them free men once more." Not
that he would exclude all Western literature--Ruskin, for instance, he
would always welcome with both hands--nor Western science so long as it
was applied to spiritual and not to materialistic purposes, nor even
English teachers, if they would become Indianised and were reborn of the
spirit of India. Indeed, what he had looked for, and looked in vain
for, in the rulers of India was "a change of hearts" by which they too
might be reborn of the spirit of India. He hated no one, for that would
be a negation of the great principle of _Ahimsa_, on which he expatiated
with immense earnestness.

As I watched the slight ascetic frame and mobile features of the Hindu
dreamer in his plain garment of white home-spun, and, beside him, one of
his chief Mahomedan allies, Shaukat Ali, with his great burly figure and
heavy jowl and somewhat truculent manner and his opulent robes
embroidered with the Turkish crescent, I wondered how far Mr. Gandhi had
succeeded in converting his Mahomedan friend to the principle of
_Ahimsa_. Perhaps Mr. Gandhi guessed what was passing in my mind when I
asked him how the fundamental antagonism between the Hindu and the
Mahomedan outlook upon life was to be permanently overcome even if the
common cause held Hindus and Mahomedans together in the struggle for
_Swaraj_. He pointed at once to his "brother" Shaukat as a living proof
of the "change of hearts" that had already taken place in the two
communities. "Has any cloud ever arisen between my brother Shaukat and
myself during the months that we have now lived and worked together? Yet
he is a staunch Mahomedan and I a devout Hindu. He is a meat-eater and I
a vegetarian. He believes in the sword, I condemn all violence. But what
do such differences matter between two men in both of whom the heart of
India beats in unison?"

I turned thereupon to Mr. Shaukat Ali and asked him whether he would
explain to me the application to India under _Swaraj_ of the Mahomedan
doctrine that the world is divided into two parts, one the "world of
Islam" under Mahomedan rule, and the other "the world of war," in which
infidels may rule for a time but will sooner or later be reduced to
subjection by the sword of Islam. To which of these worlds would
Mahomedans reckon India to belong when she obtained _Swaraj_? Mr.
Shaukat Ali evaded the question by assuring me with much unction that
he could not conceive the possibility of the Hindus doing any w