THE VIRILE AND THE CHASTE 81 pointed out, between the woman and the other symbol, the cow, lay in the fact that the latter could only be killed but it could not be made impure. In brief, what emerges from the Hindu nationalist discourse is that the woman, who was both 'pure* and 'impure', was not only to be protected but also to be disciplined and controlled.3 It was in the 1920's that Hindu publicists and politicians saw in the Khilafat movement and the Mappilla revolts, the threat of a thoroughly united, well organised and militant Muslim population poised to wipe out the Hindus and their culture.4 Tied to this was an emphasis on achieving a physical power equal to that of the Muslims as a preliminary to ending colonial rule.5 The origin of the Hindu Mahasabha's shuddhi movement under B.S. Moonje, is attributed to the fate of the Hindus in Malabar, especially the reports of wells filled with bodies of Hindu women who had jumped in to save their honour, as well as to their rape under 'the very eyes of the menfolk'.6 In Malabar, Moonje saw the 'specter of Islam' which having 'absorbed' Afghanistan, Kashmir and Malabar, was hungering for more, in particular, the seven crore untouchables who would soon be 'devoured, digested and assimilated', thus sending the Hindus hurtling into extinction and inaugurating 'Muslimistan'. While the Hindus had been immersed in bhakti, ahimsa and non-violence, 'every' Muslim man and woman had operated as an agent of proselytization and thus built up the community 'brick by brick' without any obstruction.7 For the Hindu man obsessed with Congress swam], Moonje recommended an introspective exercise to be carried out in the 'quiet loneliness of his room'. He was to picture the 'daily occurrence of Hindus running away for life when attacked by Muslim ruffians [and] leaving behind their womenfolk to be dealt with by them'. He was then to ask himself, 'If I cannot guarantee safety and immunity from molestation to my womenfolk and temples from those of my Muslim brethren who are only armed with lathis, how can I aspire to wrest swaraj from those armed with machine guns?' Hindus, he underlined, were to remember that 'every' Muslim considered it a sacred duty to 'decoy' in his or her lifetime a few Hindus, men or women, boys or girls, 'preferrably the latter', and induct them into the fold of Islam8 (emphasis added). Initially, in Bihar, Jagat Narayan Lal, who was a member of both the Hindu Mahasabha and the Congress pitched the shuddhi campaign at the Christian missionaries who had, 'unnoticed* by the Hindus, covered ten out of the sixteen districts by the mid-twenties. In his perception, 'the Christian peril' affected the Hindus alone as 'other races were yet virile and none dare lay their hands upon them'. Simultaneously, however, he expressed alarm at the 'bigotry, fanaticism and intolerance' among the Muslims over the question of music before the mosque. Ultimately it was this latter thrust that the provincial Hindu Mahasabha settled for. It may be mentioned that in