The duty of leaders

APART from bringing the offenders to justice and to a realisation of their folly, it is the duty of all responsible Hindus and Mussalmans to dissociate themselves from the excesses perpetrated on the occasion whether by members of one community or the other. The fact that these excesses were much graver on the side of Mussalmans than on that of Hindus ought not to prevent responsible Hindu leaders either from condemning the doings of their co-religionists, all that part of those doings which was not in legitimate self-defence, or from sympathising with their victims. On the side of the Mussalman leaders, the responsibility is naturally much greater. It is their duty to condemn the doings of the Mussalman mob and to sympathise with the Hindu sufferers in terms which may leave no doubt in any unprejudiced mind as to their sympathies. We are pleased to learn that Hakim Ajmal Khan is about to visit Multan. There is no Mussalman leader in India today who either commands greater confidence among both Hindus and Mussalmans or occupies a more responsible position in our public life than him. We are confident that when the Hakim Sahib has seen things with his own eyes and heard both sides, he will have no hesitation in doing what he has already done in the case of Malabar, condemning the excesses perpetrated by the mob. Great injury has already been done by irresponsible and sometimes evil-minded persons to the sacred and deeply cherished cause of Hindu-Muslim unity. Let our leaders, both Hindu and Muslim, take care that the position does not become worse through acts of omission and commission on their own part.

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