s. Their efforts were not, however, sufficient to
relieve the local authorities from the necessity of putting some of the
police on special service for the protection of respectable Hindu
traders of the same caste as Mr. Gandhi himself in their daily comings
and goings through certain quarters of the city against the more unruly
of their Mahomedan fellow-citizens. The usual bad feeling had been
exacerbated by an affray, already the best part of a year old, when one
of the Hindu processions from the four great temples of the city
perversely altered its accustomed route and passed down the streets
leading to the chief mosque with bands defiantly playing, and a party of
Mahomedans lying in wait for them rushed out and assaulted them with
brick-bats, until they were dispersed by a few rifle-shots from the
police. Apart from such major provocation, each side indulges in minor
pin-pricks that keep up a constant irritation. It is an old custom at
both Hindu and Mahomedan festivals for youths to dress up as tigers and
lions, who add an element of terror to the pageant by roaring to order.
Of late years each community has tried to deny to the other the right
to introduce this element of frightfulness into its processions, and
these harmless wild beasts have frequently been made to repent of their
disguise with bruised bodies and broken heads. In one large village in
the Nellore district serious trouble arose over an attempt on the part
of the Mahomedans to halt their procession for the purpose of
distributing "jaggery" water in close proximity to an enclosure set
apart by the Hindus for the nuptials of their god and goddess at an
annual marriage festival, and the _Taluk_ magistrate had to issue a
formal order, enforced by policemen on special duty, forbidding the
Mahomedans to place the objectionable pot of water within twenty feet of
the wedding enclosure. In all such cases both sides appeal promptly for
help to the authorities, and one of the chief and not least wearisome of
the British administrator's tasks is to be for ever on the watch in
order if possible to avert, by timely suasion and measures of
precaution, the serious trouble that may at any moment arise out of
trifles which to the European mind must seem grotesquely insignificant.
Indians themselves admit that it is an even more difficult task for
them, as Indian-born officials must almost always belong to one or other
of the two communities, and their impartiality be t