Page:Allan Octavian Hume, C.B.; Father of the Indian National Congress.djvu/86

 a hot-bed of religious antagonism between Hindus and Mahomedans.

Mr. Hume highly appreciated the distinctive characteristics of the Moslems — their manly energy and democratic instincts ; and he did not believe that the opposition represented their genuine feeling. According to his view the hostile stimulus came from the outside, from a few ill-advised officials who clung to the pestilent doctrine of ^^ Divide et impera," and from unfriends of the Government, who hated a movement which sought to unite all parties and all creeds in friendly co-operation under the aegis of the British Empire. He therefore denounced the counter-agitation as artificial and mischievous. Further, he held that, more than any other community, the Mahomedans would benefit by the united action which would bring them into the current of modern progress ; he trusted to their good sense to realize this ; and he believed that within three years the anti-Congress party would collapse. We have reason to hope that eventually opposition to the Congress will cease. At the same time it appears that there was some foundation for the apprehension suggested by Sir Auckland Colvin ; and that the active Congress propaganda did stir up, to a certain extent, religious rivalries which had, more or less, become dormant. The reason for this was twofold. In the first place the Hindus, as regards numbers, were predominant in the Congress. This was because the Congress was mainly supported by the English-speaking class, and it was the Hindus who had most readily accepted Western education. In the second place, the Mahomedans, who mostly conducted their education on the old lines, had fallen behind in the learned professions and in the competition for the public service. It was therefore not unnatural that a section of them regarded the Congress with sus-