Sir M. O'Dwyer's Grave Warning:
Bolshevist Activity on the Northwest Frontier Sir Michael O'Dwyer lectured recently to the Central Asian Society ae the Royal Astronomical Society's Rooms, Burlington House, on "India's influence on her Mohammedan neighbours."—_Incidentally he viped existing agitations and the Bolshevist efforts against our rule which had! secured alliances with Afghanistan and Angora.
Sir Michael O'Dwyer said that he could not lay claim to any inner knowledge of the great issues which were now agitating the minds of Mohammedans in many countries, or of the policy of our Government in regard to them. But twenty years' service in the Mohammedan Provinces of the Punjab, including the period of the war, and the N.W. Frontier, and two years in the premier Mohammedan State of Hyderabad, brought him into close relation with Mohammedans of all classes, and might help him to throw some sidelights on the attitude of Indian Mohammedans in recent years and the manner in which it had influenced and been influenced by India's Moslem neigh-hours. The first point to note was that, though in India the Mohammedans formed only one-fifth of the population, their number was between 60 and 70 millions, and far exceeded that under any other Mohammedan Power. The Indian Mohammedans, though as a rule behind their Hindu neighbours in wealth and education, still preserved the traditions of the great Islamic Empires, which dominated all or most of India from the 12th to the 18th century.
The successive invasions of the conquering Arabs, Turks, Afghans, Moghuls, and Persians had all left a distinct impress on India, very marked on the north-west, where the invading hordes, after pouring in through the mountain passes, spread themselves over the fertile plains, but less marked towards the south, where the Hindu races vere but little affected by the tide of invasion. Each of these invasions left behind it a strong racial residuum. The Mohammedan aristocracy, both in the Native States and in British: India, was largely of foreign origin, Persian, Arab, Afghan, or Moghul; and many of the literary and priestly classes, the Saiyids, Kaziz, Maulvis, also laid claim to an origin outside India. It was natural, therefore, that political events in Moslem countries should be followed with keen interest by educated Indian Mohammedans, InpiscreTions oF MuiNisTERs.
The Mohammedan masses, he went on—smal] landowners, cuitivaters, artisans, and menial classes—were usually converts from Hinduism. Pride of race and religious feeling were the two emotions that
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