The Namasudra view-point is well expressed by its leader, Doctor Nair. "Democracy as a catchword," he says, "has already reached India and is widely used. But the spirit of democracy still pauses east of Suez, and will find it hard to secure a footing in a country where caste is strongly intrenched.... I do not want to lay the charge of oppressing the lower castes at the door of any particular caste. All the higher castes take a hand in the game. The Brahmin oppresses all the non-Brahmin castes. The high-caste non-Brahmin oppresses all the castes below him.... We want a real democracy and not an oligarchy, however camouflaged by many high-sounding words. Moreover, if an oligarchy is established now, it will be a perpetual oligarchy. We further say that we should prefer a delayed democracy to an immediate oligarchy, having more trust in a sympathetic British bureaucracy than in an unsympathetic oligarchy of the so-called high castes who have been oppressing us in the past and will do so again but for the British Government. Our attitude is based, not on 'faith' alone, but on the instinct of self-preservation."[124] Many Mohammedans as well as Hindus feel that India is not ripe for self-government, and that the relaxing of British authority now, or in the immediate future, would be a grave disaster for India itself. The Moslem loyalists reprobate the nationalist agitation for the reasons expressed by one of their representative men, S. Khuda Bukhsh, who remarks: "Rightly or wrongly, I have always kept aloof from modern Indian politics, and I have always held that we should devote more attention to social problems and intellectual advancement and less to politics, which, in our present condition, is an unmixed evil. I am firmly persuaded that we would consult our interest better by leaving politics severely alone.... It is not a handful of men armed with the learning and culture of the West, but it is the masses that must feel, understand, and take an intelligent interest in their own affairs. The infinitesimal educated minority do not constitute the population of India. It is the masses, therefore, that must be trained, educated, brought to the level of unassailable uprightness and devotion to their country. This goal is yet far beyond measurable reach, but until we attain it our hopes will be a chimera, and our efforts futile and illusory. Even the educated minority have scarcely cast off the swaddling-clothes of political infancy, or have risen above the illusions of power and the ambitions of fortune. We have yet to learn austerity of principle and rectitude of conduct. Nor can we hope to raise the standard of private and public morality so long as we continue to subordinate the interest of our community and country to our own."[125]