The antagonism between the two communities is not the creation or the result of British rule.  It is the legacy of centuries of conflict before British rule was ever heard of in India.  It has been and must be one of the chief objects of British statesmanship to compose this conflict, and the Mahomedans do not deny that their British rulers have always desired to deal as fairly with them as with the Hindus.  They hold, however, that, as a matter of fact, British rule has in many ways worked out to the relative detriment of Mahomedan influence and to the greater advantage of the Hindus.  Nor is that fact rendered any more palatable to the Mahomedans because it is mainly due to the greater adaptability and suppleness displayed by the Hindus ever since India has been brought into contact with Western education and Western methods.  The establishment of English as the official language of the Law Courts and of all public Departments necessarily favoured the Hindus by displacing Persian and the vernaculars in which the Mahomedans were most proficient.  At the present day the vast majority of Indians employed in every branch of the Government service are Hindus, and this majority is entirely out of proportion to the numerical preponderancy of the Hindu community at large[11].  According to the last Census Report the Hindus of Bengal (which was then unpartitioned), though only twice as numerous as the Mahomedans, held 1,235 higher appointments under Government in Bengal, as against only 141 held by Mahomedans.  In the Bombay Presidency the Hindus held 266 such appointments, as against 23 held by Mahomedans; and in the Central Provinces 339, as against 75.  Of the provinces in reference to which the report furnishes detailed statistics the United Provinces alone failed to show the same disparity, the number of posts held by the Mahomedans, 453, against 711 held by Hindus, being actually and very largely in excess of their proportion to population.  The Mahomedans, moreover, complain that where Mahomedans are employed as clerks in Government Departments the head clerks, who are almost always Hindus and alone have direct access to the English superior officers, use their influence with the latter to prejudice them against their Mahomedan subordinates.  Education has passed very largely from our own hands into those of Hindu teachers.  In all the liberal professions, at the Bar, in the Press, the preponderance of Hindus is greatly out of proportion even to the numerical preponderance of the Hindu population as a whole.  Intelligent Mahomedans are conscious that all this is to a great extent the result of the backwardness of their community, but hardships are none the less hardships because they are largely of one’s own making.  Again, the principal seat of the Government of India and those of the two great Presidency Governments are in centres of Hindu life where the voice of the Mahomedan element does not make itself easily heard.