PROBLEMS OF MUSLIM MINORITIES

It is significant that the theme of the 'Problems of Muslim Minorities' has become included in the topic titled "Political Trends in the Muslim World" This is indeed a recognition that "the Muslim World" is not synonymous with "the  Middle  East"  or  "West  Asia",  and that the Muslim World is not comprised merely of those countries where the Muslims are in a majority. Instead it includes Muslims of other countries who, though minorities, have problems which are by no means of minor consequence. In some, they, in fact, exceed the population of several of the Muslim countries. In the case of the  Indian  Republic  for example, "it will be seen that the total Muslim population in the Indian  Union exceeds the figures for Turkey, Iran, and Afghanistan put together and also those of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Iraq and Iran together" (page 28 of India's Minorities – Government Publication 1948)

 

In view of the Pan-Islamic connotations sometimes associated with the term and in view of the different inference that are being drawn from parallels and precedents in respect of other centuries, countries and communities, it becomes essential to seek a clear definition of the Muslim World.

 

By this term do we mean something akin to the Holy Roman Empire of the Middle Ages or a kind of Caliphate that was topical during the period of the First  World  War ? Does  it  bear  some  resemblance to the British Commonwealth of Nations with a Head of the Commonwealth in the person of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom but with no central organization or controlling authority through which a common policy or even joint action could be formulated or enforced ?  Or  does  the term signify a Union of Muslim States or a Group or Conglomeration of Muslim Countries or Darul Islams ?Is the term Muslim World the equivalent of Alam-e-Islami or is it on Umma Muhammadiyya ? In  this  quest of clarity it would be relevant to remember that it is now generally accepted as a definition that a Nation is a group of people who will to be a Nation or who feel the sense of nationality. Likewise the Muslim World is what the Muslims understand by it.

 

The distinguishing feature of the Muslim peoples of the world is their sense of brotherhood irrespective of colour and country. Therefore it is that the Muslim World is the equivalent of Umma Muhammadiyya. To this view, the following statement of President Nasser lends powerful support.

 

"I often think of the 80 million Moslems in Indonesia, the 50 millions in China, the several millions in Malaya, Siam and Burma, the close on 100 millions in Pakistan, the more than 100 millions in the Middle East, the 40 millions inside the U.S.S.R. and the several million others scattered in various parts of the world. When I consider these hundreds of millions united by the same  faith, I  get  a  powerful  impression  of the immense possibilities which could be realised by the co-operation of all Moslems. This cooperation  would  naturally not negate their loyalty to their countries of origin. But it would insure them all an illimitable force." page 17 of 'A Comment on President Gamal Abdel –  Nasser's  Work –  The  Philosophy of The Egyptian Revolution  by  Abbas  Mahmoud  El- Akkad' published : Dar Al-Maaref, Cairo.

 

Minorities have sometimes been defined as "inhabitants of a country who differ from the majority of the population in race, language and religion" This definition would prove inadequate in the case of the Muslim Minorities who are held together not by ties of language or race but by ties of religion, Islamic  brotherhood proving more potent than linguistic affinity or racial kinship. This is so  well  demonstrated  in  Ceylon where the recognized communal groups are the Sinhalese, the Tamils, the Muslims – earlier known as the Mohamedans – and the Burghers. The first, second and the fourth are linguistic cum racial groups whereas the third is a religious group of racial diversity and linguistic complexity.

 

The minorities should therefore be better defined as "groups of citizens held together by ties of common descent, language, culture, or religious faith, etc., who feel that they differ in these respects from the rest of the population, and who desire to preserve their special characteristics and to develop them further."  The  problem  of  Muslim  minorities is a "problem within the problem" of a plural society.

"Other sources of conflict, or factors causing division, may create what we call the problems of a plural society. Such are religion, race, language, or a local patriotism associated with a particular region having a distinctive history or tradition. Any of these may set up a group within the larger community whose cohesion rivals, or whose claim to loyalty prevails over, that of the  commmunity  as  a whole. Such differences constituting potential or actual causes of conflict require the discovery of terms capable of reconciling them with the unity of the larger whole. In other words, satisfaction of certain conditions which they create might be the price which has to be paid before the whole can be itself an effective co-operative association. Wiliam Pitt recognized that the unity of Canada as a whole required the constitutional  acceptance  and  defence  of  basic racial and religious divergences  within it, and not until these had been embodied in a federal structure covering their protection was the  overriding  unity of  Canada as a political entity able to prevail. Similarly the price of cohesion in the Swiss Confederation or the West German Republic has included the practice of representation at  supreme  executive  level  of regional and either religious or  linguistic  differences.” – page  117  of  The Foundations of Political Theory by H.R.G. Greaves. Published : George Allen and Unwin Ltd; London.

