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290 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
The All-India Khilafat Conference and the Jamiat-ul-Ulema were surely extremist bodies avowedly anti-British. But the All-India Muslim Conference was not at all a body of extremists or anti-British Musalmans. Yet the U. P. Branch of it in its session held at Cawnpore on 4th November 1928 passed the following resolution :—
“In the opinion of the All-Parties U. P. Muslim Conference, Musalmans of India stand for the goal of complete independence, which shall necessarily take the form of a federal republic.”
In the opinion of the mover, Islam always taught freedom, and for the matter of that the Muslims of India would fail in their religious duty, if they were against complete independence. Indian Muslims were poor, yet they were, the speaker was sure, devoted to Islam more than any other people on earth.
In this Conference an incident* of some interest occurred in the Subjects Committee when Maulana Azad Sobhani proposed that the Conference should declare itself in favour of complete independence.
Khan Bahadur Masoodul Hassan and some other persons, objected to such declaration, which, in their opinion, would go against the best interests of Musalmans. Upon this, a number of women from their purdah gallery sent a written statement to the President saying that if men had not the courage to stand for complete independence, women would come out of purdah, and take their place in the struggle for independence.
III
Notwithstanding this difference in their ultimate destiny, an attempt is made to force the Hindus and Muslims to live in one country, as one people, bound by the political ties of a single constitution. Assuming that this is done and that the Muslims are somehow manoeuvered into it, what guarantee is there that the constitution will not break down ?
The successful working of a Parliamentary Government assumes the existence of certain conditions. It is only when these
- See The Indian Quarterly Register, 1928, Vo. II, p. 425.