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PAKISTAN : SOCIAL STAGNATION
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“There was no loophole left for the President and Mufti Saheb was allowed to have his say. Mufti Saheb’s argument was that as Hindu Shastras did not allow remarriage, it was a sin to press for it. Again, when the resolution about the reconversion of those who had become Christians and Musalmans came up, Mufti Saheb urged that when a man abandoned the Hindu religion he ought not to be allowed to come back.”
Another illustration would be the attitued of the Muslims towards the problem of the Untouchables. The Muslims have always been looking at the Depressed Classes with a sense of longing and much of the jealousy between Hindus and Muslims arises out of the fear of the latter that the former might become stronger by assimilating the Depressed Classes. In 1909 the Muslims took the bold step of suggesting that the Depressed Classes should not be enrolled in the census as Hindus. In
1923 Mr. Mahomed Ali in his address as the President of the Congress went much beyond the position taken by the Muslims in 1909. He said:—
“The quarrels about ALAMS and PIPAL trees and musical processions are truly childish ; but there is one question which can easily furnish a ground for complaint of unfriendly action if communal activities are not amicably adjusted. It is the question of the conversion of the Suppressed Classes, if Hindu society does not speedily absorb them. The Christian missionary is already busy and no one quarrels with him. But the moment some Muslim Missionary Society is organized for the same purpose there is every likelihood of an outcry in the Hindu press. It has been suggested to me by an influential and wealthy gentleman who is able to organize a Missionary Society on a large scale for the conversion of the Suppressed Classes, that it should be possible to reach a settlement with leading Hindu gentlemen and divide the country into separate areas where Hindu and Muslim missionaries could respectively work, each community preparing for each year, or longer unit of time if necessary, an estimate of the numbers it is prepared to absorb or convert. These estimates would, of course, be based on the number of workers and funds each had to spare, and tested by the actual figures of the previous period. In this way each community would be free to do the work of absorption and conversion, or rather, of reform without chances of collision with one another. I cannot say in what light my Hindu brethren will take it and I place this suggestion tentatively in all frankness and sincerity before them. All that I say for myself is that I have seen the condition of the ‘Kali Praja’ in the Baroda State and of the Gonds in the Central Provinces and I frankly confess it is a reproach to us all. If the Hindus will not absorb them into their own society, others will and must, and then the orthodox Hindu too will cease to treat them as untouchables. Conversion seems to transmute them by a strong alchemy. But does this not place a premium upon conversion ?”