the provinces. No doubt, they introduce the principle of

federation and appear to have made a beginning by making certain

proposals, yet their evaluation of this principle is determined by

considerations wholly different from those which determine its value in the

eyes of Muslim India. e Muslims demand federation because it is preeminently

a solution of India’s most difficult problem, that is, the communal

problem. e Royal Commissioner’s view of federation, though sound in

principle, does not seem to aim at responsible government for federal states.

Indeed, it does not go beyond providing means of escape from the situation

which the introduction of democracy in India has created for the British,

and wholly disregards the communal problem by leaving it where it was.

us it is clear that, in so far as real federation is concerned, the Simon

Report virtually negatives the principle of federation in its true significance.

e Nehru Report, realizing a Hindu majority in the Central Assembly,

reaches for a unitary form of government, because such an institution

secures Hindu dominance throughout India; the Simon Report retains the

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present British dominance behind the thin veneer of an unreal federation,

partly because the British are naturally unwilling to part with the power

they have so long wielded, and partly because it is possible for them, in the

absence of an inter-communal understanding in India, to make out a

plausible case for the retention of that power in their own hands. To my

mind a unitary form of government is simply unthinkable in a selfgoverning

India. What is called ‘residuary powers’ must be left entirely to

self-governing states, the Central Federal State exercising only those powers

which are expressly vested in it by the free consent of federal states. I would

never advise the Muslims of India to agree to a system, whether of British

or of Indian origin, which virtually negatives the principle of true

federation, or fails to recognize them as a distinct political entity.

e necessity for a structural change in the Central Government was

probably seen long before the British discovered the most effective means

for introducing this change. at is why, at a rather late stage, it was

announced that the participation of the Indian Princes in the Round-Table

Conference was essential. It was a kind of surprise to the people of India,

particularly the minorities, to see the Indian Princes at the Round-Table

Conference dramatically expressing their willingness to join an All-India

Federation, and, as a result of their declaration, the Hindu delegates—

uncompromising advocates of a unitary form of Government—quietly

agreeing to the evolution of a federal scheme. Even Mr Shastri, who, only a

few days before, had severely criticized Sir John Simon for recommending a

federal scheme for India, suddenly became a convert and admitted his

conversion in the plenary session of the Conference—thus offering the

Prime Minister of England an occasion for one of his wittiest observations

in his concluding speech. All this has meaning both for the British, who

have sought the participation of the Indian Princes, and the Hindus, who

have unhesitatingly accepted the evolution, of an All-India Federation. e

truth is that the participation of the Indian princes—among whom only a

few are Muslims—in a federation scheme serves a double purpose. On the

one hand, it serves as an all-important factor in maintaining the British

power in India practically as it is, on the other hand, it gives an

overwhelming majority to the Hindus in an All-India Federal Assembly.

It appears to me that the Hindu-Muslim differences regarding the ultimate

form of the Central Government are being cleverly exploited by British

politicians through the agency of the princes, who see in the scheme

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prospects of better security for their despotic rule. If the Muslims silently

agree to any such scheme, it will simply hasten their end as a political entity

in India. e policy of the Indian Federation thus created will be practically

controlled by Hindu princes forming the largest group in the Central

Federal Assembly. ey will always lend their support to the Crown in

matters of Imperial concern; and in so far as internal administration of the

country is concerned, they will help in maintaining and strengthening the

supremacy of the Hindus. In other words, the scheme appears to be aiming

at a kind of understanding between Hindu India and British Imperialism—

you perpetuate me in India, and in return, I give you a Hindu oligarchy to

keep all other Indian communities in perpetual subjection. If, therefore, the

British Indian provinces are not transformed into really autonomous States,

the princes’ participation in a scheme of Indian federation will be

interpreted only as a dexterous move on the part of British politicians to

satisfy, without parting with any real power, all parties concerned: Muslims

with the word ‘federation’; Hindus with a majority in the Centre; and

British Imperialists whether Tory or Labourite—with the substance of real

power.

