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Allama Muhammad Iqbal’s
1930 Presidential Address
25th
Session of All India Muslim League, December 29-30, 1930 at Allahabad
(Some Important
Aspects)
... I lead no party; I
follow no leader. I have given the best part of my life to careful study of
Islam, its law and polity, its culture, its history and its literature. This
constant contact with the spirit of Islam, as it unfolds itself in time, has,
I think, given me a kind of insight into the significance as a world fact. It
is in the light of this insight, whatever its value, that while assuming that
the Muslims of India are determined to remain true to the spirit of Islam, I
propose, not to guide you in your decision, but to attempt the humbler task
of bringing clearly to your consciousness the main principle which, in my opinion,
should determine the general character of these decisions.
Islam and Nationalism
It cannot be denied that
Islam, regarded as an ethical ideal plus a certain kind of polity – by
which expression I mean a social structure regulated by a legal system and animated
by a specific ethical ideal – has been the chief formative factor in the
life-history of the Muslims of India. It has furnished those basic emotions
and loyalties which gradually unify scattered individuals and groups, and finally
transform them into a well-defined people, possessing a moral consciousness
of their own. Indeed it is not exaggeration to say that India is perhaps the
only country in the world where Islam, as a people-building force, has worked
at its best. In India, as elsewhere, the structure of Islam as a society is
almost entirely due to the working of Islam as a culture inspired by a specific
ethical ideal. What I mean to say is that Muslim society, with its remarkable
homogeneity and inner unity, has grown to be what it is, under the pressure
of the laws and institutions associated with the culture of Islam...
Islam does not bifurcate
the unity of man into an irreconcilable duality of spirit and matter. In Islam,
God and the universe, spirit and matter, church and state, are organic to each
other. Man is not the citizen of a profane world to be renounced in the interest
of a world of spirit situated elsewhere. To Islam matter is spirit realizing
itself in space and time...
... In the world of Islam,
we have a universal polity whose fundamentals are believed to have been revealed,
but whose structure, owing to our legists’ want of contact with the modern
world, today stands in need of renewed power by adjustments. I do not know what
will be the final fate of the national idea in the world of Islam. Whether Islam
will assimilate and transform it, as it has before assimilated and transformed
many ideas expressive of a different spirit, or allow a radical transformation
of its own structure by the force of this idea, is hard to predict... At the
present moment, the national idea is racializing the outlook of Muslims, and
this is materially counteracting the humanizing work of Islam. And the growth
of racial consciousness may mean the growth of standards different and even
opposed to the standards of Islam.
... Do not think that the
problem I am indicating is a purely theoretical one. It is a very living and
practical problem calculated to affect the very fabric of Islam as a system
of life and conduct. On a proper solution of it alone depends your future as
a distinct cultural unit in India. Never in our history has Islam had to stand
a greater trial than the one which confronts it today. It is open to a people
to modify, reinterpret or reject the foundation principles of their social structure;
but it is absolutely necessary for them to see clearly what they are doing before
they undertake to try a fresh experiment...
Unity Through Harmony
of Differences
What, then, is the problem
and its implications? Is religion a private affair? Would you like to see Islam
as a moral and political ideal, meeting the same fate in the world of Islam
as Christianity has already met in Europe? Is it possible to retain Islam as
an ethical ideal and to reject it as a polity, in favor of national polities
in which the religious attitude is not permitted to play any part? This question
becomes of special importance in India where the Muslims happen to be a minority.
The religious ideal of
Islam, therefore, is organically related to the social order which it has created.
The rejection of the one will eventually involve the rejection of the other.
Therefore, the construction of a polity on national lines, if it means a displacement
of the Islamic principle of solidarity; is simply unthinkable to a Muslim. This
is a matter which, at the present moment, directly concerns the Muslims of India.
“Man,” says Renan, “is enslaved neither by his race, nor by his
religion, nor by the course of rivers, nor by the direction of the mountain
ranges. A great aggregation of men, sane of mind and warm of heart, creates
a moral consciousness which is called a nation.” ...Experience, however,
shows that the various caste units and religious units in India have shown no
inclination to sink their respective individualities in a larger whole. Each
group is intensely jealous of the collective existence. The formation of the
kind of moral consciousness which constitutes the essence of a nation in Renan’s
sense demands a price which the peoples of India are not prepared to pay.
