world.  I have never quarrelled with a single Mahomedan or Christian but for years I have taken nothing but fruit in Mahomedan or Christian households.  I would most certainly decline to eat food cooked from the same plate with my son or to drink water out of a cup which his lips have touched and which has not been washed.  But the restraint or the exclusiveness exercised in these matters by me has never affected the closest companionship with the Mahomedan or the Christian friends or my sons.

But interdining and intermarriage have never been a bar to disunion, quarrels and worse.  The Pandavas and the Kauravas flew at one another’s throats without compunction although they interdined and intermarried.  The bitterness between the English and the Germans has not yet died out.

The fact is that intermarriage and interdining are not necessary factors in friendship and unity though they are often emblems thereof.  But insistence on either the one or the other can easily become and is to-day a bar to Hindu-Mahomedan Unity.  If we make ourselves believe that Hindus and Mahomedans cannot be one unless they interdine or intermarry, we would be creating an artificial barrier between us which it might be almost impossible to remove.  And it would seriously interfere with the flowing unity between Hindus and Mahomedans if, for example, Mahomedan youths consider it lawful to court Hindu girls.  The Hindu parents will not, even if they suspected any such thing, freely admit Mahomedans to their homes as they have begun to do now.  In my opinion it is necessary for Hindu and Mahomedan young men to recognise this limitation.

I hold it to be utterly impossible for Hindus and Mahomedans to intermarry and yet retain intact each other’s religion.  And the true beauty of Hindu-Mahomedan Unity lies in each remaining true to his own religion and yet being true to each other.  For, we are thinking of Hindus and Mahomedans even of the most orthodox type being able to regard one another as natural friends instead of regarding one another as natural enemies as they have done hitherto.

What then does the Hindu-Mahomedan Unity consist in and how can it be best promoted?  The answer is simple.  It consists in our having a common purpose, a common goal and common sorrows.  It is best promoted by co-operating to reach the common goal, by sharing one another’s sorrow and by mutual toleration.  A common goal we have.  We wish this great country of ours to be greater and self-governing.[4] We have enough sorrows to share and to-day seeing that the Mahomedans are deeply touched on the question of Khilafat and their case is just, nothing can be so powerful for winning Mahomedans friendship for the Hindu as to give his whole-hearted support to the Mahomedan claim.  No amount of drinking out of the same cup or dining out of the same bowl can bind the two as this help in the Khilafat question.