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PAKISTAN : NATIONAL FRUSTRATION
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In the first place, it should be admitted that every possible attempt to bring about union between Hindus and Muslims has been made and that all of them have failed.
The history of these attempts may be said to begin with the year 1909. The demands of the Muslim deputation, if they were granted by the British, were assented to by the Hindus, prominent amongst whom was Mr. Gokhale. He has been blamed by many Hindus for giving his consent to the principle of separate electorates. His critics forget that withholding consent would not have been a part of wisdom. For, as has been well said by Mr. Mahomed Ali:
“…..paradoxical as it may seem, the creation of separate electorates was hastening the advent of Hindu-Muslim unity. For the first time a real franchise, however restricted, was being offered to Indians, and if Hindus and Musalmans remained just as divided as they had hitherto been since the commencement of the British rule, and often hostile to one another, mixed electorates would have provided the best battle-ground for inter- communal strifes, and would have still further widened the gulf separating the two communities. Each candidate for election would have appealed to his own community for votes and would have based his claims for preference on the intensity of his ill-will towards the rival community, however, disguised this may have been under some such formula as ‘the defence of his community’s interest’. Bad as this would have been, the results of an election in which the two communities were not equally matched would have been even worse, for the community that failed to get its representative elected would have inevitably borne a yet deeper grudge against its successful rival. Divided as the two communities were, there was no chance for any political principles coming into prominence during the elections. The creation of separate electorates did a great deal to stop this inter-communal warfare, though I am far from oblivious of the fact that when inter-communal jealousies are acute the men that are more likely to be returned even from communal electorates are just those who are noted for the ill-will towards the rival community.”
But the concession in favour of separate electorates made by the Hindus in 1909 did not result in Hindu-Muslim unity. Then came the Lucknow Pact in 1916. Under it the Hindus gave satisfaction to the Muslims on every count. Yet, it did not produce any accord between the two. Six years later, another attempt was made to bring about Hindu-Muslim unity. The All-India Muslim League at its annual session held at Lucknow in March 1923 passed