The shortcomings of the Mohammedans, their religious “fanaticism,” their “anti-Indian” spirit, their meaningless aggressiveness towards the Hindus are common topics, nowadays, in public meetings as well as in private conversations, wherever a few Hindus are gathered.

The one thing we forget to put sufficient stress upon is that it is entirely our own fault if, in India, there are any Mohammedans and Christians at all.

It is of no use saying that the Mohammedans are conquerors, settled foreigners like the British, and worse than the British since they have destroyed quite a number of priceless works of Hindu art, while the British have not. The destruction of works of art is always regrettable, whoever may be the

author of it, but statues and shrines are less important than the culture which they represent. And when we say the culture, we mean the people. For a dead culture which nobody lives up to any longer is no better than a deserted ruin; while if the people remain alive, with their collective consciousness, then, no matter how many shrines are destroyed and palaces and fortresses burnt, the nation and its culture will survive and build new shrines, new palaces, new fortresses.

If the Musulmans of India were but settled foreigners, the Hindus would have nothing to deplore save the treason of Jaya Chand seven and a half centuries back, and the uselessness of a special caste, set apart and trained for war since the dawn of Indian history, yet unable to hold back the artless Turkoman warriors, who had never formed a special caste. The defeats at the hands of the Turkomans, Pathans and Moghuls, would have been a few more Hindu defeats among many, the ruins of Somnath and of Chittor a few more Hindu ruins among many, but there would have been, for the Indians, no possibilities of becoming two nations, — no communal antagonism, no communal award, no Pakistan scheme, no Hindu-Moslem problem..

All these co implications have arisen because, out

of the contact of India with Islam, something much worse than open war has resulted, and that is the formation of a separate Musulman society comprising today more than eighty million Indians. Mohammedan invaders are responsible for the destruction of Somnath and numberless other shrines, that is true. But the Hindus alone are responsible for the development among them of a growing Mohammedan society, composed of their own people and yet separate from them, susceptible of becoming hostile to then. The Hindus are responsible for not having even tried to retain and absorb the Mohammedans, — and later on the Christians, — in the same way they had absorbed so many people of various creeds in the past., when they were still a mighty living race.

Is it not puzzling to think that the Persians of Darius, the Greeks of Alexander, (or, better say, of Euthydemos) the Sakas, the Kushanas, the Huns, and all those who in turn came to India as invaders before the Mohammedans, were absorbed and that they disappeared in the bulk of the Indian population as many mountain water-falls into the Ganges; although they were foreigners, while those Indians who, for one or another reason, accepted the Mohammedan or the Christian faith, were never absorbed? We do not speak of the Musulman invaders themselves,

nor of the Europeans, but of their converts. Whatever they may say, there is Iranian blood, Greek blood, Hunnish blood in the veins of many orthodox Hindus. Caste was not then a sufficient barrier to prevent the fact. Why is it now considered as a sufficient barrier to exclude from Hindu society all Indians whose fathers have once adopted at foreign faith, or merely derogated from certain customs? Were Mihirgula’s savage hordes, by chance, nearer to the Hindus than the “Pir Ali Brahmans” of Bengal were, when they were socially ostracised, or than Michael Dutta was, when he became a Christian? And if the former were good enough to be absorbed, how is it that the latter were riot good enough to be retained?

One would probably reply that those Huns etc. . . . who were absorbed “became Hindus” (accepted one of the innumerable Hindu forms of worship and some elements, at least, of Hindu life and culture) while the Indian Mohammedans and Christians are, originally, just the opposite: born-Hindus who have “outcasted themselves” by accepting a “foreign creed.”

The argument does not stand the test of analysis. First, there is no creed, however “foreign” which all-embracing Hinduism cannot accept as one of the

possible solutions of man’s religious problem. Hinduism is such a vast and complex bulk of all kinds of religious and non-religious thought that one doctrine more or less does not make much difference to it. Islamic strict monotheism and Christian Trinitarian belief are not, properly speaking, to be ostracised; nothing is. Moreover, there seems to be a lesser gap between the outlook of a Vaishnava and that of a Christian, for instance, than between that of a Vaishnava and that of a Shakta; and as for Islam also, certainly a lesser gap between Sufism and the teachings of many Hindu “bhaktas” than between those and other Hindu teachings. It is therefore not the doctrines of the Mohammedans and of the Christians which have prevented the Hindus from considering them as a part and parcel of their collective body.

