Music outside mosques

WE can understand the feeling which found expression in the resolution adopted by the All-India Hindu Mahasabha at its recent meeting at Delhi on the subject of processional music before mosques. By this resolution, the Mahasabha placed on record its emphatic condemnation of the imposition of unprecedented  restrictions on the carrying out of Hindu religious observances, which had resulted in the abandonment of Ramlila, Dussehra and other celebrations by Hindus at several places; it deplored the fact that at such places, the officials should thus have failed in the discharge of the Government’s obligation to secure to every community in India the peaceful observance of its religious rites, ceremonies and festivals; and recorded its opinion that the magistrates had exceeded their powers under the law and that the prohibitory orders issued by them were entirely unjustified, illegal and provocative of communal conflict. Another part of the resolution expressed the opinion of the Mahasabha that the Muslim opposition to Hindu music at the several places was not based on any real religious feeling but was due entirely to communal zid, and that in so far as the Muslims at all those places had insisted on stopping the playing of music by the threat of force or by requisition of the authority of the Government, they had disregarded the spirit and letter of even the settlement arrived at the Unity Conference held at Delhi in September 1924. So far as the first part of the resolution is concerned, we are in complete agreement with the Mahasabha. We consider that in most, if not in all, cases referred to in the resolution, the interference of officials and the prohibitory orders issued by them were without any justification.