An intelligent study of the history of communal tangle in India would at once show that the British have been systematically injecting the virus of communalism in the Indian body politic. Till the close of the nineteenth century the Government was quite suspicious of the Muslims from whom they had wrested political power in this country. But in the beginning of the twentieth century, they realised the ‘menace’ of Hindu-Muslim Unity to their Empire. Seeds of communal discord, therefore, were sown by the alien rulers according to a definite and well-thought out scheme. First October, 1906, was a fateful day in the history of our nation when a Muslim Deputation led by H. H. the Aga Khan presented at Simla an Address to Lord Minto, the then Viceroy of India. The deputation requested the Viceroy to recognise them as ‘a distinct community’ in local, provincial and central elections. The Muslim Deputation was described and condemned as a “command performance” by the late Maulana Mohammed Ali. It is now a matter of documentary proof that the deputation was inspired by certain British officials; it was, perhaps, drafted by Mr. Archbold who was the Principal of Aligarh College at that time. “I am entirely in accord with you,” observed Lord Minto in his reply to the deputation and, thus, introduced separate electorates in this hapless land. Lord Morley, the Secretary of State for India, who favoured joint electorates with reservation of seats, wrote to Lord Minto :
