Dr Kitchlew’s speech

WHATEVER other fault one may be disposed to find with Dr Kitchlew’s presidential address at the Khilafat Conference, of which we published a telegraphic summary yesterday, no one will accuse him of want of frankness. His diagnosis of the Hindu-Muslim trouble in Punjab is neither correct nor just, but there is no mental reservation in it. Starting with the apparently bold but in this case meaningless statement that “Mian Fazl-i-Hussain’s policy was undoubtedly the cause of Hindu-Muslim dispute” in this province, he throws the whole blame for what has happened on the Hindus. To him the only thing that is condemnable in Mian Fazl-i-Hussain’s policy was cooperation with the government. That being condemned, he found not only nothing wrong in the policy, but “felt bound to declare publicly that the Mian was only trying to do justice to the Muslim community”. He declared that the Hindu agitation against Mian Sahib’s policy was selfish and unjust, and took it upon himself to state that this was also the opinion of CR Das, Motilal Nehru, CY Chintamani and lately of Mahatma Gandhi himself. So far as the general issue is concerned, it is not necessary to seriously examine Dr Kitchlew’s statement. It only shows that Lala Lajpat Rai was right when he said in a recent article that so far as communalism was concerned, there was no difference between many of those Muslims who professed nationalist views and men like Mian Fazl-i-Hussain and Dr Zia-ud-Din. What we would like to know, however, is Dr Kitchlew’s authority for the statement that the four leaders named by him have come to just the conclusion that he has come to. If they have, we are constrained to say that they have been guilty of a great dereliction of duty as well as want of courage in not publicly stating their conclusion, and in leaving it to another person to state it for them.