Page:The leather-workers of Daryaganj.djvu/18

14 and form one supreme court. In the present case it was only the particular Bawáni to which our people belonged that was summoned, consisting of some 250 representatives. The time of meeting, the invariable and only possible time as we were assured, may strike you as it certainly did us who were expected to attend as remarkable, if not inconvenient—being midnight—though indeed high precedent may be adduced in our own land for the conduct of deliberations at such an hour. It was significant that the convocation was strenuously opposed, by fair and unfair means alike, by some of the Christians of the district who looked upon the proposed step with anything but approval, since they saw well enough how closely they were themselves concerned in the principle involved, and how certainly, if it were accepted, it would mean for them also sooner or later the necessity of choosing between their two lives. Christian and Chamár, definitely abandoning the one and pursuing the other. And indeed this was a point of view which we had ourselves by no means overlooked, but which we had most anxiously considered before finally sanctioning the proposal of the Daryaganj men. For while the main body of the Chamárs are perfectly ready to continue on terms of friendship and brotherhood with those of their number who have received baptism, so long as these are practically content to merge their Christianity in their Chamárship, on the other hand we knew it was highly probable that any move, such as that now contemplated, in the direction of making a definitely fresh start and disowning allegiance to the old brotherhood as such, would most probably be responded to on the part of the latter by a general call to all, whether originally engaged in this movement or not, to declare themselves openly the one thing or the other, accompanied by the exclusion of all who stood firm to their Christianity from the privileges of their caste. And, with the exception of these few men who were proposing of their own free will to occupy this position, there were but few of whom we seemed at present to have ground for hope that they could sustain such a test, while there was of course always the hope that by letting things go on quietly in their accustomed course without hurrying on the moment of final decision, others might gradually advance to the point from which it would be easier for them to go on than draw back. On the other hand we did not know that any such retaliatory move would be taken, and in any case we felt that in our present position of extreme weakness or half-heartedness any movement towards strength must be for good,