28 SEPTEMBER 1887 (Excerpts) 
The object, gentlemen, of this lecture is to explain the attitude which the Mohammedan community ought to adopt with regard to the political movements of the time. The reason why I stand here to address you to-day is because there has grown up in India a political agitation, and it is necessary to determine what action should be taken by the Mohammedan community with regard to it. 

Before I enter on this subject, let me briefly describe the methods of rule adopted by our Government, which has now been here for nearly a hundred years. Government has made a Council for making laws affecting the lives, property, and comfort of the people. It is very necessary that for the Viceroy's Council the members should be of high social position. A seat in Council of the Viceroy is a position of great honour and prestige. None but a man of good breeding can the Viceroy take as his colleague, treat as his brother, and invite to entertainments at which he may have to dine with Dukes and Earls. I have had the honour of being in this Council. 

I come now to the main subject on which I wish to address you. That is the National Congress and the demands which that body makes of Government. That about which the greatest agitation has taken place is the following. When the Government of India passed out of the hands of the East India Company into those of the Queen, a law was passed, saying that all subjects of Her Majesty, whether white or black, European or Indian, should be equally eligible for appointments. This was confirmed by the Queen's Proclamation. It is true that for the Covenanted Civil Service a special set of rules has been made, namely, that candidates have to pass a competitive examination in England. Perhaps it will occur to every one that this examination ought not to be held in England, and the proposal about which the greatest agitation has taken place is that it should be held in India. And to this is added another proposal that all posts in the subordinate service, from that of Tahsildar to Subordinate Judge, should also be given by competitive examination. 

Every one can understand that the first condition for the introduction of competitive examination into a country is that all people in that country, from the highest to the lowest should belong to one nation. In such a country no particular difficulties are likely to arise. The second case is that of a country in which there are two nationalities which have become so united as to be practically one nation. England and Scotland are a case in point. In the past many wars were waged between those countries and many acts of bravery were done on both sides, but those times have gone, and they are now like one nation. But this is not the case with our country, which is peopled with different nations. Consider the Hindus alone. The Hindus of our Province, the Bengalis of the East, and the Mahrattas of the Deccan, do not form one nation. If, in your opinion, the peoples of India do form one nation, then no doubt competitive examination may be introduced; but if this be not so, then competitive examination is not suited to the country. Now, I ask you, have Mohammedans attained to such a position as regards higher English education, which is necessary for higher appointments, as to put them on a level with Hindus or not? Most certainly not. When this is the case, how can competitive examination be introduced into our country (Cheers). 
The second demand of the National Congress is that the people should elect a section of the Viceroy's council. They want to copy the English House of Lords and the House of Commons. The elected members are to be like members of the House of Commons; the appointed members like the House of Lords. Now, let us suppose the Viceroy's Council is made in this manner. 

And let us suppose first of all that we have universal sufferage, as in America, and that everybody, chamars and all, have votes. And first suppose that all the Mohammedan electors vote for a Mohammedan member and all Hindu electors for a Hindu member, and now count how many votes the Mohammedan members have and how many the Hindu. It is certain the Hindu members will have four times as many because their population is four times as numerous. Therefore we can prove by mathematics that there will be four votes for the Hindu to every one vote for the Mohammedan. And now how can the Mohammedan guard his interests? It would be like a game of dice, in which one man had four dice and the other only one. In the second place, suppose that the electorate be limited. Some method of qualification must be made; for example, that people with a certain income shall be electors. In the normal case no single Mohammedan will secure a seat in the Viceroy's Council. The whole Council will consist of Babu so-and-so Chuckerbutty (Laughter). 

