The unity conference
WE are as far from being pessimists as any human could be, but we confess that from what we have read of the preliminary deliberations of some of the sectional committees, we have no high hopes of an immediate solution of the communal problem being found as the result of the meeting of the Unity Committee at Delhi. The first essential thing for such a solution, the existence of the necessary atmosphere, seems to be wanting. In the first place, it is still imagined in some quarters that self-government is of more vital importance to one community than to another, hence the tendency on the part of some advocates of the supposed interests of the latter to exploit the zeal and earnestness of the former in the matter of self-government for their own communal purpose. The position taken up by those persons is different only in form from that which, in the days of the Khilafat agitation, was tersely summed up, in the course of private talk, by more than one Muslim public man in the phrase, “Your Swaraj and our Khilafat”. It was forgotten then that apart from its equal intrinsic importance to all communities, Swaraj was essential for the Muslim community in India acquiring that political power which alone could give it an effective voice in international affairs. It is equally forgotten now that Swaraj is essential for the Muslim community having that effective voice in national and communal affairs that is its birthright. Today, in spite of the advantages which majority communities have in some minor matters, in all matters of major importance, all communities are in the same position.
