medan moderate is more outspoken in his criticism of government measures that injuriously affect the Mohammedans; he is less lavish in his praises of the British Raj; he is a more skilful negotiator and a decidedly better and more successful diplomat.
The educated Mohammedans, outside India, are almost to a man identified with Indian Nationalism. So the Indian Mohammedan’s changed sentiments towards the British are likely to be a source of great strength to the national cause and make the situation more hopeful from the point of view of Indian Nationalism.
Disaffection among the Sikhs.But the Mohammedans were not the only people whom the Britishers had succeeded in keeping aloof from the Hindu Nationalists. The Sikhs had also so far kept aloof. The treatment of the Sikhs in Canada, the Komagata Maru[1] incident and the influence of Har Dayal and the Gadar party on the Pacific Coast of America formed by him, have affected a great change of feeling among the Sikhs also. The Government may try to win them back by making concessions and conferring preferments, but a move like the one recently made in giving Mr. K. G. Gupta’s seat on the Secretary of State’s Council in London to Sirdar Dal jit Singh, a Sikh nobleman, is likely to make them look even more ridiculous than before. The
- ↑ Komagata Maru is the name of a Japanese steamer, which a number of Sikh emigrants chartered in Hong Kong in 1914 a d in order to take them to Canada. They were not allowed to land and were forced to return to India under circumstances which have created a bitter anti-British feeling among the Indians all over the world.
