Content note: Period caricature drawing of three men with a quoted speech on Hindu-Muslim co-operation; no demeaning content. This object is shown as it was published. Why

'United We Stand: Divided We Fall!' (Cartoons from the Hindi Punch, Bombay, January 1904)

Full-page cartoon of three men standing together, one in the centre with arms spread, holding unrolled scrolls lettered 'Progress & Reform', 'Political & Social Advancement', 'General Reforms', 'General Rights', 'Common Benefit'. The tell is the stack of virtue words on the scrolls and in the quoted speech, which stand in for any specific programme and are offered as a shared goal across communities.

Date: January 1904
Period: Pre-1914
Made by: Hindi Punch (Bombay illustrated satirical weekly), reproduced in 'Cartoons from the Hindi Punch, 1904'
Region: South Asia
Country: British India
Medium: Cartoon
Issuer type: Media
Regime: British Raj
Leader: George Nathaniel Curzon
Audience: Domestic public
Purpose: Persuade or win support
Themes: Empire and colonialism, Media and information
Techniques: Glittering generalities
Source: Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are
Source: Internet Archive (Duke University Libraries), retrieved October 2, 2026
Rights: Public domain (published Bombay 1904, before 1931); Internet Archive page: Creative Commons public domain mark
Hindi Punch, Bombay, January 1904 ('Cartoons from the Hindi Punch, 1904'), Duke University Libraries, via Internet Archive

Text on the object

Original (English) · read from the image, not independently checked

CARTOONS FROM THE "HINDI PUNCH."-1904.

[scrolls, left] PROGRESS & REFORM / POLITICAL & SOCIAL ADVANCEMENT / GENERAL REFORMS. / GENERAL RIGHTS. / COMMON BENEFIT.
[scroll, centre] CHAIRMAN CONGRESS RECEPTION COMMITTEE
[scroll, right, Gujarati script: illegible at this resolution]

"UNITED WE STAND: DIVIDED WE FALL!"

["It is hardly necessary for me to add that no great advance in the path of progress and reform is possible of achievement unless the two great races inhabiting this vast continent, the Mahomedans and the Hindus, co-operate and work together in harmony for the common benefit. I can assure you that so far as this Presidency is concerned the relation of the two classes of the population is as harmonious as could be desired, and it is the duty of every patriotic citizen to remember always the saying, 'United we stand: divided we fall.'"-Speech of the Hon'ble Mr. Syed Mahomed Bahadur, Chairman of the Reception Committee of the Congress held at Madras on the 28th December, 1903.]

[Hindi Punch, Jan., 1904.]

The Gujarati scroll text is not transcribed. Page number 6 as printed.