Los Angeles Herald, 1908

"Caste in India"

#HindooHistory #Caste
"When the Aryan nomads crossed the Himalayas and formed their pastoral settlements along the banks of the Indus they were a peaceful people, yielding easily to the governance of their patriarchal chiefs."
"Their loose confederation of tribes was held together by considerations of mutual protection, by blood kinship and by a common religion. In the absence of writing certain individuals and families among them..."
"gifted with superior memory, attained a high degree of prestige and influence by reason of their exact knowledge of the holy hymns and sacrificial rites. They became the hereditary guardians of the liturgies and interpreters of the mysteries."
"They were honored, respected and feared, and the quality which earned these distinctions for them would seem to prove that they were the most intelligent of their race."
Thus arose the order of priests, or the Brahman caste. From the first they exercised the subtle power which they have maintained to this day"
"In Hinduism the social organization and the religious confederacy have always been inseparably allied... With social development came a complex modification of this arrangement, The old orders lost their integrity by intermarriage and change of occupation and of locale"
"Agriculture was given over to the Sudras, and the Vaisyas became the merchant class. The Rajputs, or Kshatriyas, are no longer soldiers and scarcely retain a trace of the hereditary instinct that distinguished them for many centuries"
"Even the Brahmans are broken up into numerous subcastes of varying degrees and long since ceased to be priests by right of birth"
"Dr. J. Wilson, of Bombay, attempted the stupendous task of classifying and describing the thousands of castes into which the Hindus of the present day are divided. At the time of his death his work had grown to two volumes of 678 pages.."
"but he had not completed his analysis of even a single caste-- the Brahmans, who, according to Sherring, embrace 1,886 separate bodies."
"They are to be found in all stations of life, from the pompous pandit of Poona, or the pampered priest of Benares, to the potato-growing Brahmans of Orissa..."
"half-naked peasants struggling along under their baskets of yams, with a filthy little Brahmanical thread over their shoulder."
"And to the lowest of these-- measured by worldly standards-- one may see some wealthy Jat landowner or some prosperous Gujerati grain dealer bow with deference, as to one immeasurably superior to himself in the account of the gods. Caste outweighs wealth and station"
"The Gaekwar of Baroda wears the star of India, and his comings and goings are marked by a salute of 21 guns, but the Brahman who begs at the gates of his palace would be degraded by sitting at his table..."
"When we come down to the lower ranks of the people, the ramifications of caste are beyond the grasp of mind. Every occupation has its distinct caste and these are varied by locality."
"Then there are hundreds of castes growing out of mixed marriages for, although Hindu custom now forbids marriages between persons of different caste, there has been extensive intermingling, and in every such case the contracting parties lost their original caste."
"In many instances non-Aryan families and communities have become Hinduised and admitted into the ranks of the 'twice born.'"
"These ascensions in the social scale have usually been gradual and almost imperceptible, but in some cases they are the result of a revolt against the arbitrary classification or of a self-assertion supported by material advantages"
"Thus in Southern India the goldsmiths resisted the rule of the Brahmans and claimed to be the true spiritual leaders. In general, however, caste and occupation are inseparable and unchangeable."
"Each caste is at once a religious brotherhood and a trade guild. Int he latter capacity it supervises the training of its younger members, regulates wages, maintains boards of arbitration and fosters good fellowship by social gatherings"
"The famous fabrics of India owe their peculiar excellence of workmanship to these conditions. We see in them the results of skill inherited from generations of workers along the same lines, directed and controlled by the guild"
"The same factors are also responsible for the lack of originality displayed in Indian art productions. The artisan of today is educated to the same standard and methods, and adopts even the same designs, that have been handed down in his caste-trade through the centuries"
"When we consider that one caste may have no intimate relations with another, that the shadow of one man falling across the food of another,as it lies upon the ground, may necessitate his throwing it to the dogs..."
"and that a Hindu can no more change his caste than he can his skin, it is difficult to perceive how anything like self-government can be possible to such a people."
"Nor is the present agitation for universal, or extensive, representation based on a desire for the betterment of the lower classes."
"With few exceptions, the educated Hindus who form the ranks of the agitators are either blinded by lack of understanding or actuated by selfish motives. It is not in the nature of things that they should have either sympathy for the low caste peasant or regard for his welfare"
"Since the days of Asoka Hindustan has prospered only under the rule of foreigners, and so it must be until caste is abolished and the spirit of brotherhood made possible, a condition that cannot come about short of a century."
"With these people a difference of religion is not, as with us, a matter of no political or social consequence, but one which constitutes an impassable barrier in every respect."
"Then there are some 60,000,000 Mohammedans, who entertain the utmost contempt and hatred for Hindus in general"
"What would be the character of a legislative assembly based upon the representation of such a population? It could not fail to be dominated by prejudice, or rather by conflicting prejudices. Anything like a national spirit could not possibly prevail among its members"
"Its enactments would necessarily be in the nature of class legislation and would result in an increase of the present antagonism between classes. The proposition advanced by the extremists that the British should be forced from the country, is hardly worth of consideration"
"In the first place, it would not be possible of accomplishment. AN uprising today would have far less prospects of success--even though supported by the native army, which shows no signs of disaffection-- than had that of 1857"
"The Indian princes, the propertyowners and the monied men would all oppose revolution and without their aid such a movement would be worse than hopeless. But even if the Hindus could and should oust the British what would they gain?"
"In a very short time their conflicting elements would be engaged in strife as of old and confronted by an internal enemy.The Mohammedans,who are united by the strongest ties, and who are forceful as the majority of Hindus are weak, would sweet the country with little difficulty"
"and we should see the Nizam of Hyderabad, or some other follower of Islam, upon the throne of India"

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