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 religious beliefs, social customs, and historical traditions, it can only be eradicated by the slow process of education. The most trivial incident, the meeting of rival processions, the maltreatment of a cow, so sacred to the Hindus, some purely personal quarrel suddenly leads to violent affrays in which the whole populace on both sides joins in without knowing even what it is all about. The danger must be enormously heightened if one community begins to believe that the other community is compassing deep-laid schemes for the promotion of its own ultimate ascendancy. The political agitation conducted by the Hindus has for some time past tended to create such a belief amongst the Mahomedans. As far back as 1893, at the time of the Bombay riots and of Tilak's "anti-cow-killing" propaganda in the Deccan, which spread sporadically to other parts of India, the Bombay Government reported "an uneasy feeling among Mahomedans that they and their faith were suffering at the hands of the Hindus, that they were being gradually but surely edged out of the position they have hitherto held, and that their religion needed some special protection." That uneasy feeling has gradually ripened since then into a widespread and deep-rooted conviction--not the least of the many deplorable results of a movement that claims to be called "national."