.

The reformed constitution keeps all the fundamental liberties of person,
property, press, and association completely under bureaucratic control.
All those laws which give to the irresponsible officers of the Executive
Government of India absolute powers to override the popular will, are
still unrepealed. In spite of the tragic price paid in the Punjab for
demonstrating the danger of unrestrained power in the hands of a foreign
bureaucracy and the inhumanity of spirit by which tyranny in a panic
will seek to save itself, we stand just where we were before, at the
mercy of the Executive in respect of all our fundamental liberties.

Not only is Despotism intact in the Law, but unparalleled crimes and
cruelties against the people have been encouraged and even after
boastful admissions and clearest proofs, left unpunished. The spirit of
unrepentant cruelty has thus been allowed to permeate the whole
administration.

THE MUSSALMAN AGONY

To understand our present condition it in not enough to realise the
general political servitude. We should add to it the reality and the
extent of the injury inflicted by Britain on Islam, and thereby on the
Mussalmans of India. The articles of Islamic faith which it is necessary
to understand in order to realise why Mussalman India, which was once so
loyal is now so strongly moved to the contrary are easily set out and
understood. Every religion should be interpreted by the professors of
that religion. The sentiments and religious ideas of Muslims founded on
the traditions of long generations cannot be altered now by logic or
cosmopolitanism, as others understand it. Such an attempt is the more
unreasonable when it is made not even as a bonafide and independent
effort of proselytising logic or reason, but only to justify a treaty
entered into for political and worldly purposes.

The Khalifa is the authority that is entrusted with the duty of
defending Islam. He is the successor to Muhammad and the agent of God on
earth. According to Islamic tradition he must possess sufficient
temporal power effectively to protect Islam against non-Islamic powers
and he should be one elected or accepted by the Mussalman world.

The Jazirat-ul-Arab is the area bounded by the Red Sea, the Arabian Sea,
the Persian Gulf, and the waters of the Tigris and the Euphrates. It is
the sacred Home of Islam and the centre towards which Islam throughout
the world turns in prayer. According to the religious inju