The Nehru Report and Muslim Rights — Page 118
[ 118 ] not in the Muslim provinces alone, but that in every province there is scope for any minority to rule the the majority. In reply I may well ask whether there is any major province, except the Punjab and Bengal, where it may be reasonably expected that the majority and the minority communities would alternately come into power. If there is none, there is hardly a point of analogy. In the Punjab and Bengal, we have a minority that could manage through its superiority in wealth, education, and organisation, if not to monopolise the Government for good, at least to change places frequently with the major. ity. But in Madras and Bombay, the C. P. , the U. P. , Behar and Bur�a, the Muslim minority ( which nowhere exceeds 15 % of the population } is foredoomed to remain a perpetual minority with no effective voice in the Gov ernment of the country. Equity, therefore, demands thc1t seats should be reserved for the Muslims in the Punjab and Bengal, and then, they should be exhorted to trust the Hindus in other provinces in the same ,vay as they did trust them in these provinces. and to disabuse their minds of all suspicions. The Nehru-Report has laid particular stress upon this point. It says :-' • We cannot have one community do mineering over another. We may not be able to pre vent this entirely but the object we should aim at is not to give dominion to one over another but to prevent the harassment and exploitation o-f any individual or group by another. " ( Ibid. p. 29. ) But the question is,-have the committee precluded the chances of class domina tion? In Madras, Behar, and other places, the committee itself feel:, apprehension that the Hindu domination will b _ e of a permanent nature, as the fv1uslims in those pro, :. 1 n 1 ces. are a ••negligible'' minority. Th� Report says :- t will be h • • • seen t at by making this concession in I -4