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Aga Khan III gave an interview which was published - 1909-02-15
Sir Sultan Mohamed Shah, Aga Khan III gave an interview which was published in 'The Times'(London) on February 15 and in 'The Civil and Military Gazette', Lahore (March 14).
During this interview, Sir Sultan Mohamed Shah, Aga Khan III talked about the problem of the minorities in India, how the differences between Muslims and Hindus must be recognized, how the two communities must be equally represented politically and socially, and how Hindus cannot speak for the whole of India.
He said, 'The ideal for my country to which I look forward is that of an eventually united people of one nationality among whom religious difference, now so acute, will have the minor significance in social and political life they have, for instance, in the United States between Catholics and Jews.
There can never be, perhaps, so close an affinity between the various communities in India as between the Catholics and Protestants in England, who, after all, are both believers in the main tenets of the Christian faith. But while holding the ideal of a united people in India with strength and earnestness, I hold no less strongly that in framing the new political order of things, statesmanship must take account of the wide differences which separate Hindus and Mussulman at the present time.
These differences are not only religious, they are historical and physical, and in the latter respect, at least, they soon become marked, even in the case of recent converts to the Moslem faith. The changes of dietary habits, outlook, and social life generally consequent upon such conversion soon tell upon body and mind, as has often been pointed out.
When I reflect upon the great distinctions between the two races - distinctions more or less known to every one familiar with India - I have to admit that fulfilment of the ideal of homogeneity lies in a future so distant that it is quite beyond me to predict the date of its arrival...'(Aziz 289)
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