 

In some cases the geographical distribution and historical traditions of the Muslim minority concerned would permit of a solution in the direction of  federalism or regional autonomy. In some, the minority may be so small and scattered that it cannot hope to exercise sufficient political power to influence the policy  or  the orgnaization of the State. Or the State may be so fully totalitarian as to deprive  the citizens  concerned  of  all  political power irrespective of whether they belong to the major or a minor group. But the problems of those Muslim minorities who are in  a position to share political power with  other  groups  belonging  to  the  same  State are of special importance for the purpose of our inquiry, – Political Trends in the Muslim World with special reference to the problems of Muslim Minorities.

 

The kind of conflict that may arise in this context is clearly indicated in the following passage from the last speech of Maulana Mohamed Ali at the Round Table Conference held on the 19th of November, 1930.

 

"Many people in England ask us why this question of Hindu and Muslim comes into politics, and what it has to do with these things. I reply, 'It is a wrong conception of religion that you have, if you exclude politics from it. It is not dogma; it is not ritual ! Religion, to my mind, means the interpretation of life'. I have a culture, a polity, an outlook on life – a complete synthesis which is Islam.  Where God commands I am a Muslim first, a Muslim second, and a Muslim last, and nothing but a Muslim. If you ask me to enter into your Empire or into your Nation by leaving that synthesis, that polity, that culture, that ethics, I will not do it. My first duty is to my Maker, not to H.M. The King, nor to my companion Dr. Moonje; my first duty is to my Maker, and that is the case with Dr.. Moonje also. He must be a Hindu first, and I must be a Muslim first, so far as that duty is  concerned.  But  where  India is concerned, where India's freedom is concerned, where the welfare of India is concerned I am an Indian first, an Indian second, an Indian last, and nothing but an Indian.

 

I belong to two circles of equal size, but which are not concentric. One is India, and the other is the Muslim world. When I came to  England  in  1920  at  the  head  of the Khilafat Delegation, my friends said : "you must have some sort of a crest for your stationery". I decided to have it with two circles on it. In one circle was the word "India"; in the other circle was Islam, with the word "Khilafat". We as Indian Muslims came in both circles. We belong to these two circles, each of more than 300 millions, and we can leave neither….. I want you to realise that for the first time you are introducing a big revolution into India; for the first time majority rule is to be introduced into India. In the days of Lord Rama there was no majority rule, or he would not have been exiled. The old Pandu and Kuru rulers, who gambled their kingdoms away, did not have majority rule' Mahmud of  Ghazni  and Akbar and Aurangzib did not have majority rule, nor did Shivaji; when  Ranjit Singh ruled in the Punjab, he too did not have majority rule; when Warren Hastings and Clive ruled India, they did not have majority rule; and even in the days of Lord Irwin there is no majority rule. For the first time in  India  we are going to introduce majority rule, and I, belonging to a minority community accept that majority rule, although I know very well that if 51 people say that 2 and 2 make 5, and 49 people say that 2 and 2 make 4, the fact that 51 say that 2 and 2 make 5 does not cause them to make 5……"

 

This theory of the two circles, – so reminiscent of "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's has to be rejected on account of Islam's refusal "to bifurcate the unity of man into an irreconcilable duality of spirit and matter. In Islam God and the universe, spirit and matter, church and state are organic to each other."

 

I owe loyalty to Islam as a Muslim and I also owe loyalty to Ceylon as a citizen of Ceylon. As a member of a plural society the analogy of either contiguous or of concentric circles would fail in my case. So would that of coincident circles which may connote either a theocracy or a totalitarian or absolutist State. The analogy of intersecting circles cutting at two points would be less inappropriate.

