68 SOCIAL SCIENTIST
alternative leadership, for he noted that ^there was no dearth of arguments and explanations in support of this politics of protectionism, but there existed not even a remote connection between the politics of Aligarh and protectionism and the interests of the Muslim masses or the Indian people in general."3
Seeing through the Ha^e
Any such protection, it was pointed out, would be at the cost of the interests of the "Muslim masses: ^Indeed it is no exaggeration to suggest that like Tatas, which had in the beginning amassed its capital during the Opium War in China, Isfahan! ... made his financial status by hoarding rice during the Bengal famine, ^that is to say, by starving people to death."4 Clearly it is not for the democratic movement to foster false hopes of development through protection. As stated in the programme of the GPI (M), the ^experience of the three plans demonstrates beyond a shadow of doubt that in the period of the general crisis of capitalism, particularly when it has entered a new acute stage, it is futile for underdeveloped countries to seek to develop along the capitalist path. The possibilities of such development arc extremely limited"5 and impose unbearable burdens and misery on the working people. It is important to educate Muslim masses that such demands are raised only by a small section of the religious minority which benefits at the cost of the rest. As the authors themselves observe: ^The Muslims are not a totally depressed community. There are large numbers of Muslim landlords and semi-capitalistic farmers, merchants and upto medium-scale industrialists who dominate the Muslim community politically as the bulwark of reactionary forces within it, and often serve as agents of the Congress and other bourgeois-landlord parties.'96
Similarly, we have to correct the notion that in some respects halfhearted land reforms such as the U P Zamindari Abolition Act were more injurious to the Muslim masses than to the rest of the population.7 Apart from the fact that the Act was implemented in such a manner as would not destroy landlordism, 93.2 per cent of the zamindaris were holdings below 10 acres, unable to support ^retainers and dependants"8 of any kind, and even those, it would seem, did not affect the Muslim share of the population more adversely as the authors of the discussion have noted.* My own study of land holdings of Moradabad district prior to zamindari abolition shows this to be incorrect for ac least one of the ^najor concentrations of Muslim population in U P (37.2 per cent). The major Muslim landowning groups held 32.1 per cent of the land, while Hindu zamindars led by the Banias (an insignificant proportion of the population) who held 22.4 per cent of the land, definitely had the edge over the Muslims.10 This contention is even less correct in respect of the other major areas of Muslim concentration like Kashmir, Malap-puram district of Kerala, and West Bengal, where thorough-going land