In other provinces where other deities are more popular it is they who are similarly called in aid. The _Bedari_ of Lahore, for instance, reproduces from the Puranas the story of the tyrant Rajah Harnakath, who brought death on himself at the hands of Vishnu for attempting to kill his son Prahlad, whose offence was that he believed in God and championed the cause of justice, in order to liken British statesmen and Anglo-Indian officials to the wicked Rajah and the Indians to Prahlad. As most British statesmen and their representatives abroad are the enemies of liberty and justice and support slavery and oppression, the fall of Great Britain is near at hand, and India will then pass into the possession of her own sons.
The _Prem_ of Firozpur is inclined even to give Mr. Keir Hardie a niche in the Hindu Pantheon. Its editor dreamt he was at a meeting in a free and contented country. It was attended by some other Indians, and one of them recited verses bewailing the condition of India, which was once a heaven on earth and was now converted into a hell by its foreign rulers, &c. After prayers had been recited for India, some heavenly beings appeared, one of whom swore to do his best to relieve the sufferings of Indians. The editor learnt on inquiry that the dream country was England, the Indian speaker Bepin Chandra Pal, and the heavenly being Mr. Keir Hardie!
The _Sahaik_, of Lahore, furnishes an apt illustration of the scurrilous abuse and calumny which constitute one of the favourite weapons of Hindu writers. Referring to the Malaria Conference held last year, it begins by remarking that when a famine occurs--
relief works are opened only when the sufferings of the famine-stricken become acute, and their supervision is entrusted to a fat-salaried Englishman who swallows up half the collections, which amount could have fed hundreds of the poor people. Thus also with the forthcoming inquiries concerning malarial fever, which is spreading all over the country. Every Indian knows that, like the plague, this form of fever is due to the poverty and consequent physical weakness of the people. It is, however, to the mosquito that the authorities went for the causes of the disease, just as to the rats for the causes of plague. Different medicines and instruments were invented for extirpating the insect, doctors were also employed, and rewards paid for the writing of books. In this way crores of rupees went into the pockets of English shopkeepers and others. A trial is now being given to quinine, and lakhs-worth sold to Indians, English quinine manufacturers being thus enriched. Again a commission is about to sit on the heights of Simla. The commissioners will enjoy feasts and dances and drink brandy which will cost poor natives lakhs of rupees, and afterwards they will devise means to develop the trade in quinine or other drugs.