Choudhary Rahmat Ali

“ May we be permitted to ask of all those statesmen - Muslim or British or Hindu - supporting the Federal Constitution, if it is really desirable to make our nation sacrifice all that Islam has given us during the last fourteen hundred years to make India a nation? Does humanity really stand to gain by this stupendous sacrifice? We dare say that still in Islam the ancient fire glows and promises much for the future, if only the leaders would let it live. ”

“ There can be no peace and tranquility in the land if we, the Muslims, are duped into a Hindu-dominated Federation where we cannot be the masters of our own destiny and captains of our own souls.
Do the safeguards provided for in the Constitution give us any scope to work for our salvation along our own lines? Not a bit. Safeguard is the magic word which holds our leaders spellbound, and has dulled their consciences. In the ecstasy of their hallucinations they think that the pills of safeguards can cure nation-annihilating earthquakes. ”

“ If they follow this ancient tradition of proud nations and make the choice I have made, then it is mere commonsense that they- the Dravidians, Akhoots, Buddhs, Christians, Sikhs, and Parsis - should make common cause with us, the Muslims, in order to destroy the Myth that India is the country of India," and to establish the truth that it is the Continent of Dinia," and thereby save and sovereignize themselves as nations. ”

“ Whilst in Europe, excluding Russia, in about the same area as that of India and with about the same population, there live and prosper as many as twenty-six nations, with one and the same religion, civilisation and economic system, surely it is not only possible but highly desirable for two fundamentally different and distinct nations, i.e. Muslim and Hindu, to live as friendly neighbours in peace and prosperity in that vast continent. What bitter irony is it that our leaders have not the courage to stand up and demand the minimum for our political salvation. ”

“ As we do that, we must remember that, for each one of us, everything is at stake and that, to save everything, this is our last and our best opportunity. For now, as never before, the Myth is not only discredited but also damned; and its supporters, though materially powerful, are morally powerless. They are aware both of the weakness of their case and of the strength of ours. So, if now we all challenge the Myth and give it a smashing blow, it will die a deserved death, and we shall all be free. ”

“ Our brave but voiceless nation is being sacrificed on the altar of Hindu Nationalism not only by the non-Muslims, but to the lasting disgrace of Islam, by our own so-called leaders, with reckless disregard to our future and in utter contempt of the teachings of history. ”

“ They demand it because, in Nature, inner-recognition ever precedes outer-recognition; and, in the Comity of Nations, self-recognition is the pre-requisite of world-recognition.
Let us, therefore, conform to the laws of Nature and of Nations and make the beginning with our own recognition of the Continent of Dinia. In so doing, let us feel fortified by the fact that we do not deny the existence and interests of any religion or fraternity : that we demand merely the recognition of the existence and the interests of our own religions and fraternities ”

“ In the country of India - as for the Muslims, so for them - the fate of national subordination is inescapable. They cannot dodge it; they cannot defy; it they cannot defeat it. The reason is that, even if they achieve the recognition of their distinct nation-hoods in the country of India, they can never be sovereign nations in separate homelands. On the contrary, they will ever be the sub-nations and satellites of the Indian nation in, at best, the re-named regions of India - which is, and ever will be, another name for the Hindoo lands. ”

“ Finally, it should be understood that my sole, supreme reason for defining the lands and describing the peoples by the word "Dinia" is the fact that religion as such is the most prominent characteristic of all the peoples living in the lands of " Dinia ". Indeed it plays the most vital part in their lives and, now as ever, defines their national entities, inspires their national ideologies, shapes their national histories, and sustains their national hopes. ”

“ That Mandate was not the Mandate of the Muslims of India. Nations never give Mandates to their representatives to barter away their very souls; and men of conscience never accept such self-annihilating Mandates, if given - much less execute them. At a time of crisis of this magnitude, the foremost duty of saving statesmanship is to give a fair, firm and fearless lead, which, alas, has been persistently denied to eighty millions of our co-religionists in India by our leaders during the last seventy-five years. ”

“ We are face to face with a first-rate tragedy, the like of which has not been seen in the long and eventful history of Islam. It is not the question of a sect or of a community going down; but it is the supreme problem which affects the destiny of the whole of Islam and the millions of human beings who, till quite recently, were the custodians of the glory of Islam in India and the defenders of its frontiers. ”

“ Again, these facts which, in point of truth, are incontrovertible and, in point of time, cover no less than fifty-five centuries of its history, prove that, historically, India is and ever has been in all but name a "continent ". ”

“ They, the non-Indian nations, cannot have it because they cannot even pretend to be Indian ; they cannot even pass off the merging of their entities into India as an act of patriotism. The reason is they simply are not Indian. For if they were Indian, they wouldn't be fighting, like the Muslims, against being treated as Indian and for being recognized as Dravidians, Akhoots, Buddhs, Christians, Sikhs, and Parsis. ”

“ However effective and extensive the safeguards may be, the vital organs and proud symbols of our national life, such as army and navy, foreign relations, trade and commerce, communications, posts and telegraphs, taxation and customs, will not be under our control, but will be in the hands of a Federal Government, which is bound to be overwhelmingly Hindu. With all this, how can we, the Muslims, achieve any of our ideals if those ideals conflict - conflict as they must - with the ideals of Hindus? ”

“ The Muslim Federation of North-West India would provide the bulwark of a buffer state against any invasion either of ideas or arms from outside. The creation of such a Federation would not materially disturb the ratio of the Muslim and Hindu population in the rest of India. It is wholly to the interest of British and Hindu statesmanship to have an ally a free, powerful and contented Muslim nation having a similar but separate Constitution to that which is being enacted for the rest of India. Nothing but a separate Federation of homelands would satisfy us. ”

