Blessings of Khilafat — Page 81
81 their lobby. This is why the small parties then mix with larger ones, but because of being small in number they get so fully absorbed in the larger parties and end up totally losing their own identity. Just take a look and you will see that all the damage that our Jam a ‘at has suffered is due to this very politics. Initially, a few of us joined it, but since it required so much lobbying and grouping, they had to join hands with other parties. Initially, their stance was that they would attract others to themselves, but on the contrary, they slowly began to get absorbed themselves. To begin with, they became members of the Anjuman Himayat-e-Islam, and then, when their zest for politics increased, they joined the Muslim League. Later, when they found that it would not be possible for them to gain any more success on account of our religious differences, they sacrificed their own religious beliefs in order to please the larger party and to acquire fame. Do you have any idea why they had to do this? It was nothing but the desire to gain a share in the larger lobby, the consequence of which was that for giving away their faith, they lost the world as well. Take for example the A ryas if you want to understand this phenomenon of grouping and lobbying. In the beginning this sect interfered only in religious matters, but when the light of the modern thought guided them to the evergreen pastures of politics, they turned to it and now consider religion to be a part of politics. So much so. that today the debate is whether the A ryah religion is a religion or just a political party? Their current situation shows that they are nothing more than a political party to which religion is of no concern. They seem to have lost all their peculiarities. There was a time when they would get annoyed at those calling them Hindus. They would firmly declare themselves to be A ryas, not Hindus.