Thread by @HindooHistory

The Washington Times, 1929

"Sacred Bull or Sacred Monkey"

"You Take Your Choice, in India, and Worship Accordingly"

Caption: "HINDU FANATIC PROSTRATES HIMSELF BEFORE A SACRED WHITE BULL"

#HindooHistory

"The British discuss giving 'dominion status' to India. This, nominally, would put India in the position of Canada or Australia as a self-governing part of the British Empire"

"These two pictures show you some of the gentlemen that feel ready for self-government. To be sacred, the bull must be pure white. If he has a calf only partly white, whatever isn't white is painted white and then he is a perfectly good sacred bull"

"The religion of the Hindu forbids them to kill or to eat any bull or cow. They allow thousands of the poor creatures to wander about in misery, dying ultimately of starvation. Their religion says nothing about THAT"

"They are not allowed to kill them to end their misery. The British police occasionally do kill them to end suffering, and are disliked, sometimes mobbed, in consequence"

"The second picture shows four sacred animals of India. These, as it happens, are monkeys, shown in the company with a Hindu 'priest,' who looks after them, and thus makes his living"

"There are hundreds of such monkeys in one Indian temple, fed by the deeply religious. Too bad the monkeys can't show what their 'superior' white cousins think of them. That would make even a monkey laugh"

"However, when you are in India, you must take quite seriously the worship of the sacred white bull, and also the sacredness of the sacred monkeys"

"If you hurt one of these monkeys, or if you allow your automobile to bump into one of those sacred white bulls, you would probably be torn to pieces..."

"if those happening to see you could get up the necessary energy-- and religious fanaticism always supplies energy, even to the laziest"

"What would happen if independence were granted to India remains to be seen. The high caste Hindus would resume on a worse scale, perhaps, the persecution of the miserable 'Untouchables,' Indians whose very breath is supposed to defile a high caste Hindu"

"miserable creatures that must be cross the street, or plunge off to the side of a road when they meet a high caste Indian"

"Since the British government has cut down famines and plagues, and doesn't allow energetic Afghans on the north to murder Hindus as they used to, the population of India has increased to 100,000,000"

"When an old Hindu dies, he is no longer allowed to have his young wife burned in 'suttee,' along with his body. She lives on and sometimes has more children, although she is not supposed to do that"

"There are about a hundred thousand British troops in India, surrounded by 300,000,000 Asiatics. The miracle is not that India hasn't BETTER government, but that its government is as good as it is"

"It cannot be easily raised, from the age long level of 300,000,000 Asiatics"

"Britain manages to keep the British Rajahs, who formerly exploited the people, more or less in control. A Rajah, when he dies, cannot have fifty or a hundred of his women burned alive with his body. That used to happen"

"Let us be thankful that WE do not fall flat on our faces at the sight of a sacred white bull, let us be deeply grateful that WE do not let human beings degrade themselves by acting as priests for 'sacred monkeys'"

"On the other hand, let us not be too proud, for we are RATHER foolish in some things concerning our OWN religion"