Hindu-Muslim Unity1

Last year, at your invitation, it was my privilege to bring to your notice some considerations, based on the knowledge which psychoanalysis has given us, of that particular problem in sociology which usually goes by the name of 'The Colour Question.' In that connection I tried to show that it is by no means improbable that the resistance encountered by any attempt to solve this problem owes at least part of its strength to the universal association of the idea of evil with blackness.

To-day, with your permission, I wish to try and apply similar considerations to another important aspect of sociology, namely the relations that exist between Hindus and Indian Muslim. As with the so-called 'Colour Question, ' so also in the observable manifestations of the communal existence of Hindus and Muslim in this country there is very definite evidence that the emotional tone of the situation is greatly over-determined. It is almost impossible nowadays to pick up a newspaper published in India that does not contain some reference to the perennial feud between Hindus and Muslim. In the Punjab the feeling-tone has reached such a pitch of intensity that the local government had to take measures to restrain the violence displayed by both communities, one towards the other, in mutual vilification in the local Press.

Now I think that all students of psycho-analysis are agreed that whenever and wherever we meet with a strong emotional feeling associated with some form of human relationship, whether it be between individuals or communities, the chances are very much in favour of our finding that the main source of that feeling resides in the unconscious. When, as in the circumstances under review, every effort to reduce or to dispel such feeling invariably leads to nothing, our supposition that the feeling is mainly derived from the unconscious becomes almost a certainty. Hence we are at liberty to regard most of those causes cited as determinants of the violent emotions which usual