Then, what is it?

It is nothing else but the rigid structure of Hindu society itself.

The very conception of caste as it exists now is the insurmountable barrier against all attempts of absorption, not merely of newcomers, but also of any born-Hindus who, for whatever reason it may be, do not accept, in practice, the existing caste rules.

We, who put India above religion, are sorry to

see Ram Chandra Das call himself John Matthews and Svam Sundar Nath call himself Gulam Mohammad. We are sorry, not because these brothers of ours have adopted a new faith (faith is a matter too personal to be discussed.) but because they think that their new faith is a barrier between themselves and us, because they have ceased feeling that they are our brothers just as before. Their new names give a striking expression to that new-born consciousness of aloofness. That is why we object to then. We cannot see in the mere fact of accepting the religious tenets of Christianity or of Islam a sufficient reason to cut oneself off the rest of India by such obvious signs as a foreign name, certain foreign habits in life, an enormous stress put upon foreign literature and thought, etc. With our deep-rooted Hindu belief in the equivalence of all religions, we can well understand a man who changes his faith and cult in order to step into a different civilisation; but the contrary is not necessary; so why should a man change his civilisation as a consequence of a change of faith? That we cannot realise.

But we never put the question: “Are John Matthews and Gulam Mohammad responsible for their foreign names and foreign habits, if any, and

their ignorance of everything, Hindu, or are we? Have they asked to be “detached from India and her culture”? Have they told us to no longer look upon them as brothers? Have they deliberately wished to “change their civilisation”? Have they refused to be absorbed by us? Or, on the contrary, is it not we who have never treated them as brothers, even when they were Hindus, never considered them as part and parcel of our India, never given them the shadow of any culture at all, never cared to absorb them, when it was still time, or even refused to do so? We must think of that.

Many will say: Hinduism is liberal. Nobody ever got into trouble with us on account of his religious faith. Even Musulmans and Christians of Hindu birth could have remained within the Hindu fold, had they not been so “fanatical” from the very beginning (insisting that their God is the right one and that ours are all false) and eager to force their doctrines on to other people. Had they not also thrown off their caste, we could have kept them.

We hear such statements, indeed. But let us consider facts as they are. In the South, at least, up to this date, many Indian Christians have not given up their former caste mentality. They continue

observing caste rules among themselves, as if they were Hindus still. They are Hindus still, except for their Latin or Hebrew names. Are they any the better for all that, as regards their social relations with other Hindus? Are the Hindus of the same caste, who have not adopted a foreign faith, prepared to interline with them, even if their diet be as pure as their own, and to marry their children to theirs, if worthy in all respects? Certainly not. So it is not exactly they who have rejected their caste; it is Hindu society (including Untouchable society, as caste-ridden as the rest) which has rejected them.

Mohammedans and Christians are supposed to be “fanatics.” If “fanatical” be synonymous for proselytising, then all creedal religious, — including the numberless creeds which a Hindu may follow without losing caste, — are “fanatical.” Hinduism is not a creed, as each one knows. But Vaishnavism is, Shaktism is, etc. A Vaishnava is as eager to see his friends and acquaintances and the world at large follow Vaishnavism as a Christian is to see them follow Christianity. Sri Krishna Chaitanya’s great disciple, Haridas, was a convert from Islam, and he was not the only one. The only difference is that, since then, caste has stiffened

proselytism, even among the Vaishnavas, and the world at large, for them, practically if not religiously speaking, is limited to Hindu India, while a Christian’s world or a Mohammedan’s world is not. All creedal religions are, in spirit, world-wide brotherhoods; they are not necessarily so in fact. Any man who has accepted Christ is a Christian and, religiously speaking, looked upon as such everywhere; but it is doubtful if he will, socially, be treated as a brother in money-ridden Europe, if he has no money, or in caste-ridden South Indian Christian society, if he belongs to a low caste. Any man who believes in the “avatar” Sri Chaitanya is a Vaishnava, religiously speaking; but it would be difficult to persuade an Indian Vaishnava to always treat that man socially as his brother, whoever he may be; the example of Sri Chaitanya himself is not constantly eloquent enough for modern Haridases to be welcomed in numbers. Caste mentality has reconquered the Vaishnavas. The Mohammedan converts and their descendants seem to be the only ones in India (and perhaps in the world) to have thoroughly shaken it off. Any man who has accepted the message of Islam is a Mohammedan and treated as such, always and everywhere, religiously and socially, by his Mohammedan brothers. It is therefore easy to

understand, at first sight, that Mohammedan converts were kicked out of Hindu society from the very beginning. It is not their proselytising; spirit which cut them off from it, but their refusal to live according to caste rules.

