I ask my friends honestly to say whether out of two such nations whose aims and objects are different, but who happen to agree in some small points, … - Syed Ahmed Khan

" "

I ask my friends honestly to say whether out of two such nations whose aims and objects are different, but who happen to agree in some small points, a "National" Congress can be · created? No. In the name of God- No. I thank my friend for inducing the twelve Standing Committees to sanction the rule "that any subject to which the Mussalman delegates object, unanimously or nearly unanimously, must be excluded from all discussion in the Congress." But I again object to the word "delegate", and would suggest that instead of that word be substituted "Mussalman taking part in the Congress." But if this principle which he has laid down in his letter and on which he acted when President, be fully carried out, I wonder what there will be left for the Congress to discuss. Those questions on which Hindus and Mohammedans can unite, and on which they ought to unite, and concerning which it is my earnest desire that they should unite, are social questions. We are both desirous that peace should reign in the country, that we two nations should live in a brotherly manner, that we should help and sympathise with one another, that we should bring pressure to bear, each on his own people, to prevent the arising of religious quarrels, that we should improve our social condition, and that we should try to remove that animosity which is every day increasing between the two communities. The questions on which we can agree are purely social. If he Congress had been made for these objects, then I would myself have been its President, and relieved my friend from the troubles which he incurred. But the Congress is a political Congress, and there is no one of its fundamental principles, and especially that one for which it was in reality founded, to which Mohammedans are not opposed. We may be right or we may be wrong; but there is no Mohammedan, from the shoemaker to the Rais who would like that the ring of slavery should be put on us by that other nation with whom we live. Although in the present time we have fallen to a very low position, and there is every probability we shall sink daily lower (especially when even our friend Badruddin Tyabji thinks it an honour to be President of the Congress), and certainly we shall be contented with our destiny, yet we cannot consent to work for our own fall. 241-2