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PAKISTAN : NATIONAL FRUSTRATION
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transmigration from one place to the other. This is an idea of exchange. It is not an idea of annihilation. Bolshevism at present does away with the possession of private property. It nationalizes the whole thing and this is an idea which of course appertains to only exchange. This is of course impracticable. But if it were practicable, we would rather want this than the other.
‘Q.—That is the dominant idea which compels you not to have amalgamation with the Punjab ?
‘A.—Exactly.
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‘Q.—When you referred to the Islamic League of Nations, I believe you had the religious side of it more prominently in your mind than the political side ?
‘A.—Of course, political. Anjuman is a political thing. Initially of course, anything Muhammadan is religious, but of course Anjuman is a political association.
‘Q.—I am not referring to your Anjuman but I am referring to the Musalmans. I want to know what the Musalmans think of this Islamic League of Nations, what have they most prominently in mind, is it the religious side or the political side ?
‘A.—Islam, as you know, is both religious and political.
‘Q.—Therefore politics and religion are intermingled ?
‘A.—Yes, certainly’.
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Mr. Samarth used this evidence for the limited purpose of showing that to perpetuate a separate Pathan Province by refusing to amalgamate the N.-W. F. P. with the Punjab was dangerous in view of the Pathan’s affiliations with Afghanistan and with other Muslim countries outside India. But this evidence also shows that the idea underlying the scheme of Pakistan had taken birth sometime before 1923.
In 1924 Mr. Mahomed Ali speaking on the resolution on the extension of the Montagu-Chelmsford Reforms to the N.-W. F. Province, which was moved in the session of the Muslim League held in Bombay in that year is said to have suggested* that the Mahomedans of the Frontier Province should have the right of selfdetermination to choose between an affiliation with India or with Kabul. He also quoted a certain Englishman who had said that if
*For reference see Lala Lajpatrai’s Presidential address to the Hindu Maha Sabha session held at Calcutta on 11th April 1925 in the Indian Quarterly Register, 1925, Vol. I, p. 379.