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LEAGUE ASSAULTS ON SATYARTIIA PRAKASII
world. Who can tell that, however innocent-looking these
inroads may look at present, they are not a prelude to active .
revival of the "religious" wars which in history at one time
spread destruction and ruination almost throughout the
eastern hemisphere ?
The
Satyartha Prakash
was first published nearly seventy
years ago. It never became a cause of communal clash all
these years. The Muslim leaders at the time, who were no less
lovers of Islam and the Muslim community, never approached
Dayananda, its author, for deletion of the fourteenth chapter.
On the other hand several of them had openly conceded to
him the right to expound the truth as he honestly saw it
for the good of humanity. There have been attempts then on
the part of certain members of a non-Muslim section to
institute legal proceedings against Dayananda in respect of
the criticisms of their religious tenets and beliefs. But the
Muslims, among whom could be counted persons of the im-
portance and influence of Sir Syed Ahmed, did not think it
proper or worth their while to make any such attempt even
as a matter of protest against the fourteenth chapter.
A RETROSPECT
The seed of which the "Muslim" League is the sprout is a
seed of evil, anti-democratic and anti-human. It is a seed
of evil of reaction and retrogression. The whole background
and purpose of the League is to serve the idea of stemming
the tide of national and democratic progress in India, for
which the Indian National Congress was brought into being
and functioned. If the Englishman who took the initiative
for bringing
into existence the Congress was a lover of
democracy
and of Indian humanity, the Englishman who
took
the initiative for effecting the birth of the "Muslim" League