 

"The state is clearly to be regarded as one of those groups of which all individuals are members and which, though they take a great variety of forms, can be regarded by the sociologist as possessing a generic similarity. 'Groups', as Ginsberg says, 'may be considered as complexes of relations having a certain consistency and permanence, defined in institutions. These groups may be conceived as circles some of which fall within, while  others cut across, each other. Thus the individual is a member of  his  family,  his neighbourhood, his professional association, his  church, his nation, his state, his linguistic or culture area. The relations in which he stands to these various groupings vary in depth and pervasiveness and his character is variously affected by them. The groupings themselves are not fixed but are subject to constant motion and transformation." page 16 of The Foundations of Political Theory by H.R.G. Greaves. Published : George Allen and Unwin Ltd., London.

The problems envisaged above could only be resoled by a policy of cultural co-existence where two or more different cultures exist side by side each influencing without attempting to absorb or dominate the other. This cultural co-existence necessarily entails the acceptance of cultural diversity, as the ideal of the Nation provided that such diversity doe not undermine the political  unity  which  is  so necessary for the emergence as well as the continuance of the State. The theory of unity in diversity – political unity in the midst of cultural diversity – is complex and its practice difficult and the possibilities of conflicts are as unending as the possibilities of compromises. Each occasion therefore demands of the Muslim minority a clear grasp of the principle and a careful  assessment  of  the situation and the surrounding circumstances. For in the final analysis, when methods fail of persuading the majority different in culture,  obedience  to  the  State  has to cease; and sometimes disobedience becomes imperative or inescapable in obedience to the Higher Law of Islam. While the right to resist always does exist, when and how this right should be exercised, either individually or collectively, would naturally depend on the particular set of circumstances.

 

It may be assumed that all Muslim minorities would always desire that they do enjoy, in full measure, all human and fundamental rights without discrimination – discrimination whether through legislative or administrative acts either of  commission  or  omission – and that these rights, wherever possible, are  constitutionally guaranteed with remedies provided for their enforcement through Courts of Law.

 

In  addition,  these  Muslim  minorities  in  some  cases  may  desire and demand  additional  protective  measures  from  the  State  or  from  the  Government for the preservation and protection of their culture owing to the possibility envisaged of the culture of the majority group, or in exceptional circumstances of another minority group, becoming so dominant, due to strength of numbers which in a democracy confers so many legislative and administrative advantages, as to emasculate or even exterminate the culture of the Muslim minority. Protective measures may become essential where the group is so backward educationally and so poor economically that without special measures the cultural individuality of the group will be lost though not at once but gradually.

With  such  fears and misgivings, real, exaggerated or imaginary, a plural society cannot succeed as a political organization unless the major group is prepared to use its powers with a sense of justice and fairness and the minor groups are always reasonable in their demands, and both are ever prepared to understand and appreciate each other's point of view, – in the words of Sir John  Kotelawala,  former  Prime  Minister  of  Ceylon  "no  oppression  by  the majority and no provocation by a minority." At this stage it would be appropriate to mention that Shri Nehur was reported to have said in May 1958 that:

 

"The  communalism  of  the  minority was dangerous, but it petered out some time or other. But the communalism of the majority is far more dangerous than the communalism of the minority because it wears the garb of nationalism. We have this communalism  ingrained in us, and comes out quickly at the slightest provocation, and even decent people begin to behave like barbarians when this communalism is roused in them." 

-Morning Times of Ceylon of 12th May, 1958.

 

The  same idea has been expressed in somewhat different terms by another eminent  Indian,  the  Honourable  Humayun  Kabir, Minister of Scientific Research and Culture, in his inaugural address at the Seminar on National Unity versus Group Isolation.

 

"Minorities  are  generally  more  sensitive  about the retention of their separate character. Majorities do not generally insist  on  such  retention,  because  they  know that greater uniformity is likely to lead to the acceptance of their way of life by the minority rather than vice versa. This is one of the main reasons why religious minorities are so anxious to preserve their special traditions and characteristic culture even at the cost of estranging  the majority. The same fear is behind the passion exhibited in recent times over the question of the languages of India.

It is easy for the majority to press its own point of view under the guise of national interest and dismiss the fears of the minority groups as parochial. One may certainly argue that the larger national interest should always prevail over the interest of a  section or group. Unfortunately, however, the majority has often a tendency of identifying the national interest with its own interest.

 

There need not be any dishonesty or hypocrisy in such identification, for it is a common human failing – in India and elsewhere – to regard one's own point of view as the only correct and  right  point  of  view." page 40 of Volume 18 of Quest published in India by the Congress for Cultural Freedom.