The unity of an Indian
nation, therefore, must be sought, not in the negation, but in the mutual harmony
and cooperation of the many… It is on the discovery of Indian unity in
this direction that the fate of India as well as of Asia really depends. India
is Asia in miniature. Part of her people have cultural affinities with nations
of the East, and part with nations in the middle and west of Asia. If an effective
principle of cooperation is discovered in India, it will bring peace and mutual
goodwill to this ancient land which has suffered so long, more because of her
situation in historic space than because of any inherent incapacity of her people.
And it will at the same time solve the entire political problem of Asia.
It is, however, painful
to observe that our attempts to discover such a principle of internal harmony
have so far failed. Why have they failed? Perhaps, we suspect each other’s
intentions, and inwardly aim at dominating each other. Perhaps, in the higher
interests of mutual cooperation, we cannot afford to part with the monopolies
which circumstances have placed in our hands, and conceal our egoism under the
cloak of a nationalism, outwardly simulating a large-hearted patriotism, but
inwardly as narrow-minded as a caste or tribe. Perhaps, we are unwilling to
recognize that each group has a right to free development according to its own
cultural traditions.
But whatever may be the
causes of our failure, I still feel hopeful. As far as I have been able to read
the Muslim mind, I have no hesitation in declaring that, if the principle that
the Indian Muslim is entitled to full and free development on the lines of his
own culture and tradition in his own Indian homelands is recognized as the basis
of a permanent communal settlement, he will be ready to stake his all for the
freedom of India. The principle is not inspired by any feeling of narrow communalism.
There are communalism and
communities. A community which is inspired by a feeling of ill-will towards
other communities is low and ignoble. I entertain the highest respect for the
customs, laws, religious and social institutions of other communities. Nay,
it is my duty, according to the teaching of the Qur’an, even to defend
their places of worship if need be. Yet I love the communal group which is the
source of my life and behavior; and which has formed me what I am by giving
me its religion, its literature, its thought, its culture and thereby recreating
its whole past, as a living operative factor, in my present consciousness. Even
the authors of the Nehru Report recognize the value of this higher aspect of
communalism. While discussing the separation of Sind, they say, “... Without
the fullest cultural autonomy - and communalism in its better aspect is culture
– it will be difficult to create a harmonious nation.”
Muslim India within
India
Communalism, is its higher
aspect, then, is indispensable to the formation of a harmonious whole in a country
like India. The units of Indian society are not territorial as in European countries.
India is a continent of human groups belonging to different races, speaking
different languages, and professing different religions. Their behavior is not
at all determined by a common race consciousness. Even the Hindus do not form
a homogenous group.
The principle of European
democracy cannot be applied to India without recognizing the fact of communal
groups. The Muslim demand for the creation of a Muslim India within India is,
therefore, perfectly justified. The resolution of the All-Parties Muslim Conference
at Delhi is to my mind wholly inspired by this noble ideal of a harmonious whole
which, instead of stifling the respective individualities of its component wholes,
affords them changes of fully working out the possibilities that may be latent
in them.
A Muslim State
in the North-West
Personally, I would go
further... I would like to see the Punjab, the North-West Frontier Province,
Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state. Self-government within
the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated
North-West Indian Muslim state appears to me to be the final destiny of the
Muslims, at least of North-West India. The proposal was put forward before the
Nehru Committee. They rejected it on the ground that, if carried into effect,
it would give a very unwieldy state. This is true in so far as the area is concerned
in point of population, the state contemplated by the proposal would be much
smaller than some of the present Indian provinces. The exclusion of Ambala division,
and perhaps of some districts where non-Muslims predominate, will make it less
extensive and more Muslim in population... so that the exclusion suggested will
enable this consolidated state to give a more effective protection to non-Muslim
minorities within its area.
The idea need not alarm
the Hindus or the British, India is the greatest Muslim country in the world.
