The simple reason why there is no Mussalman representative on the Senate is that no higher educated Mussalman, able to give his time, has been found to take sufficient interest in the national education movement. I merely refer to this matter to show that we must reckon with attempts to discredit the movement even misinterpretation of motives. That is a difficulty from without and easier to deal with.
The ‘depressed’ classes difficulty is internal and therefore far more serious because it may give rise to a split and weaken the cause—no cause can survive internal difficulties if they are indefinitely multiplied. Yet there can be no surrender in the matter of principles for the avoidance of splits. You cannot promote a cause when you are undermining it by surrendering its vital parts. The depressed classes problem is a vital part of the cause. Swaraj is as inconceivable without full reparation to the ‘depressed’ classes as it is impossible without real Hindu-Muslim unity. In my opinion we have become ‘pariahs of the Empire’ because we have created ‘pariahs’ in our midst. The slave owner is always more hurt than the slave. We shall be unfit to gain Swaraj so long as we would keep in bondage a fifth of the population of Hindustan. Have we not made the ‘pariah’ crawl on his belly? Have we not segregated him? And if it is religion so to treat the