 

In the subsequent paragraphs of this paper an attempt shall be made to discuss the solutions that have been tried in Ceylon in dealing with some of the problems indicated above. As far as the Muslims are concerned it has been their conviction that the Muslim community of Ceylon forms an integral part of the Ceylonese Nation and that they best serve Sri Lanka not by the abandonment, dethronement or dilution of their culture but by its protection, preservation and promotion aiming at unity in diversity – political unity in the midst of cultural diversity. Besides, history and geography have conditioned the Ceylon Muslim Community to attach the highest value to the ideal of national unity, a value even higher than that which prevails among all other communities of the Ceylonese Nation. The Muslims form only 6.7% of the population roughly 550,000 in a total of 8,000,000 and are numerically the second minority group in Ceylon, the first being the Tamils, and the Sinhalese forming the majority roughly 5,500,000 strong. The Muslims came as traders and  some  of their descendants finally settled down as agriculturalists or peasants. They entertained no desire of conquest at any time in their long history extending over a period of nearly twelve centuries. They had fair and favoured treatment from the indigenous dynasties and their strength declined only after the advent of the Portuguese in 1505. The Muslims geographically are now distributed throughout the Island with a few concentrations. Besides, they have  no  neighbouring  country  which  is  culturally  more attractive than Ceylon. Al these factors have probably led to the easy solutions so far obtaining  to  the difficult problems inevitable in any plural society. This aspect has therefore to be specifically remembered when parallels and precedents are being drawn from the experience of Ceylon.

With regard to the Fundamental Rights which all citizens would desire to enjoy and exercise, the provision of such rights figures prominently in the revision of the Constitution now engaging the attention of the Joint Select Committee of Parliament. The present Constitution was proclaimed in 1947 and therefore  advantage  could  not  be taken of the Constitutions of the Republics of India and Pakistan which have specific chapters devoted to these rights. Although at one time  there  were  a few Buddhists in favour of a Buddhist Republic for Ceylon, there is no such demand publicly voiced at present. Article 29 of the Ceylon Constitution which makes void any law which imposes liabilities on or confers advantages to any community has been found to be no satisfactory substitute for a Chapter of Fundamental rights enforceable judicially. The House of Representatives is now composed of 95 members  territorially  elected  and  6  appointed  members  nominated  by the  Governor   General   to   represent   important   interests   unrepresented  or inadequately represented. The electoral districts are so demarcated as to ensure a certain measure of communal representation through territorial seats. On the last occasion there was no Muslim in the Delimitation Commission composed of three members. It is generally felt by the Muslims that due to the absence of a Muslim member the Commission did not adequately consider the claims of the Community and did not utilize to the fullest possible extend the  method  of   multi-member  constituencies  to  enable  the  Muslim Community to be better represented in the House of Representatives. In the circumstances obtaining in Ceylon the task of the Delimitation Commission to be soon appointed is an onerous one – to provide adequately communal representation  through  territorially  demarcated seats by taking whatever advantage  possible  of  the  geographical  distribution  of  the  Muslim  population.

In  the  amending  Bill  that  has  been  passed  by  the House of Representatives  and  is  now awaiting the concurrence of the Senate, the Delimitation  Commission  which  previously  could  have  created multi-member constituencies for the benefit of persons "united by a community of interest,  whether  racial,  religious  or  otherwise  but  differing  in one or more of these respects" from the rest in the province can now create such constituencies only if the citizens concerned are united "by a community of racial interest." In principle, this amendment militates against the solidarity and the interest of Muslim Community as it is definitely a religious and not a racial group. But in practice no disadvantage would ensure for nearly all the Ceylon Muslims are racially distinct from either the Sinhalese or the Tamils.

 

In the memorandum presented by the All-Ceylon Muslim League to the Joint Select Committee of Parliament it has been urged, inter alia, "that all the citizens  must  be  guaranteed  within the limits of law the following fundamental rights : freedom of thought….. worship and religious practices…. equality of opportunity in all walks of life and equal rights of benefitting from all  public  institutions …. and  equal  opportunities with members of the majority community to participate in the public life of the country, including Civil and Armed Forces."

 

The inclusion above of "religious practices" has been the result of some of the  protagonists  of  the  Ahimsa  Movement  demanding  the severe restriction if not the entire prohibition of the slaughter and sale of animals for food and of an incident that took place a few years back, fortunately localised and not repeated where there was an isolated clash between some Muslims and Buddhists on account of the beating of tom toms before a Mosque.

