The Nehru Report and Muslim Rights — Page 104
1. I 04 ] separate province, and as such there is no dang<;r t,. , any co�munity in the event of representative (�ovcrnrnent being granted to it. It is groundless to hold that the interest of the 1-findua would suffer at the hands of the Muslim majority if Sindh be made a separate independent province. If not, the same objection can be raised in respect of the Muslim minorjti<. ;s in Bombay, Madras, the United Provinces, and Behar, where they are actually in a greater danger. For even under a federal system, the Central Government shall c<:,r tainly wield an enormous influence, and here the Hindu elements are bound to preponderate. The second objection that Bombay having spent a large amount of money in Sindh, the latter province cannot claim a separate Gov ernment. This is also untenable. It is just like the plea of those Englishmen who argue that India cannot be granted self-government as the English traders and capi talists have sunk a vast capital in the country. Had the expenditure upon Sindh been so lar�e, the Hindus of Bombay would have been foremost to demand the separa tion of Sindh. They are, on the other hand, mo8t. anxious to keep the province as a dependency. That clearly goes to shovv that the money apparently spent in Sindh is bringing in a rich harvest. The fact that Sindh could not grow in prosperity with a port like Karachi leads one to suspect that Bombay was thriving at the expense of Sindh, and so in order to maintain its pros perity jealously stood on the way to the development of Karachi. In short, if Bombay has spent directly one rupee on Sindh it has had indirectly two rupees back from that province, and here 1ies the secret of the anxiety of Bombay to keep the province under its heels. Both the objections are, therefore, groundlc·�s, and nobody's rights wiJI be infringed if Sindh is constituted into a separate province.