e number of Hindu states in India is far greater than of Muslim states;

and it remains to be seen how the Muslim demand for 33 percent seats in

the Central Federal Assembly is to be met in a House or Houses

constituted of representatives taken from British India as well as from

Indian States. I hope the Muslim delegates are fully aware of the

implications of the federal scheme as discussed in the Round Table

Conference. e question of Muslim representation in the proposed All-

India Federation has not yet been discussed. ‘e interim report’, says

Reuter’s summary, ‘contemplates two chambers in the Federal Legislature—

each containing representatives both of British India and the states, the

proportion of which will be a matter of subsequent consideration under the

heads which have not yet been referred to the subcommittee.’ In my

opinion, the question of proportion is of the utmost importance, and ought

to have been considered simultaneously with the main question of the

structure of the Assembly.

e best course, I think, would have been to start with a British Indian

federation only. A federal scheme born of an unholy union between

democracy and despotism cannot but keep British India in the same vicious

circle of a unitary Central Government. Such a unitary form may be of the

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greatest advantage to the British, to the majority community in British

India, and to the Indian princes; it can be of no advantage to the Muslims

unless they get majority rights in five out of eleven Indian provinces with

full residuary powers, and a one-third share of seats in the total House of

the Federal Assembly. In so far as the attainment of sovereign powers by the

British Indian Provinces is concerned, the position of H.H. the Ruler of

Bhopal, Sir Akbar Hydari and Mr Jinnah is unassailable. In view, however,

of the participation of the princes in the Indian Federation, we must now

see our demand for representation in the British Indian Assembly in a new

light. e question is not one of the Muslim share in a British Indian

Assembly, but one which relates to representation of British Indian

Muslims in an All-India Federal Assembly. Our demand for 33 percent

must now be taken as a demand for the same proportion in the All-India

Federal Assembly, exclusive of the share allotted to the Muslim States

entering the Federation.

e other difficult problem which confronts the successful working of a

Federal system in India is the problem of India’s defence. In their discussion

of this problem, the Royal Commissioners have marshalled all the

deficiencies of India in order to make out a case for Imperial administration

of the army. ‘India and Britain’, say the Commissioners, ‘are so related that

India’s defence cannot now, or in any future which is within sight, be

regarded as a matter of purely Indian concern. e control and direction of

such an army must rest in the hands of agents of the Imperial Government.

Now, does it necessarily follow from this that further progress towards the

realization of responsible government in British India is barred until the

work of defence can be adequately discharged without the help of British

officers and British troops? As things are, there is a block on the line of

constitutional advance. All hopes of evolution in the Central Government

towards the ultimate goal described in the declaration of August 20, 1917,

are in danger of being indefinitely frustrated if the attitude illustrated by the

