Vol. 8 · pages 456–460

431 PAKISTAN : APPENDICES We fully realise and appreciate the incalculable benefits conferred by British rule on the teeming millions belonging to diverse races and professing diverse religions who form the population of the vast continent of India, and have every reason to be grateful for the peace, security, personal freedom and liberty of worship that we now enjoy. Further, from the wise and enlightened character of the Government, we have every reasonable ground for anticipating that these benefits will be progressive, and that India will in the future occupy an increasingly important position in the comity of nations. “The representatives of the Mahomedan community who were to present the address to His Excellency the Viceroy this morning at Viceregal Lodge collected in the Ballroom at 11 A.M. They numbered thirty-five and were seated in a horse-shoe facing His Excellency’s chair. Precisely at 11 A.M. Lord Minto, preceded by his staff, entered the room, all standing to receive him. His Excellency was taken round and personally introduced to each member by the Aga Khan. The Khalifa from Patiala then asked permission for the presentation of the address and the Aga Khan then advanced and facing His Excellency read the petition given below, all the representatives standing.” Those who formed the deputation were:—His Highness Aga Sir Sultan Mahomed Shah Aga Khan, G.C.I.E., (Bombay), Shahzadah Bakhtiar Shah, O.I.E., Head of the Mysore family, Calcutta; Hon’ble Malik Omar Hayat Khan, CIE., Lieutenant 17th Prince of Wales’ Tiwana Lancers, Tiwana, Shahpur (Punjab) ; Hon’ble Khan Bahadur Mian Mohomed Shah Din, Bar.-at-Law, Lahore; Hon’ble Maulvi Sharfuddin, Bar.-at-Law, Patna; Khan Bahadur Syed Nawab Ali Chowdhury, Mymensingh (Eastern Bengal) ; Nawab Bahadur Syed Amir Husan Khan, C.I.E., Calcutta; Naseer Hussain Khan Khayal, Calcutta; Khan Bahadur Mirza Shujaat Ali Beg; Persian Consul-General, Murshidabad, Calcutta (Bengal) ; Syed Ali Imam, Bar.-at-Law, Patna (Behar); Nawab Sarfraz Husain Khan; Patna (Behar) ; Khan Bahadur Ahmad Mohiuddin Khan, Stipendiary of the Carnatic family (Madras); Maulvi Rafiuddin Ahmed, Bar.-at-Law (Bombay) ; Ebrahimbhoy Adamji Peerbhoy, General Merchant (Bombay) ; Mr. Abdur Rahim, Bar.-at-Law, Calcutta; Syed Allahdad Shah, Special Magistrate and Vice-President, Zamindars’ Association, Khairpore (Sindh) ; Maulana H. M. Malak, Head of Mehdi Bazh Bohras, Nagpur (Central Provinces) ; Mushir-ud-Doula Mumtazal-ul-Mulk Khan Bahadur Khalifa Syed Mohamad Hussain, Member of the State Council of Patiala (Punjab); Khan Bahadur Col. Abdul Majid Khan, Foreign Minister, Patiala (Punjab); Khan Bahadur Khwaja Kusuf Shah, Hony. Magistrate, Amritsar (Punjab); Mian Mahomed Shafi, Bar.-at-Law, Lahore (Punjab) ; Shaikh Ghulam Sadik, Amritsar (Punjab) ; Hakim Mohamed Ajmul Khan, Delhi (Punjab); Munshi Ihtisham Ali, Zamindar and Rais, Kakori (Oudh) ; Syed Nabi Ullah, Bar.-atLaw, Rais Kara, Dist. Allahabad; Maulvi Syed Karamat Husain, Bar.-at-Law, Allahabad; Syed Abdulraoof, Bar.-at-Law, Allahabad; Munshi Abdur Salam Khan, retired Sub-Judge, Rampur; Khan Bahadur Mohamad Muzammil Ullah Khan, Zamindar, Secretary, Zamindars’ Association, United Provinces, and Joint

432 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES One of the most important characteristics of British policy in India is the increasing deference that has so far as possible been paid from the first to the views and wishes of the people of the country in matters affecting their interests, with due regard always to the diversity of race and religion which forms such an important feature of all Indian progress. Claims of the Community Beginning with the confidential and unobtrusive method of consulting influential members of important communities in different parts of the country, this principle was gradually extended by the recognition of the right of recognised political or Secretary, M. A. O. College Trustees, Aligarh : Haji Mohamed Ismail Khan, Zamindar, Aligarh; Sahabzadas Aftab Ahmad Khan, Bar.-at-Law, Aligarh ; Maulvi Mushtaq Hussain, Rais, Amroha, United Provinces; Maulvi Habibul Rahaman Khan, Zamindar, Bhikhanpur, United Provinces; Nawab Syed Sirdar Ali Khan, son of the late Nawab Sirdar Diler-Ul-mulk Bahadur, C.I.E., Hyderabad (Deccan); Maulvi Syed Mahdee Ally Khan (Muhsin-ul-Mulk), Hony. Secretary. M. A. O. College, Aligarh, Etawah, United Provinces. The following gentlemen intended to have attended the presentation of the address to the Viceroy, but were prevented by illness or other causes:— Hon’ble Nawab Khwaja , Salimulla, Nawab of Dacca, Hon’ble Nawab Haji Mohamed Fateh Ali Khan, Qazel-bash, Lahore; Hon’ble Syed Zainul-Edros, Surat, Khan Bahadur Kasim Mir Ghayasuddin Peerzadah of Broach: Khan Bahadur Raja Jahandad of Hazara and Shaik Shahid Hussain of Lucknow. The correspondent of the Telegraph adds:— Lady Minto, the Ladies Elliot and the Hon. Mrs. Hewett were present at the function. At the presentation of the address today most of the deputies wore ordinary European dress with a fez as distinguishing head-dress, but the Patiala representatives, Lieut. Hon. Malik Omar Hayat Khan, Khan Bahadur Ali Choudhary, Khan Bahadur Ahmad Mohiuddin Khan and a few others, were in Indian dress, while a few others wore uniforms with gold lace. His Excellency the Viceroy was in morning dress with the Order of the Star of India on his frock coat. GARDEN PARTY AT VICEREGAL LODGE This afternoon a garden party was held in the Viceregal Lodge grounds when the Mahomedan representatives were received by the Viceroy, who spoke with each deputy individually. The Hon. Mr. Baker, Financial Secretary, has invited the following Bengal gentlemen of the Mahomedan deputation to lunch tomorrow:— Nawab Amir Hosein, Mirza Shujat Ali, Nawab Nasar Hossein, Hon. Shurfuddin and Ali Imam.

