"Even Muhammad Ali, who posed as a staunch nationalist and a gitat admirer of Gandhi, and in whose sincerity Gandhi had absolute confidence. belonged to the anti-Hindu group. In support of this, reference may be made to the speech of Muham- mad Ali as President of the Muslim League Session in 1908, in which he not only accepted the standpoint of Sir Syed Ahmad that the Muslims in India must stand by themselves but ridiculed the idea of Hindu-Muslim unity, as the following extract from his speech will show : “At any rate the Muslims canot be expected to take poisonous cup and drink it to the dregs without a murmur as a martyr to the unity of India... .... -The sanctimonious apostles of unity contend that the interests of Mohammadans do not differ from those ot Hindus. They were the same when $hivaji revolted against Aurangzeb, or when the situation described in the Anand Math existed. The interests in that sense of the whole of humanity are the same.........--- The position of different societies in the scale of political evolution is judged according to the degree to which each has eliminated the personal from the principles that guide it in its system of Government. It is therefore a retrogade step in our political evolution to leave us at the mercy of an angelic majority that invariably thinks of the unity of India’s ultimate interests.” It is of interest to note that this is quoted with approval by a distinguished Muslim leader, Mohammad Noman, in his book, Muslim India, published in 1942. (224)"