The life of Islam as cultural force in this living country very largely depends
on its centralization in a specified territory... Possessing full opportunity
of development within the body-politic of India, the North-West Indian Muslims
will prove the best defenders of India against a foreign invasion, be that invasion
one of the ideas or of the bayonets... The Muslim demand....is actuated by a
genuine desire for free development, which is practically impossible under the
type of unitary government contemplated by the nationalist Hindu politicians
with a view to securing permanent communal dominance in the whole of India.
Nor should the Hindus fear
that the creation of autonomous Muslim states will mean the introduction of
a kind of religious rule in such states... I, therefore, demand the formation
of a consolidated Muslim State in the best interests of India and Islam. For
India, it means security and peace resulting from an internal balance of power;
for Islam, an opportunity to rid itself of the stamp that Arabian imperialism
was forced to give it, to mobilize its laws, its education, its culture, and
to bring them into closer contact with its own original spirit and with the
spirit of modern times.
Federal Idea
In view of India’s
infinite variety in climates, races, languages, creeds and social systems, the
creation of autonomous states based on the unity of language, race, history,
religion and identity of economic interests, is the only possible way to secure
a stable constitutional structure in India. The conception of federation underlying
the Simon Report necessitates the abolition of the Central Legislative
Assembly and makes it an Assembly of the Representatives of Federal States.
It further demands a redistribution of territory on the lines which I have indicated...
Proper redistribution will
make the question of joint and separate electorates automatically disappear
from the constitutional controversy of India... The Hindu thinks that separate
electorates are contrary to the spirit of true nationalism, because he understands
the word ‘nation’ to mean a kind of universal amalgamation in which
no communal entity ought to retain its private individuality. Such a state of
things, however, does not exist. Nor is it desirable that it should exist. India
is a land of racial and religious variety. Add to this the general economic
inferiority of the Muslims... In such a country and in such circumstances, territorial
electorates cannot secure adequate representation of all interests, and must
inevitably lead to the creation of an oligarchy. The Muslims of India can have
no objection to purely territorial electorates if provinces are demarcated so
as to secure comparatively homogeneous communities, possessing linguistic, racial,
cultural and religious unity.
... The Muslims demand
federation because it is pre-eminently a solution of India’s most difficult
problem, i.e. the communal problem. The Royal Commissioner’s view of federation....does
not go beyond providing means of escape from the situation which the introduction
of democracy in India has created for the British, and wholly disregards the
communal problem by leaving it where it was.
... To my mind a unitary
form of government is simply unthinkable in a self-governing India. What is
called ‘residuary powers’ must be left entirely to self-governing
states, the Central Federal State exercising only those powers which are expressly
vested in it by the free consent of Federal States. I would never advise the
Muslims of India to agree to a system, whether of British or of Indian origin,
which virtually negatives the principle of true federation, or fails to recognize
them as a distinct political entity.
... The [Simon] scheme
appears to be aiming at a kind of understanding between Hindu India and British
Imperialism - you perpetuate me in India, and in return, I give you a Hindu
oligarchy to keep all other Indian communities in perpetual subjection. If,
therefore, the British Indian provinces are not transformed into really autonomous
states..., scheme of Indian federation will be interpreted only as a dexterous
move on the part of British politicians to satisfy, without parting with any
real power, all parties concerned; Muslims with the word ‘federation’;
Hindus with a majority in the Center; and British imperialists....with the substance
of real power.
... In view....of the participation
of the Princes in the Indian Federation, we must now see our demand for representation
in the British Indian Assembly in a new light. The questions is not one of the
Muslim share in a British Indian Assembly, but one which relates to representation
of British Indian Muslims in an All India Federal Assembly. Our demand for 33
per cent must now be taken as a demand for the same proportion in the All-India
Federal Assembly, exclusive of the share allotted to the Muslim states entering
the Federation.
... The discussion of the
communal question in London has demonstrated, more clearly than ever, the essential
disparity between the two great cultural units of India. Yet the Prime Minister
of England apparently refuses to see that the problem of India is international.
He is reported to have said that “his government would find it difficult
to submit to parliament proposals for the maintenance of separate electorates,
since joint electorates were much more in accordance with British democratic
sentiment.” Obviously he does not see that the model of British democracy
can not be of any use in a land of many nations; and that a system of separate
electorates is only a poor substitute for a territorial solution of the problem...