But then, how about the Christians? How is it that a Hindu who becomes a Vaishnava is still a Hindu while a Hindu who becomes a Christian is no longer one, even if he be one of those who contribute to the persistence of caste mentality among the Indian Christians? If Hinduism has no creedal quarrel with any religion, why does a man’s faith in Christ suddenly become a sufficient ground to reject him? And since he seems so eager to keep his caste mentality in the midst of democratic Christendom, why does his former caste not keep him within it, and within aristocratic Hindudom, apparently more suited to his temperament?

The answer is that, no doubt, no particular creed or faith, no sectarian spirit whatsoever in religious matters is sufficient to turn a Hindu out of orthodox Hindu society as long as he sticks to the rules and regulations of his caste. But, reversely, no caste mentality,

however strong, no will to remain a Hindu, however firm, is sufficient to retain a Hindu within orthodox Hindu society, as soon as he breaks in any way the rules and customs of his caste. And let us not forget that social ostracism, among the Hindus, is hereditary, and that caste rules are easy to break.

The Christian converts, as well as the Mohammedans, were not thrown out of Hindu society because they form proselytising sects; Hinduism fears no religious proselytism. They were thrown out because there were some customs commonly observed by all the members of their caste, some particularities in diet, in dress, in social dealings, which they no longer would observe after their conversion. They would resent eating sacrificial meat, would dress their hair in a different way, would use certain conveniences of foreign origin. Many Christians, we have remarked, in the South, observe still nowadays, among themselves, their old caste restrictions at the time of marriage. But this (and a few other customs) could have never been sufficient to keep them within their former Hindu caste. There are so many little things which they do not observe, either because they do not wish to or because their foreign-educated (formerly altogether

foreign) priests do not allow them to do so. They may, occasionally at least, eat defiled food. (Food is very easily defiled, to the eyes of the orthodox Hindus.) Their womenfolk wear a “caste-mark” in the middle of their forehead, at home. But the catholic priests, — who do not mind them sitting, in church, apart from the “Untouchable” Christians, — do not allow them to go to church with that caste-mark; so they take it off once a week. And the men do not wear any marks at all upon their faces.

All these little things seem most futile. To the eyes of politically-minded people, citizens of free nations, who have other work to do, they are ridiculous trifles. But to the bulk of the Hindus of foreign-ruled India, they are sufficient to perpetuate a feeling of aloofness between those who observe them and those who do not, to create “communities.” For the Hindus, unfortunately, are not politically-minded; to their eyes, in general, petit caste distinctions and subtle observances concerning diet, dress, details of private life, stripes on the forehead in one direction or the other are still, apparently, more important than the very existence of Hindudom itself. That is practically the one and only reason why, for the last one thousand years, Mohammedan

and Christian converts were never yet absorbed by the Hindus as previously even foreign elements had been.

We accuse the Christians of building their churches in a foreign style. We accuse them of often bearing “English” names, — which in reality are as often Hebrew or Latin as Anglo-Saxon. It is not their fault, but ours. The missionaries from over the seas built the first churches in India, and as they were as much the agents of a foreign civilisation as the promoters of a foreign religion, it is only natural that they built accordingly their houses of worship, their schools etc. It is only natural that they should force Hebrew, Latin or Anglo-Saxon names upon the newly baptised Hindus, and we can look upon them as liberal when they did not do so. But how about us?

It is we who have pushed our Hindu brothers into the churches of pseudo-Gothic or pseudo-Norman style, built by foreigners, by shutting to them the doors of our beautiful Indian-style shrines. At the entrance of the sacred enclosure where the precious Hindu symbol of God shines in the darkness, we

have put up placards in all the languages of India: “No admittance for Untouchables.” But the Untouchables need a visible symbol of God. They need it indeed more than the other Hindus do, to the extent that they are supposed to be less spiritually-minded than them. We refuse them ours. The missionaries from over the seas offer them theirs.