Think for a moment who you are. What is this nation of ours? We are those who ruled India for six or seven hundred years (Cheers). From our hands the country was taken by Government into its own. Is it not natural then for Government to entertain such thoughts? Is Government so foolish as to suppose that in seventy years we have forgotten all our grandeur and our empire? Our nation is of the blood of those who made not only Arabia, but Asia and Europe to tremble. It is our nation which conquered with its sword the whole of India, although its people were all of one religion (Cheers). If Government be wise and Lord Dufferin be a capable Viceroy, then he will realise that a Mohammedan agitation is not the same as a Bengali agitation, and he will be bound to apply an adequate remedy. 

In the time of Lord Ripon I happened to be a member of the Council. At that time the Local Board and Municipality Bills were brought forward, and the intention of them was that everybody should be appointed by election. The only person who was opposed to the system of election was myself. If I am not bragging too much, I may, I think, say that it was on account of my speech that Lord Ripon changed his opinion and made one-third of the members appointed and two-thirds elected. 
But, in conclusion, I have one thing to say, lest my friends should say that I have not told them what is of advantage for our nation and for the country, and by what thing we may attain prosperity. My age is above seventy. Although I cannot live to see my nation attain to such a position as my heart longs for it, yet my friends who are present in this meeting will certainly see the nation attain such honour, prosperity and high rank, if they attend to my advice.

(2) Syed Ameer Ali (1849-1928) was a great Islamic scholar and an eminent jurist. He founded the Central National Mohammedan Association in 1877. It was the first Muslim political organisation in modern India. Throughout his life, he worked for the welfare of the Muslim community. The battle of the separate electorate as asked for in the Address to Lord Minto at Simla in 1906 had not been finally won with the reassuring reply of the Viceroy. Morley, the Secretary of State, wanted to water down the proposal. It was primarily due to Ameer Ali's sustained efforts that the Morley's proposals did not go through. He had settled down in London and mobilized British opinion in favour of the Muslim point of view. He also took a deputation to the Secretary of State in whose presence the case for separate electorate was argued.

(3) Poet Philosopher Allama Sir Mohammad Iqbal (1877-1938) addressed the 21st session of the Muslim League held at Allahabad in 1930 and said : I would like to see the Punjab, the North West Frontier Province, Sind and Baluchistan amalgamated into a single state. Self government within the British Empire, or without the British Empire, the formation of a consolidated North- West Indian Muslim state appears to me to be the final destiny of the Muslims at least of North-West India.

(4) Chaudhri Rahmat Ali (1897-1951) along with three other students at Cambridge University circulated a four-page statement entitled Now or Never. They demanded the creation of a separate Muslim State comprising the North-Western areas of India. The statement inter alia observed : Our religion, culture, history, tradition, economic system, laws of inheritance, succession and marriage are basically and fundamentally different from those of the people living in the rest of India. The ideals which move our thirty million brethren-in-faith living in these provinces to make the highest sacrifices are fundamentally different from those which inspire the Hindus. These differences are not confined to the broad based principles far from it. They extend to the minute details of our lives. We do not inter-dine, we do not inter-marry, our national customs and calendars, even our diet and dress are different.
Later, Qaid-e-Azam Jinnah also emphasised the differences between Hindus and Muslims and asked for the division of India.

(5) Jinnah's Presidential Address (1940)
The Muslim League held its annual session in March 1940 at Lahore. In his Presidential Address, M.A. Jinnah said : Islam and Hinduism are not religions in the strict sense of the word, but are in fact different and distinct social orders, land it is only a dream that the Hindus and the Muslims can ever evolve a common nationality. The Muslims are a nation, according to any definition of a nation, and they must have their homeland, their territory and their state.
Pakistan Resolution

The League Session also passed a resolution which came to be known as the Pakistan Resolution : Resolved that it is the considered view of this session of the All India Muslim League that no constitutional plan would be workable in this country or be acceptable to the Muslims unless it is designed on the following basic principles, namely, that geographically contiguous units are demarcated into regions which should be so constituted, with such territorial readjustments as may be necessary, that the areas in which the Muslims are numerically in a majority as in the north-western and eastern zones of India should be grouped to constitute Independent States, in which the constituent units shall be autonomous and sovereign.