MIAN FAZL-I-HUSSAIN’S REMEDY

WE have already examined the ordinary non-co-operation remedy for the very difficult situation that has arisen in Punjab. Let us now examine the co-operator’s or, to be more precise, Mian Fazl-i-Hussain’s remedy. It was described in some detail by the Mian Sahib himself in his recent speech during the censure debate in the Legislative Council. In order to test the efficacy of this remedy, we cannot do better than begin by quoting the words in which the Mian Sahib outlined his political creed. “I will say,” he said, “that I look forward to an India wherein there are no distinctions of Hindus and Mussalmans, of Christians and Jews, where there are no distinctions of touchables and untouchables, where the religion is the religion of humanity and the creed is the creed of human brotherhood.” No words could have better described the political creed of every true-hearted nationalist, the goal which he endeavours by every means in his power to steadily approximate. Here then, we have common ground between the Mian Sahib and ourselves, and if only the means suggested by the Mian Sahib, the policy which he has been systematically following ever since he became a minister, were calculated to lead to this end, he would be able to justify the proud claim he put forward for himself in his speech, that if there is one man in the country who could be said to have brought about Hindu-Muslim unity he was that man. Not even a moment’s reflection, however, is needed to show that there is nothing in common between the Mian Sahib’s professed end and the means by which he has been trying to realise it; as a matter of fact, this means can only lead to the exact opposite of that end.