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“BHARAT KA ETIHAS” CAN one shower constitute the rainy season? Does a single
instance imply custom ? Will a solitary flower signify spring ? The old adage that one swallow does not make a summer will seem to suggest an answer to these questions in the negative; but perhaps in the eyes of certain writers the old saying has suffered from its age and does not hold good to-day. But whether it has suffered from age or not, it has certainly suffered from the tendency of the modern mind which rushes to sweeping generalizations before even it has fully familiarized itself with facts. We read in the Urdu compilation, “Bharat ka Etihas,'' composed by that famous patriot Lajpat Rai, who is aptly nicknamed the Lion of the Punjab :
کا
" جيني عوام الناس چھوٹے جانوروں کی رکشا کرتے ھوئے انسانوں کے ساتھه نهایت بیرحمي سلوک کرتے ہیں “
Rendered into English this would read :
"The generality of Jainas, while offering protection to small animals, behave with extreme cruelty towards human beings." That this is a stigma on the whole body of a nation or class is clear, from the general terms employed by the writer in expressing himself, though we shall not be uncharitable enough to attribute bad motives to the great patriot in making this sweeping condemnation. I shall simply assume that the Lalaji, who, by the way, happens to possess a Jaina ancestry, came across an instance or two of inhuman behaviour, at home or abroad, which impresset him so unfavourably with regard to Jainas. It is a pity that the Lalaji has not divulged the nature of the enormity of which the Jaina or Jainas (in his mind) were guilty, but obviously it could not have been anything which the law regards as really serious, since we do not remember, to have read or heard of any case in which the conduct of a Jaina can be said to have been exposed as inhuman or brutal beyond that of any other resident of the land, whether a Christian, a Moslem, a Hindu or an Arya-samajist. And it is difficult to believe if the Lalaji had himself witnessed an act of 'transcendental cruelty' that he would have encouraged its perpetrator, that is to say, in other words, that he would have abetted its commission, by silent inaction. We must,
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