Speech at the Inaugural Session of the All India Muslim Students Federation: Quaid

Speech at the Inaugural Session of the All

India Muslim Students Federation
Conference, Calcutta, December 27, 1937
Last year I presided over the Lucknow session of the All India Muslim Students Federation which was opened by Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru. But now I was presiding over the All India Muslim Students Federation. What was the reason? I had come to the deliberate conclusion that there was no alternative to escape and no honorable course open for the Muslims but to organize on separate lines and first set their house in order. As none was caring to do anything for their good and uplift they must organize for self-defence and self-help. It was not going to be done by anybody else for them. Nobody would do it for them. Nobody had done it for them in the past. I had deliberately come to the conclusion that unless you woke up and organized yourselves and developed themselves and qualified yourselves nobody could have respect or care for you.
In the present conditions of things it was difficult for the Muslim and Hindu communities to work in cooperation, in harmony and in unity in all matters. I had life-long experience and enough patience and had made great efforts to work together with members of the other communities on equal, fair and honourable terms. But I am sorry to say that I have failed so far. This exactly has been thc fate of Muslim young men and Students.
While we want to raise ourselves to the highest stature, our hand of co-operation for the good of our province and country is always fully stretched but on equal terms. We are not going to be subdued or to be the camp followers or slaves or the subject race of Hindu Raj.
If for demanding a rightful place for Muslims in the Government of the country and in other spheres of life, I am dubbed a communalist, I plead guilty to the charge; if for taking steps to raise the members of my community socially, politically and economically, I am called a communalist, I will gladly accept that appellation. The truth is that in the present atmosphere of our country it is becoming very very difficult for two sister communities to work in harmony and unison in almost all matters, and I am convinced there is no other course open to us except to organize ourselves through separate organization like the All India Muslim Students Federation. But while we will go on in this way we shall never fail to co-operate with any other sister community on equal and honourable terms. Only we are not going to be camp followers and slaves.
(The conference was presided ever by Mr. AK. Fazlul Haq).




Speech in Reply to the Address Presented by the Muslims Students Federation, Gaya, January 1, 1938
My young friends, what can I tell you? I am very glad that in your address you say this: ‘The individuals of our student community are often called irresponsible, inexperienced, superficial observers, endowed with temporary enthusiasm, indisciplined, reactionaries, blind followers of the West, innovators and by such other synonymous expressions.’ This is in fact what I was going to tell you.