Nehru Report is maintained, that any future change involves putting the

administration of the army under the authority of an elected Indian

Legislature.’ Further, to fortify their argument, they emphasize the fact of

competing religious and rival races of widely different capacity, and try to

make the problem look insoluble by remarking that ‘the obvious fact that

India is not, in the ordinary and natural sense, a single nation is nowhere

made more plain than in considering the difference between the martial

f I d d h ’  f f h h b

races of India and the rest.’ ese features of the question have been

emphasized in order to demonstrate that the British are not only keeping

India secure from foreign menace, but are also the ‘neutral guardians’ of

internal security. However, in federated India, as I understand federation,

the problem will have only one aspect, that is, external defence. Apart from

provincial armies necessary for maintaining internal peace, the Indian

Federal Congress can maintain, on the North-West Frontier, a strong

Indian Frontier Army composed of units recruited from all provinces and

officered by efficient and experienced military men taken from all

communities. I know that India is not in possession of efficient military

officers, and this fact is exploited by the Royal Commissioners in the

interest of an argument for Imperial administration. On this point, I cannot

but quote another passage from the Report which, to my mind, furnishes

the best argument against the position taken up by the Commissioners. ‘At

the present moment,’ says the Report, ‘no Indian holding the King’s

Commission is of higher army rank than a captain. ere are, we believe, 39

captains of whom 25 are in ordinary regimental employ. Some of them are

of an age which would prevent their attaining much higher rank, even if

they passed the necessary examination before retirement. Most of these

have not been through Sandhurst, but got their Commissions during the

Great War; now, however genuine may be the desire and however earnest

the endeavour to work for the transformation, the overriding conditions so

forcibly expressed by the Skeen Committee (whose members, apart from

the Chairman and the Army Secretary, were Indian gentlemen), in the

words “Progress…must be contingent upon success being secured at each

stage and upon military efficiency being maintained throughout”, must in

any case render such development measured and slow. A higher command

cannot be evolved at short notice out of existing cadres of Indian officers, all

of junior rank and limited experience. Not until the slender trickle of

suitable Indian recruits for the officer class—and we earnestly desire an

increase in their numbers—flows in much greater volume, not until

sufficient Indians have attained the experience and training requisite to

provide all the officers for, at any rate, some Indian regiments, not until

such units have stood the only test which can possibly determine their

efficiency, and not until Indian officers have qualified by a successful army

career for high command, will it be possible to develop the policy of

Indianization to a point which will bring a completely Indianized army

h h E h l b f h ld b

within sight. Even then years must elapse before the process could be

completed.’

Now I venture to ask who is responsible for the present state of things? Is it

due to some inherent incapacity of our martial races or to the slowness of

the process of military training? e military capacity of our martial races is

undeniable. e process of military training may be slow as compared to

other processes of human training. I am no military expert to judge this

matter. But as a layman, I feel that the argument, as stated, assumes the

process to be practically endless. is means perpetual bondage for India,

and makes it all the more necessary that the Frontier Army, as suggested by

the Nehru Report, be entrusted to the charge of a committee of defence the

personnel of which may be settled by mutual understanding.

Again it is significant that the Simon Report has given extraordinary

importance to the question of India’s land frontier, but has made only

passing reference to its naval position. India has doubtless had to face

invasions from her land frontiers; but it is obvious that her present master

took possession of her on account of her defenceless sea coast. A selfgoverning

and free India, will, in these days, have to take greater care of her

sea coast than her land frontiers.

I have no doubt that if a Federal Government is established, Muslim

Federal States will willingly agree, for purposes of India’s defence, to the

creation of neutral Indian military and naval forces. Such a neutral military

force for the defence of India, was a reality in the days of Mughal rule.

Indeed, in the time of Akbar, the Indian frontier was, on the whole,

defended by armies officered by Hindu generals. I am perfectly sure that the

scheme of a neutral Indian army, based on a federated India, will intensify

Muslim patriotic feeling, and finally set at rest the suspicion, if any, of

Indian Muslims joining Muslims from beyond the frontier in the event of

an invasion.

I have thus tried briefly to indicate the way in which the Muslims of India

ought, in my opinion, to look at the two most important constitutional

problems of India. A redistribution of British India calculated to secure a

permanent solution of the communal problem is the main demand of the

Muslims of India. If, however, the Muslim demand for a territorial solution

of the communal problem is ignored, then I support, as emphatically as

possible, the Muslim demands repeatedly urged by the All-India Muslim

L d h All I d M l C f  M l f I d

League and the All-India Muslim Conference. e Muslims of India

cannot agree to any constitutional changes which affect their majority

rights, to be secured by separate electorates, in the Punjab and Bengal, or

fail to guarantee them 33 percent representation in any Central Legislature.

ere were two pitfalls into which Muslim political leaders fell. e first

was the repudiated Lucknow Pact, which originated in a false view of

Indian nationalism, and deprived the Muslims of India from chances of

acquiring any political power in India. e second is the narrow-visioned

sacrifice of Islamic solidarity in the interests of what may be called ‘Punjab

Ruralism’, resulting in a proposal which virtually reduces the Punjab

Muslims to the position of a minority. It is the duty of the League to

condemn both the Pact and the proposal.

