Thread by @HindooHistory

The Progressive Farmer, 1911

"Round the World Travel Letters"

"The Caste System in India"

#HindooHistory #ClarencePoe #Caste

"Of Hinduism as a religious or ecclesiastical institution we had something to say in our letter from Lucknow; of Hinduism as a Social Fact bare mention was made."

"And yet it is in its social aspects, in its enslavement of all the women and the majority of the men who come within its reach, that Hinduism presents its most terrible phases. For Hinduism is Caste and Caste is Hinduism"

"Upon the innate, Heaven-ordained superiority of the Brahman and the other twice-born castes, and upon the consequent inferiority of the lower castes, the whole system of Brahmanism rests"

"Originally there were but four castes: The Brahmin or priest caste who were supposed to have sprung from the head of Brahma or God; the Kshatriya or warrior caste who sprang from his arms, the Vaisya or merchant and farmer class who sprang from his thigh....."

"and the Sudra or servant and handicraftsmen class who came from his feet. The idea of superiority by birth having once been accepted as fundamental, however, these primary castes were themselves divided and subdivided along real or imaginary lines of superiority or inferiority"

"until today the official Government statistics show 2,378 castes in India. You can not marry into any one of the other 2,377 classes of Hindoos; you can not eat with any of them, nor can you touch any of them"

"Thus Caste is the Curse of India. It is the very antithesis of Democracy-- blighting, benumbing, paralyzing to all aspiration and all effort at change or improvement. No man may rise to a higher caste than that into which he is born; but he may fall into a lower one"

"There is no opportunity for progress; the only way to move is backward. Don't kick against the pricks therefore. You were born a Brahman with wealth and power because you won favor of the gods in some previous existence;"

"or you were born a Sudra, predestined to a life of suffering and semi-starvation. because in your previous existence you failed to merit better treatment from the gods"

"If you are only a sweeper, be glad that you were not born a pig or a cobra. Kismet, Fate, has fixed at birth your changeless station in this life; and, more than this, it has written on your brow the things which must happen to you throughout your whole existence"

"The Brahman put himself into a position of superiority, and then said to all the other classes: Rebel not at the Inequalities of life."

"They are ordained of the gods. The The good that the higher castes enjoy is the reward of their having conducted themselves properly in previous existence."

"Never in human history has the ingenuity of a ruling class devised a cleverer or a crueler mode of perpetrating its supremacy. Never has there been a religion more depressing, more hopeless, more deadening to all initiative."

"It is in this fatalistic conception of life that Caste is rooted; but for this belief that all things are predestined, no people would ever have been so spiritless as to submit to the tyranny of the Caste system"

"Perhaps it should be added that the belief in the transmigration of the soul has also had a not inconsiderable influence. Though you have fared ill in this life, a million rebirths may be yours ere you finally win Absorption into Brahma..."

"'You are interested in India; therefore you may have your next life as an Indian,' an eminent Hindu said to me. But heaven forbid!'"

"If you are a high-caste man you may not only refuse to eat with or touch a low-caste man, your equal perhaps in intelligence and in morals, but in some cases you may even demand that the low-caste man shall not pollute you by coming too near you on the road"

"Moreover, the low-caste man, offensive to men, is taught that he is equally offensive to the gods. He must not worship in the temples; must not even approach them. Usually it is taken for granted that no Pariah will take such a liberty..."

"Not only are these creatures of inferior orders vile in themselves, but they work which they do has also come to be regarded as degrading. A high-caste man will not be caught doing any work which is 'beneath him'"