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PAKISTAN : HINDU ALTERNATIVE TO PAKISTAN
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can there be any conversion ? So long as Hindu society is fragmented in autonomous and autogenic castes, Hindu religion cannot be a missionary religion. The conversion of the Afghans and the frontier tribes to Hinduism is, therefore, an idle dream.
In the second place, Lala Hardayal’s scheme must call for financial resources the immensity of which it is hardly possible to compute. Who can furnish the funds necessary for the conversion of the Afghans and the Frontier Tribesmen to Hinduism ? The Hindus, having ceased to convert others to their faith for a long time, have also lost the zeal for conversion. Want of zeal is bound to affect the question of finances. Further, Hindu society being moulded in the cast of the Chaturvarna, wealth has, from very ancient times, been most unevenly distributed. It is only the Baniya who is the heir to wealth and property among the Hindus. There are, of course, the landlords who are the creation of foreign invaders or native rebels, but they are not as numerous as the Baniya. The Baniya is money-made and his pursuits are solely for private gain. He knows no other use of money except to hold it and to transmit it to his descendants. Spread of religion or acquisition and promotion of culture do not interest him. Even decent living has no place in his budget. This has been his tradition for ages. If money is expected, he is not much above the brute in the conception and manner of life. Only one new service, on the expenditure side, has found a place in his budget. That service is politics. This happened since the entry of Mr. Gandhi as a political leader. That new service is the support of Gandhian politics. Here again, the reason is not love of politics. The reason is to make private gain out of public affairs. What hope is there that such men will spend money on such a bootless cause as the spread of Hindu religion among the Afghans and Frontier Tribes ?
Thirdly, there is the question of facilities for conversion that may be available in Afghanistan. Lala Hardayal evidently thought that it is possible to say in Afghanistan, with the same impunity as in Turkey, that the Koran is wrong or out of date. Only one year before the publicati on of his political testament by Lala Hardayal, i.e., in 1924, one Niamatulla—a follower