n the
face of the earth and which answers hygienic requirements. Had it not
been for a false pride and equally false notions of prestige, Englishmen
here would long ago have adopted the Indian costume. I may mention
incidentally that I do not go about Champaran bare headed. I do avoid
shoes for sacred reasons. But I find too that it is more natural and
healthier to avoid them whenever possible.

I am sorry to inform Mr. Irwin and your readers that my esteemed friend
Babu Brijakishore Prasad, the "ex-Hon. Member of Council," still remains
unregenerate and retains the provincial cap and never walks barefoot and
"kicks up" a terrible noise even in the house we are living in by
wearing wooden sandals. He has still not the courage, in spite of most
admirable contact with me, to discard his semi-anglicised dress and
whenever he goes to see officials he puts his legs into the bifurcated
garment and on his own admission tortures himself by cramping his feet
in inelastic shoes. I cannot induce him to believe that his clients
won't desert him and the courts won't punish him if he wore his more
becoming and less expensive dhoti. I invite you and Mr. Irwin not to
believe the "stories" that the latter hears about me and my friends, but
to join me in the crusade against educated Indians abandoning their
manners, habits and customs which are not proved to be bad or harmful.
Finally I venture to warn you and Mr. Irwin that you and he will
ill-serve the cause both of you consider is in danger by reason of my
presence in Champaran if you continue, as you have done, to base your
strictures on unproved facts. I ask you to accept my assurance that I
should deem myself unworthy of the friendship and confidence of hundreds
of my English friends and associates--not all of them fellow cranks--if
in similar circumstances I acted towards them differently from my own
countrymen.

FOOTNOTE:

[6] Reply to Mr. Irwin's criticism of his dress in the _Pioneer_.

_Printed by K. R. Sondhi at the Allied Press, Lahore, and published by
R. P. Soni for Gandhi Publications League, Lahore._

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