e Simon Report does great injustice to the Muslims in not

recommending a statutory majority for the Punjab and Bengal. It would

either make the Muslims stick to the Lucknow Pact or agree to a scheme of

joint electorates. e Despatch of the Government of India on the Simon

Report admits that since the publication of that document, the Muslim

community has not expressed its willingness to accept any of the alternatives

proposed by the Report. e Despatch recognizes that it may be a

legitimate grievance to deprive the Muslims in the Punjab and Bengal of

representation in the Councils in proportion to their population merely

because of weightage allowed to Muslim minorities elsewhere. But the

Despatch of the Government of India fails to correct the injustice of the

Simon Report. In so far as the Punjab is concerned—and this is the more

crucial point—it endorses the so-called ‘carefully balanced scheme’ worked

out by the official members of the Punjab Government, which gives the

Punjab Muslims a majority of two over the Hindus and Sikhs combined,

and a proportion of 49 percent of the House as a whole. It is obvious that

the Punjab Muslims cannot be satisfied with less than a clear majority in

the total house. However, Lord Irwin and his Government do recognize

that the justification of communal electorates for majority communities

would not cease unless and until, by the extension of franchise, their voting

strength more correctly reflects their population; and further, unless a twothird

majority of the Muslim members in a Provincial Council unanimously

agree to surrender the right of separate representation. I cannot, however,

understand why the Government of India, having recognized the legitimacy

f h M l h h d h d

of the Muslim grievance, have not had the courage to recommend a

statutory majority for the Muslims in the Punjab and Bengal.

Nor can the Muslims of India agree to any such changes which fail to create

at least Sind as a separate province, and treat the North-West Frontier

Province as a province of inferior political status. I see no reason why Sind

should not be united with Baluchistan and turned into a separate province.

It has nothing in common with the Bombay Presidency. In point of life and

civilization, the Royal Commissioners find it more akin to Mesopotamia

and Arabia than India. e Muslim geographer Masudi noticed this

kinship long ago, when he said, ‘Sind is a country nearer to the dominions

of Islam.’ e first Omayyad ruler is reported to have said of Egypt: ‘Egypt

has her back towards Africa and her face towards Arabia.’ With necessary

alternations, the same remark describes the exact situation of Sind. She has

her back towards India and her face towards Central Asia. Considering

further the nature of her agricultural problems, which can invoke no

sympathy from the Bombay Government, and her infinite commercial

possibilities, dependent on the inevitable growth of Karachi into a second

metropolis in India, it is unwise to keep her attracted to a Presidency which,

though friendly today, is likely to become a rival at no distant period.

Financial difficulties, we are told, stand in the way of separation. I do not

know of any definite authoritative pronouncement on the matter. But,

assuming there are such difficulties, I see no reason why the Government of

India should not give temporary financial help to a promising province in

her struggle for independent progress.

As to the North-West Frontier Province, it is painful to note that the Royal

Commissioners have practically denied that the people of this province have

any right to reform. ey fall far short of the Bray Committee, and the

Council recommended by them is merely a screen to hide the autocracy of

the Chief Commissioner. e inherent right of the Afghan to light a

cigarette is curtailed merely because he happens to be living in a powder

house. e Royal Commissioners’ epigrammatic argument is pleasant

enough, but far from convincing. Political reform is light, not fire; and to

light, every human being is entitled, whether he happens to live in a powder

house or a coal mine. Brave, shrewd and determined to suffer for his

legitimate aspirations the Afghan is sure to resent any attempt to deprive

him of opportunities of full self-development. To keep such a people

contented is in the best interest of both England and India. What has

l h d h f h l f

recently happened in that unfortunate province is the result of a stepmotherly

treatment shown to the people since the introduction of the

principle of self-government in the rest of India. I only hope that British

statesmanship will not obscure its view of the situation by hoodwinking

itself into the belief that the present unrest of the province is due to any

extraneous causes.

e recommendation for the introduction of a measure of reform in the

NWFP made in the Government of India’s Despatch is also unsatisfactory.

No doubt the despatch goes further than the Simon Report in

recommending a sort of representative Council and a semi-representative

Cabinet, but it fails to treat this important Muslim province on an equal

footing with other Indian provinces. Indeed, the Afghan is by instinct more

fitted for democratic institutions than any other people in India.