 

Under the present Constitution the appointment, disciplinary control and dismissal of public officers is vested in a Public Service Commission of three members. This provision was intended to prevent communal or political discrimination. So  far  no  Muslim  has  functioned as a member of this Commission. Although there has been no discrimination against the Muslims it would be more satisfactory and satisfying if the membership is increased from 3 to 5, to permit of a Muslim being appointed so that at no time will any claims of a Muslim candidate or any extenuating circumstances of a Muslim public officer will be lost sight of.

 

One of  the  resolutions that was passed by the All-Ceylon Muslim Political Conference in 1939 was that "it is not in the best interests of the country  the  system  of Government by Executive Committees should be abolished." With the experience that Ceylon has gained since 1947 of the deficiencies of the British Parliamentary System – dominated as it is by the Two party form – it is now felt that the stage has been reached when serious attention should be given to the alternative forms of democratic Government that may be  advantageously adapted to suit the plural or multi-communal society of Ceylon. It will thus become necessary to review with profit the Executive Committee System as it functioned during the Donoughmore Era and consider  whether  with  suitable  modifications  in  the  light of the knowledge already acquired of the strength and weakness of the Executive Committee system it cannot be introduced within a Parliamentary frame work to the general advantage of Ceylon.

 

In any parliamentary and democratic set up, no Muslim minority can avoid lobbying. Whether this should be carried out through a political party exclusively  confined  to  the  Muslim  minority fighting elections on its own or as part of or in association with another political party or whether this lobbying  should  be  undertaken  by  an  unaffiliated organization of the Muslims that  would  concentrate its attention on all topical and political questions with cultural or communal import would depend on the particular circumstances obtaining in each country.

 

In Ceylon the All-Ceylon Muslim League was a founder member of and affiliated to the United National Party from 1946 – 1956. It is now clear that even the entire support of the Muslim minority to a particular political party cannot ensure that party's victory at a General Election. Therefore in the continuation of such a policy there is the ever present danger of alienating the sympathy of the Government party to the detriment of the Muslim minority which so much depends on the good will of the majority. Besides, by such a close  association of  the  Muslims  with a particular political party as it happened during the  period  1946 – 1956 the Muslims found themselves committed to economic policies where the Muslims as a group would not and could not have,  generally  speaking,  a united opinion on account of the existence of economically privileged and under-privileged persons among the Muslims as in all other communities. Questions relating to the Nationalisation of Transport, Rent Restriction, Land Tenure and Taxation are good examples of this dilemma. Thus an organization concerning itself with only cultural or communal questions would ensure that the energies of the Community are not dissipated. The Muslims probably would wield a larger measure of influence in  the  body  politic  by  joining  individually  political  parties already functioning in the Country whose policies do not conflict with the principles of Islam. It is necessary at this stage to state that the above observations would equally apply to the All-Ceylon Moors' Association which, though it has the appearance of a racial organization of a religious group – the Ceylon Muslims being predominately Moors racially and there being no Moors – apart from isolated and stray examples of just one or two – who are non-Muslims. There has so far been no real clash of policy, in relation to the major and other minor communities of Ceylon, between these two organizations despite any clash of personalities. The experiences of both the Muslim League and the Moors' Association in Ceylon during one decade demonstrate the disadvantages of their affiliation with a political party.

 

There  is also the possibility in the case of a Muslim Organization, interesting itself in all political and economic questions, of vested interests exploiting Islam and its appeal to stay measures that are intended to promote economic equality or the equality of opportunity and thus right the wrongs of the  especially  underprivileged.  While it is  true  that  in  Islam  there  is no separation  between  politics  and  religion  it  would be unrighteous and therefore unislamic to make Islam subserve the ends of party-politics e.g. whether to conserve antisocial privileges or to promote partisanship.

 

The difficulties of setting up an organiztion concentrating its attention on cultural and communal questions should not be minimized as the Muslim minority has no central organization or a hierarchial parish system of the kind known to the Christian communities. Among the Ceylon Muslims every town and village has a congregation of its own, self contained and often isolated, having  no  central  authority  to  receive  any  form  of  directions  or even guidance.  In  such  circumstances  the  ingenuity  and  initiative  of the Community  will  always  be  taxed to the utmost to foster an All-Island organization dealing with all cultural and communal questions that will evoke the response of the entire community if not command the allegiance of every Muslim belonging to the Island. So far there has been no organization of the Muslims formed,  on the basis of congregations and jumah mosques. The inauguration of such an organization is now less difficult on account of the registration of all mosques enforced by the Wakfs Act, No. 51 of 1956.

