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 live on the friendliest footing without ever thinking of marrying each other, I can see no difficulty in my daughter regarding every Mahomedan brother and vice versa.  I hold strong views on religion and on marriage.  The greater the restraint we exercise with regard to our appetites whether about eating or marrying, the better we become from a religious standpoint.  I should despair of ever cultivating amicable relations with the world, if I had to recognise the right or the propriety of any young man offering his hand in marriage to my daughter or to regard it as necessary for me to dine with anybody and everybody.  I claim that I am living on terms of friendliness with the whole