433 PAKISTAN : APPENDICES commercial organisations to communicate to the authorities their criticisms and views on measures of public importance, and finally by the nomination and election of direct representatives of the people in Municipalities, District Boards, and above all in the Legislative Chambers of the country. This last element is, we understand, about to be dealt with by the Committee appointed by your Excellency with the view of giving it further extension, and it is with reference mainly to our claim to a fair share in such extended representation and some other matters of importance affecting the interests of our community, that we have ventured to approach your Excellency on the present occasion. Past Traditions The Mahomedans of India number, according to the census taken in the year 1901, over sixty-two millions or between onefifth and one-fourth of the total population of His Majesty’s Indian dominions, and if a reduction be made for the uncivilised portions of the community enumerated under the heads of animist and other minor religions, as well as for those classes who are ordinarily classified as Hindus but properly speaking are not Hindus at all, the proportion of Mahomedans to the Hindu majority becomes much larger. We therefore desire to submit that under any system of representation extended or limited a community in itself more numerous than the entire population of any first class European power except Russia may justly lay claim to adequate recognition as an important factor in the State. We venture, indeed, with your Excellency’s permission to go a step further, and urge that the position accorded to the Mahomedan community in any kind of representation, direct or indirect, and in all other ways affecting their status and influence should be commensurate, not merely with their numerical strength, but also with their political importance and the value of the contribution which they make to the defence of the empire, and we also hope that your Excellency will in this connection be pleased to give due consideration to the position which they occupied in India a little more than hundred years ago and of which the traditions have naturally not faded from their minds.

434 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES The Mahomedans of India have always placed implicit reliance on the sense of justice and love of fair dealing that have characterised their rulers, and have in consequence abstained from pressing their claims by methods that might prove at all embarrassing, but earnestly as we desire that the Mahomedans of India should not in the future depart from that excellent and time-honoured tradition, recent events have stirred up feelings, especially among the younger generation of Mahomedans, which might, in certain circumstances and under certain contingencies easily pass beyond the control of temperate counsel and sober guidance. We therefore pray that the representations we herewith venture to submit, after a careful consideration of the views and wishes of a large number of our co-religionists in all parts of India, may be favoured with your Excellency’s earnest attention. European representative institutions We hope your Excellency will pardon our stating at the outset that representative institutions of the European type are new to the Indian people; many of the most thoughtful members of our community in fact consider that the greatest care, forethought and caution will be necessary if they are to be successfully adapted to the social, religious and political conditions obtaining in India, and that in the absence of such care and caution their adoption is likely, among other evils, to place our national interests at the mercy of an unsympathetic majority. Since, however, our rulers have, in pursuance of the immemorial instincts and traditions, found it expedient to give these institutions an increasingly important place in the Government of the country, we Mahomedans, cannot any longer in justice to our own national interests hold aloof from participating in the conditions to which their policy has given rise. While, therefore, we are bound to acknowledge with gratitude that such representation as the Mahomedans of India have hitherto enjoyed has been due to a sense of justice and fairness on the part of your Excellency and your illustrious predecessor in office and the heads of Local Governments by whom the Mahomedan members of Legislative Chambers have almost without exception been

435 PAKISTAN : APPENDICES nominated, we cannot help observing that the representation thus accorded to us has necessarily been inadequate to our requirements, and has not always carried with it the approval of those whom the nominees were selected to represent. This state of things was probably under existing circumstances unavoidable, for while on the one hand the number of nominations reserved to the Viceroy and Local Governments has necessarily been strictly limited, the selection on the other hand of really representative men, has, in the absence of any reliable method of ascertaining the direction of popular choice, been far from easy. The Results of Election As for the results of election, it is most unlikely that the name of any Mahomedan candidate will ever be submitted for the approval of Government by the electoral bodies as now constituted unless he is in sympathy with the majority in all matters of importance. Nor can we in fairness find fault with the desire of our non-Muslim fellow-subjects to take full advantage of their strength and vote only for members of their own community, or for persons who, if not Hindus, are expected to vote with the Hindu majority on whose goodwill they would have to depend for their future re-election. It is true that we have many and important interests in common with our Hindu fellow-countrymen and it will always be a matter of the utmost satisfaction to us to see these interests safeguarded by the presence in our Legislative Chambers of able supporters of these interests, irrespective of their nationality. A DISTINCT COMMUNITY Still, it cannot be denied that we Mahomedans are a distinct community with additional interests of our own which are not shared by other communities, and these have hitherto suffered from the fact that they have not been adequately represented. Even in the provinces in which the Mahomedans constitute a distinct majority of the population, they have too often been treated as though they were inappreciably small political factors that might without unfairness be neglected. This has been the case, to some extent, in the Punjab, but in a more marked degree in Sind and in Eastern Bengal.