The Nehru Report and Muslim Rights — Page 123
[ 123 ] Report says : -• � The only methods of giving a feeling of security are safeguards and guarantees and the grant, as far as possible. of cultural autonomy. " ( Vide p. 28. ) Thus, the committee admit that different communities have different cultures, and it is not unreasonable fer them to demand guarantees for their preservation. Ac cordingly the Mussalmans, anxious as they are to restore an atmosphere of mutual confidence, demand that in addition to having a hand in the administration of the country and a proportionate representation in the pro vinces, they should have opportunities for cultural pro gres� in the Punjab and Bengal in complete accord with their past traditions. This is hardly an occasion to dis cuss how a community, when making progress, lays the foundation of its culture on a few fundamental principles, and in its tradition and development it assumes a line different from other communities. It gradually de velops into a distinct culture of its own, and guards it more jealously than even its liberty. Nations seldom fight so violently for their political interests as they do in defence of their cultures. The latter is of the nature of an abstraction, and therefore admits of no specific definition, although its existence and importance cannot be denied. Every nation, because of its religious beLefs or its environments, develops a particular mentality, which chalks out the lines of its progress. Its philosophy, civilisation, intellectual and economic development,-all move within the same orbit, and culminate in a corporate national self-expression. In other words, metaphorically speaking it is a sort of mental soil, in which the different branches of knowledge like plants of all kinds, manifest their distinctive colours. Just as in different soils, d"ffer ent fruits and flowers manifest distinctive features of their own, so peoples, living under different cultural influences, develop distinctive features and characteristics of their