In our day the British connexion has had no stouter and more convinced supporter than the late Sir Syed Ahmad, than whom no Mahomedan has deserved or enjoyed greater influence over his Indian co-religionists. Not only does his educational work, based on the English public school system, live after him in the college which he founded at Aligarh, but also his political faith which taught the vast majority of educated Mahomedans to regard their future as bound up with the preservation of British rule. The revival of Hinduism has only served to strengthen that faith by bringing home to the Mahomedans the value of British rule as a bulwark against the Hindu ascendency which in the more or less remote future they have unquestionably begun to dread. The creation of a political organization like the All-India Moslem League, which is an outcome of the new apprehensions evoked by Hindu aspirations, may appear on the surface to be a departure from the teachings of Sir Syed Ahmad, who, when the Indian National Congress was appealing in its early days for Mahomedan support, urged his people to hold altogether aloof from politics and to rely implicitly upon the good will and good faith of Government. But things have moved rapidly since Sir Syed Ahmad’s time, and when the British Government themselves create fresh opportunities for every Indian community to make its voice heard in political counsel, the Mahomedans hold that none can afford to stand back.
The Moslem League founded by the Aga Khan, one of the most broad-minded and highly-educated of Indians, with the full approval of the late Nawab Mohsin-ul-Mulk, the confidant and successor of Sir Syed Ahmad, is moreover not merely or even chiefly a political organization. It is intended to serve as a centre for the maintenance and consolidation of the communal interests of the Mahomedans all over India in their social, educational, and economic as well as political aspects. Its programme was unfolded at the annual meeting of the League held in January last at Delhi both in an address read on behalf of Mr. Ameer Ali, who was detained in England by his duties on the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, and in a speech delivered by the Aga Khan, the recognized leader of the whole community. The programme of the Moslem League puts forward no