The shrine is not built in Hindu style. But the Untouchables, (and many a “Touchable” with them) are little impressed by architecture. We never cared to train them to be impressed by anything we consider beautiful. So they go to church. We never allowed them to read Sanskrit. So they read Latin, — or more often Arabic. Try to put yourself in their place; would you not do the same?

We ask Ram Chandra Das what relation there is between his belief in Christ and his calling himself John Matthews. He answers that he changed his name because the priest of his new religion told him to do so. But that is no answer; why did he listen to the priest? He listened because he was not proud of his Hindu name, that is to say, because we, his Hindu brothers, have never taught him to be. Forsaken by us, he went over to them. Only natural. And we have nobody but ourselves to thank for it.

Forsaken before his conversion, and therefore a Christian convert, — or more often a Mohammedan; rejected after his conversion, and therefore a convert for all times to come.

Culture and society are more or less interlinked everywhere; they are so in India perhaps more than in other countries for here tradition, scriptural authority, tales and teachings as old as the soil are constantly referred to in daily life. It becomes difficult for most people to love a culture (and specially one which they do not know well or do not know at all) while disliking the society which has created it. The Mohammedan and Christian converts and their descendants dislike or treat with contempt the culture of the Hindus which they do not know but through Hindu society. The essential of Hindu thought is judged by them in one breath with the most undesirable social accretions, and often with the selfish actions of individual Hindus.

And if anybody remarks that such things have little to do with “real Hinduism” the non-Hindus are entitled to say: “Then, of what use ‘real Hinduism’ is to us? If hardly any man lives up to it,

it is but a scientific curiosity. Our religion, with its less lofty philosophy, is at least a living one.” What will we answer?

The best answer would be to treat socially every Hindu as a brother and every Indian as a Hindu; to invite them to our gatherings, to open our temples to them; to cast aside every custom, every idea which maintains aloofness between them and us; to try to know them and let them know us. We would then see the differences wear out little by little. The Hindu sense of relativity would gradually conquer the non-Hindus, and their spirit of brotherhood would gradually conquer us. “They need it,” you say. We need it no less. John Matthews and Gulam Mohammad, when allowed to mix freely with us, will like us, if we make ourselves lovable, and like our culture too, if we know how to show them that it is both beautiful and essentially Indian, — and still alive. They would themselves get to desire to call their children by Indian names and build their places of worship in Indian style. How can they do so while we constantly remind them that we do not look upon them as Indians? We accuse them of having no Indian patriotism and we forget that it is ourselves who have knocked it out of them, and who are doing all we can to keep

it from coming back.

But can one be astonished at the way we treat Indian Mohammedans and Christians, when for more than a thousand years we have hardly treated any better those whom we now claim to be ours through and through? We do not speak of the so-called Untouchables. Our attitude towards them has been criticised enough. There are other victims of our social fanaticism, namely the Indian Buddhists. “He is a Hindu, — says the Hindu Mahasabha, — whoever follows an Indian cult or accepts any faith, any doctrine originated in India.” According to this, every Indian Buddhist is a Hindu. One of them was welcomed as the president of the Hindu Mahasabha, at one time. And there are, nowadays, Hindu patriots who, beyond the glamourous vision of Greater India, look up to a still broader one, identifying their Indian pride with an East-and-Middle-Asia feeling and regarding as “Hindu lands” not merely Java and Cambodia, but Burma and Tibet, China and Japan, the whole of Indo-China and the South Seas. We hear much talk about “Buddhism as the unifying force of Asia” among nationalist Hindus. And to them, Buddhism means specially: Indian influence abroad, — the building force of Greater Hindusthan.

But how did we treat the Indian Buddhists in the days when Greater India was a reality, long before we needed to invent the Hindu Mahasabha?

To get the reply, consider the map of India. The two great strongholds of Mohammedan power nowadays, Punjab and Bengal, were the great centres of Indian Buddhism, once; Afghanistan was too, so was the “North-Western Frontier Province,” with Purushapur (Peshwar) and Taxila, famous seats of Buddhist culture. It seems that wherever there is, now, on Indian soil, a large Mohammedan population, there was, formerly, a large Buddhist population. The very dress which characterises the Bengali Mohammedans, — the coloured “lunghi,” — is the dress of Burma and of Java, a Buddhist dress. There is a reason behind this: all these Mohammedans’ ancestors were converts from Buddhism. And it is mainly if not solely the Hindus’ fault if they have become converts. One example will show what we mean.

