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52
INTRODUCTION

timent of separation, has been greatly softened. The Mohammedans have begun to feel that they can share in the ancient glory of India without an outrage to their Mohammedanism. The Hindus have come to realise that after all the Mohammedan rule in India was not so bad or tyrannical and oppressive as they were told it was by interested historians. The Mohammedans feel that they can be as proud of the Hindu heroes, Rama and Krishna, of the Hindu Epics, the Ramayana and the Mahabharta, of Hindu science and Hindu philosophy, as the Hindus themselves are, without being false to their religion or to their community. Similarly the Hindus feel that they can be as proud of a Sher Shah and an Akbar and a Shah Jahan, of Alberuni, of Ibn Batuta, of Abul Fazal, Faizi and Galib, as the Mohammedans can be. Nay, they can go a step further and say that even Aurangzeb was not, after all, so bad as they had supposed him to be. The Hindus and Mohammedans have discovered that they can take part in their respective festivals and take pride in their respective past, without in any way being traitors to their respective religions and communities.

VIII

That the above statements are not mere creations of my own brain, but are based on fact, will be easily seen from the following extracts which I make from the speech of the President of the last session of the All-India Muslim League held at Bombay in December, 1915.