The vision of the Syed is not complete. But we must well bear in mind that he was only a child of his day. Education and enlightenment had not then spread far and wide, and a sense of national solidarity was then only germinant. The utmost political ambition of the Syed's was confined to an Indian member's nomination to the Council, to give voice to the Indian point of view. The demand for political autonomy, for acquiring control over the Administration might have been considered by him in the nature of sacrilege or blasphemy. Nor were the times ripe for it. The older civilisation was just overthrown, the probation along modern lines of education had just begun. The lessons of responsi bility had yet to be learnt as also persistence in familiarising oneself with new procedure and modes of thought. It is doubtless true that there was not much to choose between the social and political anarchy prevailing before the collapse of the Moghul Empire and the rapacity and misgovernment of the company whose motto obviously was : " Each one for himself and God for us all ! " One year we read of 50,000,000 people dying of famine, and the next published report of the Company congratulates their officers for phenomenal success in exacting a heavier revenue than ever before. Those were times of uncontrolled greed and unashamed corruption. But there were, here and there, honourable and upright men, with a keen sense of duty.
More especially did the reign of lawlessness con tinue unabated when the Syed was a youngster.
But the Syed was fully alive to the need for harmonious co-operation between the two sister communities, i.e., Hindus and Muhammadans. In characteristic oriental style he would say that Hindus and Muhammadans were the two eyes of the sweet heart India, without whose joint focussing of vision on to the same objective, everything would look confused and indistinct in outline. It is true, that after receiving his knighthood in the reign of Lord Lytton, he went back on some of his principles, took to reactionary views on Indian politics, out of sheer diplomacy and a desire to cater to official vanity, launched a propaganda of calumny and mis representation against the Indian National Congress, • and swallowed most of his progressive views. But this should surprise no one. Greater men than he have fallen victims to official patronage and paid a heavy price for it. And no one can be more easily pardoned than Sir Syed, for his shrewd practical instincts never forsook him, and in spheres other than political he held on till the end as pioneer of vigorous reform and as one engaged in the ministry of recon ciliation. Sir Henry Cotton in a well-known passage refers to him in " New India " as one who for diplomatic reasons apostatised from his ardent admiration for the keen political capacity of the Bengalis.
Some ten years after the assumption by the British crown of responsibility for the governance of India, the Syed decided to pay a visit to England. In
July, 1869, we find him comfortably settled down in Mecklenburgh Square in London with his son Syed Mahmud who was the first Muhammadan student to accept a state scholarship, recently thrown open to Indians to enable them to prosecute further studies at English Universities. On the 15th October, of the same year, he contributed an exceedingly interesting letter to the Aligarh Institute Gazette, giving his miscellaneous impressions of life in London; parts of it sound almost childish, but one can clearly see that the Syed was a keen observer of things and was anxious to improve Indian conditions. " All good things," to quote from the letter, "spiritual and worldly, which should be found in man, have been bestowed by the Almighty on Europe, and especially on England. By spiritual good things, I mean that the English carry out all the details of their religion which they believe to be the true one, with a beauty and excellence which no other nation can compare with. This is entirely due to the education of men and women. . . . If Hindustanis can only attain to civilisation, they will probably, owing to their many natural powers, become if not the superiors, at least the equals of England." The S yed was, from the very beginning of his residence in this country, profoundly convinced that apart front education the attainment to a higher level of civilisation was not possible. He was, further, convinced that women lnust also be educated, for other wise they can not follow the life of Reason on which he so much insisted, nor could they be good mothers or intelligent wives. But curiously enough, he would wait for the instruction of women till the men were thoroughly well-educated first. I suppose the turbulent activities of the suffragettes were not in those days much in evidence, or else the Syed would take back to India the same progressive views concerning the rights and duties of women as he did in the case of men. But it is idle to accuse the Syed of hesitancy in the direction of female education, and especially if we remember what formidable obstacles he had to encounter, to win acceptance from his conservative compatriots even in reference to Western education being imparted to men. But through a spread of higher education among men, the way has been gradually paved for female education, new ideas are gaining ground, the functions of womanhood are gradually gaining ampler recognition, and to-day we see at the anni versaries of Muhammadan Educational Conferences that Muslim ladies hold their meetings not far from where men carry on their deliberations. And it is the merest justice to add that this happy state of things would not have been possible but for the efforts of the enlightened Syed who expected great things from his country and attempted great things for her.