 

Education and special Laws e.g. Personal Law, are the most important sphere where positive support is necessary from the State for the preservation of the distinctive culture of the Muslim minority. The Ceylon Muslims have so far been fortunate in this respect.

Special Government Training Colleges have been established for the training of Muslim males and females as teachers. Arabic is being taught in Government schools as a language to the Muslim pupils by qualified Mowlavis appointed by the Department of Education at Government expense. Recently the Government has sanctioned a new category of Government Muslim Schools which previously were included in the group of Tamil schools – thus recognising the cultural individuality of the Muslims as distinct from the Tamils whose language is the home language of the preponderant majority of the Ceylon Muslims. Other measures of similar significance are the establishment and continuation of an Arabic Department in the University of Ceylon despite the paucity of students, the grants allocated by the Department of Cultural Affairs on the advice of the Islamic Religious Affairs Committee for the Adhadiya (or Sunday) schools, and for the translation of Islamic books into Sinhalese, the arrangement recently made with the Pakistan Government to loan an expert for the  improvement of the Muslim programme of Radio Ceylon and the provision statutorily  made  that  the  Commissioner  of  wakfs who is a Government Officer paid from public revenue shall be a Muslim.

 

There  are  other  spheres, e.g. training of Katheebs, production of religious literature for all age groups, where the community's sources of self help will tend to diminish on account of the new forms of taxation that are inevitable in a progressive State and may be legitimately claimed to be more in accord with Islam. Fresh avenues of State help, financial or otherwise, will therefore have to be explored, and special measures to serve the religious needs of orphans and the aged in State managed institutions will have to be considered.

 

In the realm of Law the following special enactments pertaining to the Muslim minority may be cited – The Mohammedan Code of 1806 relating to matters of succession, inheritance etc., Mohammedan Marriage Registration Ordinance No. 8 of 1886 repealed by Ordinance No. 27 of 1929 and now superseded  by Muslim Marriage and Divorce Act No. 13 of 1951 which confers upon the Quazis exclusive jurisdication in respect of marriages and divorces, the  status  and mutual rights and obligations of the parties; the Muslim Intestate Succession Ordinance, No. 10 of 1931 and the Muslim Mosques and Charitable Trusts or Wakfs Act. No. 51 of 1956 which provides a separate Government Department with a purely Muslim Executive Board.

The  present  policy  of  the  Government in regard to Assisted or denominational schools is that the entire salaries of the eligible staff are paid by the Government which in addition pays a Maintenance and Equipment Grant. For the measure of freedom to manage these institutions, the religious orgnizations concerned are required to put up the necessary buildings with their own funds. There is now a  demand  from  certain  quarters that all financial assistance by the Government to these Assisted Schools should cease and they  should be taken over by the  Government  or  allowed  to  function as private  schools  without  any  form of  financial  assistance  from  the Government. It is contended by the protagonists that religious instruction will continue in the schools so taken over in accordance with the already existing statutory requirement by which "instruction in the religion of the parent of each pupil in  a Government school shall be given to that pupil as part of his course of  studies in the school, by a person who is an  adherent of that religion and who has been approved by the Director.” If the middle category of Assisted Schools (the others being Government schools and private schools) were to be abolished, religious education will inevitably suffer and to that extent the cultural individuality of the Muslims will be adversely affected. Fortunately in this matter adherents of all other religions – Buddhists, Hindus and Christians could join together and take steps to see that this disability does not overtake Ceylon.

 

Both in Ceylon as well as in the other  Afro-Asian countries which have become or are becoming politically independent, social and other changes have during  the  current  decade followed each other with a bewildering rapidity. Where the Muslim minority has a share of power with the majority community, the Muslims belonging to the country concerned, as in Ceylon, are called upon to take adequate notice of these changes and adopt all such measures as are necessary to ensure that they, individually and collectively, do enjoy full liberty in the exercise, both positively and negatively, of all their rights. In the words of Jefferson eternal vigilance is the price of this liberty.