The Aga Khan's Vision of a Greater India

In his recent book entitled "India in Transition." H.H. the Aga Khan expresses the hope that in the near future there will be a great southern Asiatic federation, of which India would be the pivot and center. The Asiatic Review commenting on his book and quoting the dimensions of this federation says: "A vast agglomeration of States, Principalities, and Countries in Asia, extending from Aden to Mesopotamia--from the two shores of the Gulf to India proper., from India proper across Burma, and including the Malay Peninsula, and thence from Ceylon to the States of Bokhara, and from Tibet to Singapore". This Federation would affect some four hundred million human beings, made up of races manifold. But in order that India may be prepared to occupy the proud position of pivot and center, certain reforms within herself are necessary, and these possible reforms the Aga Khan discusses in detail.

As he justly says, "the broad aim must be to make India sufficiently well-equipped educationally to give her sons the general and special culture they seek, so that the ambitious should no longer be under the virtual compulsion to spend years of their normal student life abroad". In many parts of the book true and sombre pictures are drawn of the social disorganization and economic backwardness from which India suffers, but it is urged that this constitutes no reason for denying political reform, and that India really wants, not only social and economic, but also political advancement, with which social and economic reforms cannot be brought to fruitful maturity. The Aga Khan accordingly insists that the basis of the autonomous State should be broadened, in order to give the people as a whole occasion for understanding and responding to the call of sacrifice for the Commonwealth. The claim, therefore of, women to share in the election of National Assemblies is an unanswerable one, for it cannot be maintained that women are less capable than the men of realizing the need for sacrifice, and it would be wrong to impose on them the acceptation of responsibility to society at large without participation in the political shaping of the State. This being so, the Aga Khan has no hesitation in laying it down as his belief that "The progressive modernization which depends on co-operation and understanding between the rulers and the ruled will be impossible in India unless women are permitted to play their legitimate part in the great work of national regeneration on a basis of political equality".

This is plain speaking for a Moslem, and arising out of the status of Indian women the Aga Khan discusses--like the Indian gentleman he is--British and Indian social relations, and points out that the keynote to improved relations is the cultivation of real affinities.