E-Book - Mahatma Gandhi

Mahatma Gandhi – His Life & TimesVanity, jealousy and dislike undoubtedly play a major role in politics. Some ofthe great political feuds of history were personal before they became political.The Hindu-Moslem problem, to be sure, would have existed Jinnah or noJinnah. His intensity and hates blew on the coals and brought forth flames.Apart from Jinnah, all the leading figures in his Moslem League were largeestate owners and landholding noblemen. They watched the rising tide ofpeasant discontent with counting concern. In the North-West Frontier Province,the Congress party, led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, the 'Frontier Gandhi', wasa popular movement of Moslem peasants directed against Moslem landowners.In the United Provinces, Moslem and Hindu peasants made common causeagainst Moslem and Hindu landlords.The landlords who financed the Moslem League used religion to divide Moslemfrom Hindu peasants.Owing to Islamic precept, the bulk of Moslem wealth was invested in landinstead of trade or industry. Hindu and Parsi business men often preferred toengage their own co-religionists. Mohammedans, moreover, encounteredconsiderable difficulty in entering government employ; their education wasusually inferior to that of Hindus, Parsis and Christians. The Moslem urbanmiddle class, which began to emerge in the twentieth century, looked to Jinnahto get them British government jobs, and he did so by persuading theauthorities to establish quotas for Moslems irrespective of qualifications.The Moslem upper class (the landlords) and the Moslem middle class were readyfor Jinnah. But they needed the peasantry for numbers. They soon discoveredthat they could win it by arousing religious passions. The formula was Pakistan,a separate Moslem state. Such a state would be officered by Moslems and in itHindu and Parsi firms would be at a disadvantage. The landlords believed theyhad less to fear from a country they controlled than from an independent,liberal, secular India where a land reform that would dispossess them wasexpected to be one of the first pieces of legislation.One hundred million compared to three hundred million Hindus, the Moslemscould never hope to win a political majority unless religious aims ceased towww.mkgandhi.org Page 453