The peace terms and your Excellency’s defence of them have given the Mussalmans of India a shock from which it will be difficult for them to recover.  The terms violate ministerial pledges and utterly disregard Mussalman sentiment.  I consider that as a staunch Hindu wishing to live on terms of the closest friendship with my Mussalman countrymen.  I should be an unworthy son of India if I did not stand by them in their hour of trial.  In my humble opinion their cause is just.  They claim that Turkey must be punished if their sentiment is to be respected.  Muslim soldiers did fight to inflict punishment on their own Khalifa or to deprive him of his territories.  The Mussalman attitude has been consistent, throughout these five years.

My duty to the Empire to which I owe my loyalty requires me to resist the cruel violence that has been done to the Mussalman sentiment.  So far as I am aware, Mussulmans and Hindus have as a whole lost faith in British justice and honour.  The report of the majority of the Hunter Committee, Your Excellency’s despatch thereon and Mr. Montagu’s reply have only aggravated the distrust.

In these circumstances the only course open to one like me is either in despair to sever all connection with British rule, or, if I still retained faith in the inherent superiority of the British constitution to all others at present in vogue to adopt such means as will rectify the wrong done, and thus restore confidence.  I have not lost faith in such superiority and I am not without hope that somehow or other justice will yet be rendered if we show the requisite capacity for suffering.  Indeed, my conception of that constitution is that it helps only those who are ready to help themselves.  I do not believe that it protects the weak.  It gives free scope to the strong to maintain their strength and develop it.  The weak under it go to the wall.

It is, then, because I believe in the British constitution that I have advised my Mussalman friends to withdraw their support from your Excellency’s Government and the Hindus to join them, should the peace terms not be revised in accordance with the solemn pledges of Ministers and the Muslim sentiment.

Three courses were open to the Mahomedans in order to mark their emphatic disapproval of the utter injustice to which His Majesty’s Ministers have become party, if they have not actually been the prime perpetrators of it.  They are:—­

(1) To resort to violence,

(2) To advise emigration on a wholesale scale,

(3) Not to be party to the injustice by ceasing to co-operate with the Government.