Page:Gandhi - Freedom's battle.djvu/157

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HINDU-MAHOMEDAN UNITY
145

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 Mahomedan 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 be 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 inter-dining, 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