nd
brotherliness would be the outcome. We should be ashamed to take our
quarrels to the English. Everyone can find out for himself that the
Hindus can lose nothing be desisting. The man who has inspired
confidence in another has never lost anything in this world.

I do not suggest that the Hindus and the Mahomedans will never fight.
Two brothers living together often do so. We shall sometimes have our
heads broken. Such a thing ought not to be necessary, but all men are
not equi-minded. When people are in a rage, they do many foolish things.
These we have to put up with. But, when we do quarrel, we certainly do
not want to engage counsel and to resort to English or any law-courts.
Two men fight; both have their heads broken, or one only. How shall a
third party distribute justice amongst them? Those who fight may expect
to be injured.

HINDU-MAHOMEDAN UNITY

Mr. Candler some time ago asked me in an imaginary interview whether if
I was sincere in my professions of Hindu-Mahomedan Unity. I would eat
and drink with a Mahomedean and give my daughter in marriage to a
Mahomedan. This question has been asked again by some friends in another
form. Is it necessary for Hindu Mahomedan Unity that there should he
interdining and intermarrying? The questioners say that if the two are
necessary, real unity can never take place because crores of _Sanatanis_
would never reconcile themselves to interdining, much less to
intermarriage.

I am one of those who do not consider caste to be a harmful institution.
In its origin caste was a wholesome custom and promoted national
well-being. In my opinion the idea that interdining or intermarrying is
necessary for national growth, is a superstition borrowed from the West.
Eating is a process just as vital as the other sanitary necessities of
life. And if mankind had not, much to its harm, made of eating a fetish
and indulgence we would have performed the operation of eating in
private even as one performs the other necessary functions of life in
private. Indeed the highest culture in Hinduism regards eating in that
light and there are thousands of Hindus still living who will not eat
their food in the presence of anybody. I can recall the names of several
cultured men and women who ate their food in entire privacy but who
never had any illwill against anybody and who lived on the friendliest
terms with all.

Intermarriage is a still more difficult question. If brothers and
sisters can l