“ The fact that it is much the same today is all the more remarkable because, in the British Period, the vast resources of the Anglo-Hindoo Entente have been systematically employed to destroy the ancient distinctions and divisions of India yet their indestructibility is such that they have survived in their entirety. The result is that, like any other continent, India remains as divided as ever. ”

“ In the five Northern Provinces of India, out of a total population of about forty millions, we, the Muslims, contribute about 30 millions. Our religion, culture, history, tradition, economic system, laws of inheritance, succession and marriage are basically and fundamentally different from those of the people living in the rest of India. The ideals which move our thirty million brethren-in-faith living in these provinces to make the highest sacrifices are fundamentally different from those which inspire the Hindus. ”

“ The British are doing it because to them, as an imperial power, the existence of the Myth gives an opportunity first of keeping us and the Caste Hindoos intermingled, then of exploiting our conflict, resulting from that intermingling, to strengthen their hold on India, and finally of justifying before the world, by citing the record of that conflict, their imperial rule over all the nations in India. ”

“ In addressing this appeal to the Muslims of India, we are also addressing it to the two other great interests - British and Hindu - involved in the settlement of India's future. They must understand that in our conviction our body and soul are at stake. Our very being and well-being depends upon it. For our five great Northern states to join an All-India Federation would be disastrous, not only to ourselves, but to every other race and interest in India, including the British and the Hindu. ”

“ Let them discuss it among themselves and decide it for themselves. I am positive that, in the name of sovereign nationhood, my choice is the only one open to them. Indeed, there never was, and never will be, any other choice. For history shows that, throughout the ages, in similar crises all proud nations have ever made this very choice and fought to the last man to maintain their sovereign nationhoods. ”

“ We have suffered in the past without a murmur and faced dangers without demur. The one thing we would never suffer is our own strangulation. We will not crucify ourselves upon the cross of Hindu nationalism in order to make a Hindu-holiday. ”

“ That fact alone proclaims the difference between their moral position in India and that of the Bavarians in Germany. Furthermore it explains why, if they keep themselves in India, they won't have any defence before their peoples and posterity. Finally, it shows that if they agree to merge themselves into India, they will belie their national histories, betray their national struggles, and abandon their national hopes. Need one add that, if they do this, they will richly deserve, and certainly receive, the strongest condemnation both from their peoples and from their posterity. ”

“ They have all along been paralysed with fear and doubt, and have deliberately, time and again, sacrificed their political principles for the sake of opportunism and expediency. To do so even at this momentous juncture of Bedlam. It is idle for us not to look this tragic truth in the face. The tighter we shut our eyes, the harder the truth will hit us. ”

“ The reason is that, like any other continent, though, in its incidentals, it is the history of a vast region, inhabited by peoples possessing certain traits of physical affinity and living for a few short spells under administrative unity yet, in its essentials, it is the history of many separate countries which have, throughout the ages, been inhabited by many distinct peoples, with different languages, philosophies, and civilizations, and organized for the most part into sovereign states, ruled by their own kings or emperors. ”

“ In the face of these incontrovertible facts, we are entitled to ask for what purpose we are being asked to make the supreme sacrifice of surrendering our nationality and submitting ourselves and our posterity to Non-Muslim domination? ”

“ The third is that India is divided off from the Continent of Asia by barriers even more stupendous than those which separate the Continent of Asia from the Continents of Europe and Africa, or the Continent of North America from that of South America. ”

“ It is on the basis of these facts that we make bold to assert without the least fear of contradiction that we, Muslims of PAKSTAN, do possess a separate and distinct nationality from the rest of India, where the Hindu nation lives and has every right to live. ”

“ I ask all such people to join the Movement the aim of which is to remove the denationalizing, disinheriting and dispiriting effects of "Indianism" and to introduce the nationalising acknowledging, and inspiring influences of "Dinianism". ”

“ It is preposterous to compare, as some superficial observers do, the differences between Muslims and Hindus with those between Roman Catholics and Protestants. Both the Catholics and Protestants are part and parcel of one religious system - Christianity; while the Hindus and Muslims are the followers of two essentially and fundamentally different religious systems. ”

“ Its membership is open to all those people who, irrespective of religion and race, of nationhood and nationalist, of local patriotism and territorial allegiance believe in the cause of the Continent of Dinia and are prepared to work for its success and triumph. ”

“ They are, as compared with the Muslims, smaller in numbers, more "Indianized" in outlook, less acutely conscious of the dangers of the Myth, and, consequently, more exposed to its subtle activities which are ever inspired by its suppressive intentions and soul-killing aims. ”

“ This is more especially true when there is just and reasonable alternative to the proposed settlement, which will lay the foundations of a peaceful future for this great continent; and should certainly allow of the highest development of each of these two peoples without one being subject to another. ”

“ If they do, then they must act in realization of the fact that at the root of all their troubles lies this Myth and that, so long as it exists, for them to try to improve their individual positions vis-a'-vis one another is to treat the symptoms of the disease rather than the disease itself. ”

“ Safeguards asked for by these leaders and agreed to by the makers of the Constitution can never be a substitute for the loss of separate nationality. We, the Muslims, shall have to fight the course of suicidal insanity to death. ”

“ According to Pakistani copyright laws, all photographs enter the public domain fifty years after they were published, and all non-photographic works enter the public domain fifty years after the death of the creator. ”