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430 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
APPENDIX XII
Address presented to H. E. Lord Minto, Viceroy and* Governor- General of India
by
A Deputation of the Muslim Community of India on
1st October 1906 at Simla
ADDRESS
“May it please your Excellency,—Availing ourselves of the permission accorded to us, we, the undersigned nobles, jagirdars, taluqdars, lawyers, zemindars, merchants and others representing a large body of the Mahomedan subjects of His Majesty the King-Emperor in different parts of India, beg most respectfully to approach your Excellency with the following address for your favourable consideration.
- This document has a great importance and significance in the history of India. It marks the beginning of the British Government’s policy of giving favourable treatment to the Muslims in the administration of India which, it is alleged, was intended to wean them away from the Congress and to create a breach and disunity between the Hindus and the Musalmans. It has also acquired a certain amount of notoriety in the minds of the Indians in view of the statement made by late Maulana Mohammad Ali in his address as President of the Congress, stating that “it was a command performance”, meaning thereby that the address was arranged by the British Government. On this account there has been a great deal of curiosity on the part of many Indians to know the text of the address and the reply given by Lord Minto. I had made a long search to obtain the same. I had even approached elderly Muslim politicians prominent in those days for a copy but none of them had it or knew where it was available. Newspapers of that day do not appear to have carried the text of the address and the reply. I was however lucky to get a copy of it from my friend Sir Raza Ali, M.L.A. (Central), who happened to have kept a cutting of the Indian Daily Telegraph —a paper then published from Lucknow but had long ago become defunct, in which the full text of the address as well as of the reply was printed. I am grateful to Sir Raza Ali for a loan of the cutting. As the document marks a historic event in the political history of British administration in India, it might be of some interest to reproduce details about the function which the Simla correspondent of the Indian Daily Telegraph had published in its issue of October 3rd, 1906. Says the correspondent:—