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The most noteworthy symptom of nationalist growth was the rallying of a certain section of Mohammedan opinion to the nationalist cause. The Mohammedans had by this time formed their own organization, the "All-India Moslem League." The league was the reverse of nationalist in complexion, having been formed primarily to protect Moslem interests against possible Hindu ascendancy.
Reputable members, including a large proportion of the leaders who had fought for years past the battle of India's political advancement, took their seats in the Provincial Councils and in the All-India Legislature at Delhi.
So great and enduring was the hold of Sir Seyyid Ahmed's teachings upon the progressive elements in Mahomedan India that the All-India Moslem League was founded in 1905, almost avowedly in opposition to the subversive activities which the Indian National Congress was beginning to develop.
It must have led to a hopeless deadlock and the complete paralysis of Government, but even so it did not satisfy the more fiery members of the Indian National Congress, where, in complete unison with the All-India Moslem League, finally captured by some slight concessions to Mahomedan sentiment, resolutions were passed more crude and unworkable than the scheme of the Nineteen, and virtually amounting to Home Rule in its most impracticable shape.
With organizations such as the Conference of some Living Religions within the British Empire, held in London in 1924 and the World Fellowship of Faiths held in that same city in 1936; with the Universal Esperanto Congresses held annually in various capitals of Europe; with the Institute of Intellectual Cooperation; with the Century of Progress Exhibition held in Chicago in 1933; with the World’s Fair held in New York in 1938 and 1939; with the Golden Gate International Exposition held in San Francisco in 1939; with the First Convention of the Religious Congress held in Calcutta; with the Second All-India Cultural Conference convened in that same city; with the All-Faiths’ League Convention in Indore; with the Arya Samaj and the Brahmo Samaj Conferences as well as those of the Theosophical Society and the All-Asian Women’s Conference, held in various cities of India; with the World Council of Youth; with the Eastern Women’s Congress in Ṭihrán; with the Pan-Pacific Women’s Conference in Honolulu; with the Women’s International League for Peace and with the Peoples Conference at Buenos Aires in Argentina—with these and others, relationships have, in one form or another, been cultivated which have served the twofold purpose of demonstrating the universality and comprehensiveness of the Faith of Bahá’u’lláh and of forging vital and enduring links between them and the far-flung agencies of its Administrative Order.
The petty, grotesque, and local "descents" of India will satisfy no one in these days of growing breadth and union, when the people are aspiring after an all-India nationality.
The same party had in the meantime gone a long way towards capturing the All-India Moslem League and bringing it into line with the advanced wing of the Indian National Congress.
The All-India Moslem League sitting at the same time at Lucknow followed the Congress lead. To those feverish days at Lucknow the session of the Imperial Legislative Council held shortly afterwards at Delhi afforded a striking contrast. The Great War was in its third year, and the end seemed as far off as ever.
Into its membership has lately come the niece of a Chairman of the All-India Congress, deciding that the constructive forces of social reform are better to follow than the destructive programme of Non-Co-operation.
Long ago, in his early Sunday school days, the names of these places and the wonders of them had been the theme of almost the only missionary book he had at that age cared to read. At Allahabad, said his companions of the way, an All-India Epworth League convention was to be held, and J.W. made up his mind that a League convention in India would be doubly worth attending.
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