The Delhi incident

THAT the true cause of an incident is sometimes an entirely different thing from its immediate antecedent was strikingly illustrated by the deplorable happening at Delhi on Friday last. In spite of the laudable efforts made by the leaders to avert a collision between Hindus and Mussalmans in connection with the celebration of Id, there occurred in the capital of India — not, indeed, in connection with the actual celebration of Id, but immediately on the eve of it — one of those outbursts of communal hatred which it is impossible for any true-hearted Indian to contemplate without a sense of shame and humiliation. It is not necessary to choose between the somewhat conflicting versions of this incident. The main facts are not in dispute. A Mahomedan boy had gone to a well situated in the Queen’s Garden and asked for water. The Hindu servants, who were pulling water from the well at the time, either refused to give the boy water or expressed their inability to do so for one reason or another. This appears to have led to an altercation, and the Kahars, it is alleged, gave the boy a beating and inflicted injuries upon him. The whole thing was extremely unfortunate, and had the parents of the boy or other people in the neighbourhood either paid the Kahars back in their own coin, as people sometimes do in such cases, or placed the matter in the hands of the police, the result would in all probability have been a criminal case of a somewhat sensational nature, but devoid of any communal meaning or significance. The public would have taken just that measure of interest in the case which its intrinsic importance deserved, and which it would take even if both parties belonged to the same community.

This day that year