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PAKISTAN : NATIONAL FRUSTRATION
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Be that as it may, the fact remains that the Muslims have undergone a complete transformation and that the transformation is brought about not by any criminal inducement but by the discovery of what is their true and ultimate destiny. To some, this suddenness of the transformation may give a shock. But those who have studied the course of HinduMuslim politics for the last twenty years, cannot but admit feeling that this transformation, this parting of the two, was on the way. For the course of Hindu-Muslim politics has been marked by a tragic and ominous parallelism. The Hindus and Muslims have trodden parallel paths. No doubt, they went in the same direction. But they never travelled the same road. In 1885, the Hindus started the Congress to vindicate the political rights of Indians as against the British. The Muslims refused to be lured by the Hindus into joining the Congress. Between 1885 and 1906 the Muslims kept out of this stream of Hindu politics. In 1906 they felt the necessity for the Muslim community taking part in political activity. Even then they dug their own separate channel for the flow of Muslim political life. The flow was to be controlled by a separate political organization called the Muslim League. Ever since the formation of the Muslim League the waters of Muslim politics have flown in this separate channel. Except on rare occasions, the Congress and the League have lived apart and have worked apart. Their aims and objects have not always been the same. They have even avoided holding their annual sessions at one and the same place, lest the shadow of one should fall upon the other. It is not that the League and the Congress have not met. The two have met but only for negotiations, a few times with success and most times without success. They met in 1916 at Lucknow and their efforts were crowned with success. In 1925 they met but without success. In 1928 a section of the Muslims were prepared to meet the Congress. Another section refused to meet. It rather preferred to depend upon the British. The point is, they have met but have never merged. Only during the Khilafat agitation did the waters of the two channels leave their appointed course and flow as one stream in one channel. It was believed that nothing would Separate the waters which God was pleased to join. But that hope was belied. It was found that there was something in the composition of the two waters which would compel their