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THE RELIGIOUS ELEMENTS
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litical pronouncements of the Muslim League,[1] but the political influence of the Muslim League among the people was, so far, little as compared with the influence of the Pan Islamic party. This PanIslamic party is the extreme wing of the Mohammedan Nationalists.

The number of forfeitures of the Moslem papersand publications under the Press Act, the nature of those publications and the continued support given to the papers that have been more than once forfeited and punished by the Government, the change in the tone of the Moslem papers in their comments on government measures, and the newly born entente between the Hindus and Mohammedans, of which there is unmistakable proof in the press as well as in actual life, all point in the same direction. There is every chance of the Hindu extremists and Muslim extremists making an alliance and joining hands, while even the Mohammedan moderates are coming nearer the Hindu moderates.[2] The former may not actually join the Congress in large numbers,but they are thinking and acting the same way. The Mohammedan moderates are wiser than the Hindu moderates. They use their extreme party as a trump card in their negotiations with the Government more effectively than the Hindus do or have ever done. The Mohammedan extremist receives more substantial support and sympathy from his moderate co-religionist than the Hindu extremist does from the Hindu moderates. The Moham-

  1. The organisation of the Pro-British Muslims.
  2. See the Introduction.