I think I am now called upon to make a few observations on the Round

Table Conference. Personally, I do not feel optimistic as to the results of

this conference. It was hoped that, away from the actual scene of communal

strife and a changed atmosphere, better counsels would prevail, and a

genuine settlement of the differences between the two major communities

of India would bring India’s freedom within sight. Actual events, however,

tell a different tale. Indeed, the discussion of the communal question in

London has demonstrated, more clearly than ever, the essential disparity

between the two great cultural units of India. Yet the Prime Minister of

England apparently refuses to see that the problem of India is international.

He is reported to have said that ‘his Government would find it difficult to

submit to Parliament proposals for the maintenance of separate electorates,

since joint electorates were much more in accordance with British

democratic sentiment.’ Obviously he does not see that the model of British

democracy cannot be of any use in a land of many nations; and that a

system of separate electorates is only a poor substitute for a territorial

solution of the problem. Nor is the Minorities Sub-Committee likely to

reach a satisfactory settlement. e whole question will have to go before

the British Parliament; and we can only hope that the keen-sighted

representatives of the British nation, unlike most of our Indian politicians,

will be able to pierce through the surface of things, and clearly see the true

fundamentals of peace and security in a country like India. To base a

Constitution on the concept of a homogeneous India, or to apply to India

principles dictated by British democratic sentiments, is unwittingly to

h f l A f I h ll b h

prepare her for a civil war. As far as I can see, there will be no peace in the

country until the various peoples that constitute India are given

opportunities of free self-development on modern lines, without abruptly

breaking with their past.

I am glad to be able to say that our Muslim delegates fully realize the

importance of a proper solution of what I call India’s international problem.

ey are perfectly justified in pressing for a solution of the communal

question before the responsibility in the Central Government is finally

settled. No Muslim politician should be sensitive to the taunt embodied in

that propaganda word ‘communalism’—expressly devised to ‘exploit what

the Prime Minister calls British democratic sentiments,’ and to mislead

England into assuming a state of things which does not really exist in India.

Great interests are at stake. We are 70 millions, and far more homogeneous

than any other people in India. Indeed, the Muslims of India are the only

Indian people who can fitly be described as a nation in the modern sense of

the word. e Hindus, though ahead of us in almost all respects, have not

yet been able to achieve the kind of homogeneity which is necessary for a

nation, and which Islam has given you as a free gift. No doubt they are

anxious to become a nation, but the process of becoming a nation is a kind

of travail, and in the case of Hindu India, involves a complete overhauling

of her social structure. Nor should the Muslim leaders and politicians allow

themselves to be carried away by the subtle but fallacious arguments that

Turkey and Persia and other Muslim countries are progressing on national,

i.e., territorial, lines. e Muslims of India are differently situated. e

countries of Islam outside India are practically wholly Muslim in

population. e minorities there belong, in the language of the Quran, to

the ‘people of the Book.’ ere are no social barriers between Muslims and

‘the people of the Book’… Indeed the first practical step that Islam took

towards the realization of a final combination of humanity was to call upon

peoples possessing practically the same ethical ideal to come forward and

combine. e Quran declares, ‘O people of the Book! Come, let us join

together on the “word” (Unity of God) that is common to us all.’ e wars

of Islam and Christianity, and, later, European aggression in its various

forms, could not allow the infinite meaning of this verse to work itself out

in the world of Islam. Today, it is being gradually realized in the countries

of Islam in the shape of what is called ‘Muslim Nationalism’.

