India -- Politics and government -- 1919-1947; Nationalism -- India
The Hindus and the Mahomedans have quarrelled. An ordinary man will ask
them to forget all about it, he will tell them that both must be more
or less at fault, and will advise them no longer to quarrel. They go to
lawyers. The latter's duty is to side with their clients, and to find
out ways and arguments in favour of the clients to which they (the
clients) are often strangers. If they do not do so, they will be
considered to have degraded their profession. The lawyers, therefore,
will, as a rule advance quarrels, instead of repressing them. Moreover,
men take up that profession, not in order to help others out of their
miseries, but to enrich themselves. It is one of the avenues of becoming
wealthy and their interest exists in multiplying disputes. It is within
my knowledge that they are glad when men have disputes. Petty pleaders
actually manufacture them. Their touts, like so many leeches, suck the
blood of the poor people. Lawyers are men who have little to do. Lazy
people, in order to indulge in luxuries, take up such professions. This
is a true statement. Any other argument is a mere pretension. It is the
lawyers who have discovered that theirs is an honourable profession.
They frame laws as they frame their own praises. They decide what fees
they will charge, and they put on so much side that poor people almost
consider them to be heaven-born. Why do they want more fees than common
labourers? Why are their requirements greater? In what way are they more
profitable to the country than the labourers? Are those who do good
entitled to greater payment? And, if they have done anything for the
country for the sake of money, how shall it be counted as good?
Those who know anything of the Hindu-Mahomedan quarrels know that they
have been often due to the intervention of lawyers. Some families have
been ruined through them; they have made brothers enemies.
Principalities, having come under lawyer's power, have become loaded
with debt. Many have been robbed of their all. Such instances can be
multiplied.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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