While foreign Mohammedan power was first rising in Bengal, a widespread propaganda was carried on there by the Buddhists themselves. It was “shown” that the invaders had come to

“deliver” the Buddhists from Hindu oppression.* Nonsense, of course. But it worked well and contributed not a little to the Islamisation of the province, The question is: “Why could nonsense work so well?” and the answer: “The Hindus’ fault.”

Bengal, with its hardly Aryanised population, was one of the most flourishing centres of Buddhism. For years, after the breakup of Harsha’s great empire, it had been prospering under the government of the indigenous Buddhist Pal dynasty when, in the eleventh century, the Sens rose. The Sens, as we said, were strict Hindus; the Bengalis were not. They were a part of growing Greater India with a very little admixture of aristocratic blood. By temperament as well as by tradition, they did not understand the blessings of a rigid caste system, and therefore did not feel the need of it. Ballala Sen took into his head to teach them better manners. As at home they had, apparently, no Brahmins to revere, he introduced a few from outside, and undertook to thrust all the intricate code of caste rules and regulations

* See: — “Shunya Puran,” last section (Sri Niranjaner Rushma) page 232 to 236, in the Bengali edition by Charu Chandra Banerji published by the Basumati Press.
See also the “Dharma Puja Vidhana,” edited by the Bangiya Sahitya Parishad.

upon his simple tasteless people. They failed to appreciate his attempt. Tension increased between the overwhelming majority of the indigenous populations — both Buddhists and aborigines — and the strongly caste-conscious Aryanised Hindu governing class. Result? The idea of “Hindu oppression” — which shocks us so much, — was a familiar one to the eleventh and twelfth century Bengali Buddhists, and their hopes were not ours.

When the Mohammedans actually came, the Buddhists had to side either with the Hindus or with them. We proclaim in the Hindu Mahasabha meetings, (now we have learnt what unity is worth) that every Indian Buddhist, or even every Buddhist at large, is a Hindu. But the Sens did not think so. Nor did the few Hindus of Bengal, in their days. So that “to side with the Hindus” was not so easy for a Bengali Buddhist then as it is for us to criticise him now. The Greek Christians of Byzantium did not suffer at the hands of the Latin Christians what the Bengali Buddhists did at the hands of the Hindus; for theirs were religious and political grievances, not social ones. And yet, we know that when the Latins offered their help to the Greeks against the besieging Turks on the condition they would accept the Latin Church’s claims, the Greeks,

about to lose their existence as a nation, answered with one voice “Better Mohamed’s turban than the Pope’s tiara.” The Buddhists of Bengal thought: “Better the savage Afghans than the refined Hindus with their caste system.”

Any of us would have thought the same in their place. Persecuted from both sides, it was very difficult for Bengali Buddhism to continue flourishing. And of two societies, the one which offers the greatest opportunities to rise seems the best to the eyes of downtrodden people. Side with the Hindus? Why? To be treated as untouchables? To remain, whatever they do, frustrated of the privileges of caste citizenship? Not worthwhile. It was easier and more profitable to become the brothers of the savage Afghans; and so they did. That is one of the reasons why there are so many Mohammedans in Bengal, and in the whole of North India also. Now we need them to make number (for we leave learnt the value of number) we call them back in the name of Indian nationalism. We even appeal to them in the name of the brotherhood of Greater Hindusthan, — the brotherhood of half mankind, broader even than that of Islam. Broader it may be, but less real. And we come too late. Why did our predecessors not say then that “every Buddhist is a Hindu” and treat

him accordingly? Had they done so, had we also done all what we should have done; had we so-called Indian nationalists, treated our Musulman brothers as Indians during even these last fifty years; had we given them the opportunity to know us, to appreciate us, to work with us; had we taught them that our past, our culture, our India are theirs no less than ours, and given them every opportunity of personal development on national lines, along with ourselves, then, we would not have now to fight against any Communal Award, or Pakistan scheme; we would not need a Hindu Mahasabha. It serves us right.

