Education -- India; India -- Politics and government -- 1857-1919; India -- Social conditions
In the first place they must co-operate as representative
Indian citizens with other Indians in advancing the well-being
of the country by working wholeheartedly for the
spread of education, for the establishment of free and universal
primary education, for the promotion of commerce and
industry, for the improvement of agriculture by the establishment
of co-operative credit and distribution societies, and
for the development of the natural resources of India. Here,
indeed, is a wide field of work for Hindus and Mahomedans
acting together. In the second place our representatives
must be ready to co-operate with the Hindus and all other
sections of society in securing for them all those advantages
that serve their peculiar conditions and help their social
welfare, for although the two sister communities have developed
on different lines, each suffers from some peculiar
weakness in addition to the misfortunes common to
general economic and educational backwardness. And then
our representatives must watch and promote social measures
required exclusively for the benefit of their Moslem co-religionists,
with the co-operation, we hope, of the Hindu
members, for we too have needs that are not known to them
and which we alone can fully understand.
No language could be more generous or more statesmanlike. The Aga Khan
doubtless realizes that, whatever the more or less remote future may
have in store for the two communities, their increasing antagonism in
consequence of the aggressive tendencies, displayed by Hindu
"nationalism" during the last few years is pregnant with immediate
danger, and nowhere more so than in the Punjab where he was speaking.
Not only have the preachers of the Arya Samaj, taking their cue from the
writings of their apostle Dayanand, frequently indulged, both in the
Press and on the platform, in outrageous attacks upon the Mahomedans'
religion, but the militant Hindus have visited upon the Mahomedans their
refusal to join in an anti-British agitation by enforcing against them a
commercial and social boycott, none the less oppressive and damaging
because it is not openly proclaimed. The bitterness thus engendered
found vent in serious riots this year at Peshawar, just as it did in
Eastern Bengal, when the boycott campaign there was at its height. Even
in Hyderabad, the capital of the Nizam's dominions, where, under the
wise administration of a great Mahomedan ruler whose Prime Minister is a
Hindu, the relations between Moslem and Hindu have hitherto been quite
harmonious, a change is gradually making itself felt under the
inspiration of a small group of Bengali Hindus who have brought with
them the Nationalist cry of "Arya for the Aryan." The animosity which
has always existed between the Mahomedans and the Hindus, especially
amongst the lower orders, has been a constant source of anxiety to
Anglo-Indian administrators. As far as it springs from the clash of
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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