"The South Asiatic Federation was more for the good of the Muslim countries such as Arabia, Mesopotamia and Afghanistan than for the good of India. This shows how very naturally the thoughts of Indian Musalmansare occupied by considerations of Muslim countries other than those of India... What a terrible thing it would have been if this South Asiatic Federation had come into being! Hindus would have been reduced to the position of a distressed minority. The Indian Annual Register says: "Supporters of British Imperialism in the Muslim community of India have also been active trying by the organization of an Anglo-Muslim alliance to stabilize the role of Britain in Southern Asia, from Arabia to the Malaya Archipelago, wherein the Muslims will be junior partners in the firm at present, hoping to rise in time to the senior partnership. It was to some such feeling and anticipation that we must trace the scheme adumbrated by His Highness the Aga Khan in his book India in Transition published during the war years. The scheme had planned for the setting up of a South Western Asiatic Federation of which India might be a constituent unit. After the war when Mr. Winston Churchill was Secretary of State for the Colonies in the British Cabinet, he found in the archives of the Middle Eastern Department a scheme ready-made of a Middle Eastern Empire.""