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PAKISTAN : NATIONAL FRUSTRATION
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Maulana Mahomed Ali who had not then made any particular efforts to achieve Hindu-Muslim unity. Writing in the Comrade of 14th January 1911 Mr. Mahomed Ali said * :
“We have no faith in the cry that India is united. If India was united where was the need of dragging the venerable President of this year’s Congress from a distant home? The bare imagination of a feast will not dull the edge of hunger. We have less faith still in the sanctimoniousness that transmutes in its subtle alchemy a rapacious monopoly into fervent patriotism…..the person we love best, fear the most, and trust the least is the impatient idealist Goethe said of Byron that he was a prodigious poet, but that when he reflected he was a child. Well, we think no better and no worse of the man who combines great ideals and a greater impatience. So many efforts, well meaning as well as illbegotten, have failed in bringing unity to this distracted land, that we cannot spare even cheap and scentless flowers of sentiment for the grave of another ill-judged endeavour. We shall not make the mistake of gumming together pieces of broken glass, and then cry over the unsuccessful result, or blame the refractory material. In other words, we shall endeavour to face the situation boldly, and respect facts, howsoever ugly and ill-favoured. It is poor statesmanship to slur over inconvenient realities, and not the least important success in achieving unity is the honest and frank recognition of the deep-seated prejudices that hinder it and the yawning differences that divide.”
Looking back on the history of these 30 years, one can well, ask whether Hindu-Muslim unity has been realized ? Whether efforts have not been made for its realization ? And whether any efforts remain to be made? The history of the last 30 years shows that Hindu-Muslim unity has not been realized. On the contrary, there now exists the greatest disunity between them: that efforts—sincere and persistent—have been made to achieve it and that nothing now remains to be done to achieve it except surrender by one party to the other. If anyone, who is not in the habit of cultivating optimism where there is no justification for it, said that the pursuit of HinduMuslim unity is like a mirage and that the idea must now be given up, no one can have the courage to call him a pessimist or an impatient idealist. It is for the Hindus to say whether they will engage themselves in this vain pursuit in spite of the tragic end of all their past endeavours or give up the pursuit of unity and try for a settlement on another basis.
- Quoted in his presidential address at Coconada session of the Congress, 1923.