Behramji Malabari

“ It has been said that the way to an Englishman's heart is through his stomach: well, the people of India cannot penetrate to English hearts that way. Caste sits before every Indian door and forbids the European to enter. The very shadow of a European pollutes the food of a Bráhman; and though an Indian may enter a European's house of prayer, the sacred places of the Hindu may not be profaned by the European footstep. ”

“ It is to be hoped that the hauteur of the one and the irritation of the other are decreasing; but the European who goes to sleep with his boots in an Indian gentleman's lap while travelling in the same compartment of a carriage on an Indian railway, is, it is to be feared, not wholly extinct; and wherever he exists he spreads around him an atmosphere of discontent in which good feeling finds it impossible to breathe. ”

“ Very few Englishmen have sufficient knowledge of any Indian language to converse with Indians with ease and fluency. Then, there is the deficient education and seclusion of Indian women, which cuts them off from social intercourse with English men, and renders their meeting with English women productive of very meagre results. Gravest of all, as a bar to free intercourse, is religious prejudice. ”