"Those carpenters!" said Bishen Singh. "Black apes were more
efficient workmates, and as for the Bengali babu-tchick!" The
guttural click needed no interpretation, but Orde translated the
rest, while Pagett gazed with in.. terest at the wood-carver.
"He seems to have a most illiberal prejudice against the Bengali,"
said the
M.P.
"Yes, it's very sad that for ages outside Bengal there should he so
bitter a prejudice. Pride of race, which also means race-hatred, is
the plague and curse of India and it spreads far," pointed with his
riding-whip to the large map of India on the veranda wall.
"See! I begin with the North," said he. "There's the Afghan, and, as
a highlander, he despises all the dwellers in Hindoostan-with the
exception of the Sikh, whom he hates as cordially as the Sikh hates
him. The Hindu loathes Sikh and Afghan, and the Rajput--that's a
little lower down across this yellow blot of desert--has a strong
objection, to put it mildly, to the Maratha who, by the way,
poisonously hates the Afghan. Let's go North a minute. The Sindhi
hates everybody I've mentioned. Very good, we'll take less warlike
races. The cultivator of Northern India domineers over the man in
the next province, and the Behari of the Northwest ridicules the
Bengali. They are all at one on that point. I'm giving you merely
the roughest possible outlines of the facts, of course.
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