21. Mr. MacCALLUM SCOTTasked the Under-Secretary of State for India whether he has received any protests which have been made in India against his references to the Mahomedans of Eastern Bengal; and, if so, whether he proposes to take any action?
§ Mr. MONTAGUI am indebted to my hon. Friend for the opportunity which his question affords me of expressing my regret that the remarks to which he refers should have given rise to misunderstanding and misapprehension among some of the Mahomedan people in India. My object was to point out that the Mahomedans of Eastern Bengal, in that to a great extent they were not the descendants of those with whose history Delhi was so intimately connected, deserved the special and careful consideration which we claim they have received in the rearrangement of the province in which they live. But I recognise, as I stated last year in this. House, that the Mahomedans are animated by a religious feeling which produces a unity making them independent of geographical and racial separation. I should like to repeat that the history of India shows, and, I doubt not, will show, that the Government is not unmindful of 1823 the responsibility which is placed upon them by the unswerving confidence of the Mahomedans in India in British rule.