To base a constitution
on the concept of a homogeneous India, or to apply to India principles dictated
by British democratic sentiments, is unwittingly to prepare her for a civil
war. As far as I can see, there will be no peace in the country until the various
peoples that constitute India are given opportunities of free self-development
on modern lines, without abruptly breaking with their past.
No Muslim politician should
be sensitive to the taunt embodied in that propaganda word ‘communalism’
– expressly devised to exploit what the Prime Minister calls British democratic
sentiments, and to mislead England into assuming a state of things that does
not really exist in India. Great interests are at stake. We are seventy millions
[according to 1921 records: 71 millions or 23.2% of India’s population;
1931 records: 79 millions or 23.5% of population. Official records have consistently
underestimated Muslim population. It was nearly thirty percent.], and far more
homogeneous than any other people in India. Indeed, the Muslims of India are
the only Indian people who can truly be described as a nation in the modern
sense of the word. The Hindus, though ahead of us in almost all respects, have
not yet been able to achieve the kind of homogeneity which is necessary for
a nation, and which Islam has given you as a free gift. No doubt they are anxious
to become a nation, but the process of becoming a nation is kind of travail,
and in the case of Hindu India, involves a complete overhauling of her social
structure. Nor should the Muslim leaders and politicians allow themselves to
be carried away by the subtle but fallacious arguments that Turkey and Persia
and other Muslim countries are progressing on national, i.e. territorial lines.
The Muslims of India are differently situated.
The countries of Islam
outside India are practically wholly Muslim in population. The minorities there
belong, in the language of the Qur’an, to the ‘People of the Book’.
There are no social barriers between Muslims and ‘the people of the Book’...
... If these demands are
not agreed to, then a question of a very great and far-reaching importance will
arise for the community. Then will arrive the moment for independent and concerted
political action by the Muslims of India. If you are at all serious about your
ideals and aspirations, you must be ready for such action...
Let me tell you frankly
that, at the present moment, the Muslims of India are suffering from two evils.
The first is the want of personalities…The community has failed to produce
leaders. By leaders, I mean men who, by divine gift or experience, possess a
keen perception of the spirit and destiny of Islam, along with an equally keen
perception of the trend of modern history. Such men are really the driving forces
of a people, but hey are God’s gift and cannot be made to order. The second
evil from which the Muslims of India are suffering is that the community is
fast losing what is called the herd instinct. This makes it possible for individuals
and groups to start independent careers without contributing to the general
thought and activity of the community. We are doing today in the domain of politics
what we have been doing for centuries in the domain of religion... But diversity
in political action, at a moment when concerted action is needed in the best
interests of the very life of our people, may prove fatal... Leading Muslims
of all shades of opinion will have to meet together, not to pass resolutions,
but finally to decide the Muslim attitude and to show the path to tangible achievement...
... The present crisis
in the history of India demands complete organization and unity of will and
purpose in the Muslim community, both in your own interest as a community and
in the interest of India as a whole... We have a duty towards Asia, especially
Muslim Asia. And since seventy millions of Muslims in single country constitute
a far more valuable asset to Islam than all the countries of Muslim Asia put
together, we must look at the Indian problem, not only from the Muslim point
of view, but also from the stand point of the Indian Muslim as such. Our duty
towards Asia and India cannot be loyally performed without an organized will
fixed on a definite purpose. In your own interest, as a political entity among
other political entities of India, such an equipment is an absolute necessity...
In the near future our
community may be called upon to adopt an independent line of action to cope
with the present crisis. And an independent line of political action, in such
a crisis, is possible only to a determined people, possessing a will focalized
by a single purpose. ... Rise above sectional interests and private ambitions....Pass
from matter to spirit. Matter is diversity; spirit is light, life and unity....one
lesson I have learnt from the history of Muslims.
At critical moments in
their history, it is Islam that has saved Muslims and not vice versa. If today
you focus your vision on Islam and seek inspiration from the ever vitalizing
idea embodied in it, you will be only reassembling your scattered forces, regaining
your lost integrity, and thereby saving yourself from total destruction...
[reproduced with permission
from www.tolueislam.com]
Date/Time Last Modified: 6/3/2004 7:21:33 AM
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