Minorities and Lahore municipality

THE vigour with which the present communal majority in the Lahore Municipal Committee is carrying on its efforts to weed out all non-Muslim officers of the municipality admits of no doubt whatever. The latest step in this direction is the following resolution of Insha Ullah Khan and Khwaja Dil Mohammad that has been tabled for Friday’s meeting: “As experience has shown that officers whose appointment and dismissal cannot be effected without the sanction of the government are prone to become indifferent in the discharge of their duties or in respecting and carrying out the wishes of the committee, and this committee is of the opinion that with a view to exercise proper and effective control over the officers, it is necessary that the appointment and dismissal of such officers should be entirely in its own hands. It is, therefore, resolved hereby that the contribution of Rs 4,500 which the government so graciously gives annually towards the pay of the Medical Officer of Health be most respectfully not taken from the current financial year; and as it is essential for improving the sanitary condition of the town to have immediately two Health Officers, applications for the post be invited in the name of the President in accordance with the resolution already passed on the subject on 21st February 1925.” It would thus appear that the party whose views the resolution represents is prepared to sacrifice even the government grant in order to remove the slightest possible impediment to its desire to dispense with the services of the Hindu Medical Officer of Health, who has served the municipality with credit for about 10 years.