Before accusing the Indian Mohammedans and Christians of not loving our culture, which is the culture of India, we should accuse ourselves of loving it with a narrow selfish spirit unworthy of it. Before accusing them of “not being Indians” we should accuse ourselves of the same. For most Hindus are not half as consciously Indians as an average Turkish Musulman is consciously a Turk. We talk more and more about Indian nationalism; but if there really were in our hearts anything of

the kind, our society would not be what it is. We would not put so much stress upon trifles and put more upon questions of importance, like grownup men and women do, in all mature nations.

We accuse our brothers of leading a Pakistan conspiracy for the “vivisection of India.” How about us? For us, in Bengal, it is a great point as to know whether a Brahman priest of a lower order (who officiates for the Sahas, a caste of people from whom a high caste orthodox Hindu would not accept even water) should be allowed or not to enter a temple built by common subscriptions both from the Sahas and the Kundus* (another caste of people from whom high caste orthodox Hindus can accept water, but not rice). Another question arises as whether the priest, if allowed at all to enter, should permit himself to cross the threshold of the sanctuary or remain on the verandah. For us, in Madras Presidency, it is a great point as to know whether an Iyengar Brahmin should give preference to Scriptures in Sanskrit over Scriptures in Tamil and end the stripes of his “tilak” just above his nose, or

* Allusion to the trouble which arose about the Gaur-Nitai temple, in Puran Bazar, Chandpur (Tipperah District) in 1938 and 1939. The Hindu Mission of Calcutta carried on there, on that occasion, a long reform campaign.

whether he should not better give preference to Scriptures in Tamil over Scriptures in Sanskrit and stretch his forehead mark half an inch lower. Another question is whether the Iyengars, who worship Vishnu and his Incarnations, and draw the three stripes of their “tilak” vertically, are higher in rank than the Iyers, (worshippers of Siva, who draw their triple lined forehead-mark horizontally) or the Iyers higher in rank than the Iyengars. Great controversies! We are busy with such nonsense instead of striving with all our might towards the sole honourable aim of a subject race: our country’s independence, at any cost and by any practical means. We accuse Mr. Jinnah and Co. of attempting to vivisect India; but we vivisect India at every step of our social life.

Our over-aged caste system has kept us from becoming a nation. Our “spiritual” temperament (a polite word for laziness) and our widespread nonviolence (a polite word for cowardice) have kept us permanently dependent. Quarrels about the nature of the Unknown and the shape of our forehead-marks have diverted our thoughts and energy from our one and only natural craving: the craving to be free, to be strong, to be great.

We say: “Mother and Motherland are more

exalted than Heaven” but we teach India’s starving millions that our common Motherland is their hell, namely the place where the forgotten sins of their past lives have landed them to suffer and purify their souls, — while we exploit their labour and help the foreigners to exploit us. And then we accuse them of anti-patriotism as soon as they become Mohammedans or Christians and escape our control. Shameless hypocrites indeed we are, and we are paying for it.

But India is paying for it too; that is the tragedy of the matter.

England, Germany, Japan, America discuss their vital interests while we lose our time over trifles; they build aeroplanes while we build “dharmashalas” and “maths” — and sometimes fine houses for ourselves; they make history while we organise protest meetings against “anti-Hindu,” “anti-national,” “anti-constitutional” municipal bills. They lead the world while we and our Musulman brothers are busy with the everlasting Hindu-Moslem problem. Why not try to solve the problem once forever, and then think of something more constructive?

We know that our non-Hindu brothers have many a justified grievance against us, and that it is us, not them, who, in the past, have done the

most fundamental harm to the common cause of Indian national unity. The basis of social organisation among the Hindus, that is to say rigid division of people into small water-tight groups, is the greatest obstacle to the formation of nationality in the modern sense of the word. This stiff social frame has to be loosened if we want India to live as a great nation in the world of today. And we mean to do our best. But one-sided effort is not sufficient to bring out a lasting result. There are truths which our non-Hindu brothers have forgotten no less then we have, if they ever were conscious of them. We all have to set aside our mistakes of the past and build afresh. It was of no use hiding our faults; it is of no use either wasting time in lamenting over them too long. The best is to let the bitterly earned experience guide us in the future, so that similar blunders should not be repeated.

Everyone has to pay for his blunders. A thousand years of foreign yoke have been the salary of our faults. It sounds as if that is enough. It is of no use persisting in the old ways which can only make this state of things last longer.