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PAKISTAN : APPENDICES
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and fairplay for the appreciation of its loyalty and the safeguarding of its interests.
The unrest in India
You have addressed me, gentlemen, at a time when the political atmosphere is full of change. We all feel it would be foolish to attempt to deny its existence, hopes and ambitions new to India are making themselves felt. We cannot ignore them—we should be wrong to wish to do so — but to what is all this unrest due? Not to the discontent of misgoverned millions — I defy anyone honestly to assert that — not to say uprising of a disaffected people.
Fruits of Western Education
It is due to that educational growth in which only a very small portion of the population has as yet shared, of which British rule first sowed the seed and the fruits of which British rule is now doing its best to foster and to direct. There may be many tares in the harvest we are now reaping. The Western grain which we have sown may not be entirely suitable to the requirements of the people of India but the educational harvest will increase as years go on, and the healthiness of the nourishment it gives will depend on the careful administration and distribution of its products. You need not ask my pardon, gentlemen, for telling me that “Representative institutions of the European type are entirely new to the people of India” or that their introduction here requires the most earnest thought and care. I should be very far from welcoming all the political machinery of the Western world amongst the hereditary instincts and traditions of Eastern races. Western breadth of thought, the teachings of Western civilisation, the freedom of British individuality can do much for the people of India, but I recognise with you that they must not carry with them an impracticable insistence of the acceptance of political methods.
Political Future of Mahomedans
And now, gentlemen, I come to your own position in respect to the political future; the position of the Mahomedan community for whom you speak. You will, I feel sure, recognise that it is