I h dl f dd h h l f h f

It is hardly necessary for me to add that the sole test of the success of our

delegates is the extent to which they are able to get the non-Muslim

delegates of the Conference to agree to our demands as embodied in the

Delhi Resolution. If these demands are not agreed to, then a question of a

very great and far-reaching importance will arise for the community. en

will arrive the moment for independent and concerted political action by

the Muslims of India. If you are at all serious about your ideals and

aspirations, you must be ready for such action. Our leading men have done

a good deal of political thinking, and their thought has certainly made us,

more or less, sensitive to the forces which are now shaping the destinies of

peoples in India and outside India. But, I ask, has this thinking prepared us

for the kind of action demanded by the situation which may arise in the

near future? Let me tell you frankly that at the present moment, the

Muslims of India are suffering from two evils. e first is the want of

personalities. Sir Malcolm Hailey and Lord Irwin were perfectly correct in

their diagnosis, when they told the Aligarh University that the community

had failed to produce leaders. By leaders, I mean men who, by divine gift or

experience, possess a keen perception of the spirit and destiny of Islam,

along with an equally keen perception of the trend of modern history. Such

men are really the driving forces of a people, but they are God’s gift and

cannot be made to order. e second evil from which the Muslims of India

are suffering is that the community is fast losing what is called the herd

instinct. is makes it possible for individuals and groups to start

independent careers without contributing to the general thought and

activity of the community. We are doing today in the domain of politics

what we have been doing for centuries in the domain of religion. But

sectional bickerings in religion do not do much harm to our solidarity. ey

at least indicate an interest in what makes the sole principle of our structure

as a people. Moreover, this principle is so broadly conceived that it is almost

impossible for a group to become rebellious to the extent of wholly

detaching itself from the general body of Islam. But diversity in political

action, at a moment when concerted action is needed in the best interests of

the very life of our people, may prove fatal. How shall we, then, remedy

these two evils? e remedy of the first evil is not in our hands. As to the

second evil, I think it is possible to discover a remedy. I have got definite

views on the subject; but I think it is proper to postpone their expression till

the apprehended situation actually arises. In case it does arise, leading

M l f ll h d f ll h h

Muslims of all shades of opinion will have to meet together, not to pass

resolutions, but finally to decide the Muslim attitude and to show the path

to tangible achievement. In this address, I mention this alternative only

because I wish that you may keep it in mind, and give some serious thought

to it in the meantime.

Gentlemen, I have finished. In conclusion, I cannot but impress upon you

that the present crisis in the history of India demands complete

organization and unity of will and purpose in the Muslim community, both

in your own interest as a community, and in the interest of India as a whole.

e political bondage of India has been and is a source of infinite misery to

the whole of Asia. It has suppressed the spirit of the East, and wholly

deprived her of that joy of self expression which once made her the creator

of a great and glorious culture. We have a duty towards India where we are

destined to live and die. We have a duty towards Asia, especially Muslim

Asia. And since seventy millions of Muslims in a single country constitute a

far more valuable asset to Islam than all the countries of Muslim Asia put

together, we must look at the Indian problem, not only from the Muslim

point of view, but also from the standpoint of the Indian Muslim as such.

Our duty towards Asia and India cannot be loyally performed without an

organized will fixed on a definite purpose. In your own interest, as a

political entity among other political entities of India, such an equipment is

an absolute necessity.

Our disorganized condition has already confused political issues vital to the

life of the community. I am not hopeless of an intercommunal

understanding, but I cannot conceal from you the feeling that in the near

future our community may be called upon to adopt an independent line of

action to cope with the present crisis. And an independent line of political

action in such a crisis, is possible only to a determined people, possessing a

will focalized by a single purpose.

Is it possible for you to achieve the organic wholeness of a unified will? Yes,

it is. Rise above sectional interests and private ambitions, and learn to

determine the value of your individual and collective action, however

directed on material ends, in the light of the ideal which you are supposed

to represent. Pass from matter to spirit. Matter is diversity; spirit is light,

life and unity. One lesson I have learnt from the history of Muslims. At

critical moments in their history, it is Islam that has saved Muslims and not

If d f I l d k f

vice versa. If today you focus your vision on Islam and seek inspiration from

the ever-vitalizing idea embodied in it, you will be only reassembling your

scattered forces, regaining your lost integrity, and thereby saving yourself

from total destruction. One of the profoundest verses in the Holy Quran

teaches us that the birth and rebirth of the whole of humanity is like the

birth and rebirth of a single individual. Why cannot you, who as a people,

can well claim to be the first practical exponents of this superb conception

of humanity, live and move and have your being as a single individual? I do

not wish to mystify anybody when I say that things in India are not what

they appear to be. e meaning of this, however, will dawn upon you only

when you have achieved a real collective ego to look at them. In the words

of the Quran, ‘Hold fast to yourself; no one who erreth can hurt you,

provided you are well-guided.’ (5: 104).