Gold, Sport, and Coffee Planting in Mysore Part 9

The common idea of caste is that it is simply a combination of troublesome and fanciful restrictions, imposed upon the various peoples of India by those of the upper cla.s.ses who desired to keep themselves above the jostling of the crowd. But this inst.i.tution (if that be a correct term for it) arose naturally and regularly out of the circ.u.mstances of the times, and where these circ.u.mstances no longer exist, it will as naturally disappear; and that the last must happen we have seen from, the fact that altered circ.u.mstances have already caused the commencement of its removal amongst the people of the towns. But the general circ.u.mstances which gave birth to caste require a few words of explanation, and the following solution seems not an unnatural one.

We know, as a certain fact, that peoples to whom we have given the names of Dravidians and Aryans entered India from the north and north-west; that they increased and multiplied, overspread the whole of India, and reduced the aborigines to serfdom. We also know that these tribes from the north, who were, comparatively speaking, fair, very naturally regarded the black, ugly, carrion-eating aborigines with disgust. Hence, naturally, must have arisen the opinions as regards Pariahs which all the superior castes hold to this day. Even to have food touched by people of such abominable habits must have been repulsive, and therefore the separation into men of caste and men of no caste, or, in other words, into browns and blacks (for the word for caste means colour), followed as a matter of course. Caste, then, seems naturally to have arisen from the idea that to a.s.sociate in any way with people of bad habits and grovelling ideas is an intolerable degradation. The superior races, therefore must have considered it a matter of importance to retreat as far as possible from the habits of the aborigines; and when we take into consideration the influence of religion, the natural ambition of the priestly cla.s.ses, the splitting up into sects, and the fondness of the Hindoo mind for subtle distinctions, the rest easily follows. But, though numerous castes arose amongst the invaders, the main line of demarcation, is still the original one of race--between the races of the north and the aborigines whom they found in possession of India. The base, then, of caste, we may rest a.s.sured, was simply the result of a people, or rather of peoples, wishing to keep themselves uncontaminated when coming in contact with a debased population.

This was exactly the case with the Jews. They were simply a very strongly guarded caste, with a number of regulations as to what they were and were not to eat, and with rules which prohibited them intermarrying or a.s.sociating with peoples with whom they came in contact. Many of those rules may seem to us ridiculous and fanciful, but they were calculated to prevent the Jews from any chance of adopting the manners and customs of the peoples around them; and the Indians, having had similar views, naturally adopted similar means. Such then is a brief generalization of the causes which led to caste laws, which were, no doubt, carried in some instances to a ridiculous length, but which were founded in common sense, and were admirably adapted to carry into effect the opinions of the superior races.

We have now, in the second place, to consider caste with reference to the approach of native converts to the Lord's table, the sitting apart of the various castes in church, and the effects of caste as regards what is called social intercourse.

The whole difficulty of the caste question, as regards the Sacrament, lies in this, namely, that a high-caste vegetarian objects to drink wine at the same time and after a low-caste meat-eater. And here I find a great difficulty in finding words or ill.u.s.trations that will at all convey the feelings of a high-caste vegetarian at the very idea of drinking after a low-caste carrion-eater. If from the lowest, filthiest, and most poisonous dens in London, you were to take a man, reeking with beer and tobacco, and with his clothes crawling with vermin, and presenting, in short, every appearance of foulness, dirt, and disease; if you were to take that man and place him between two ladies at the administration of the Holy Communion, I do not say that they would there and then refuse the Sacrament on these terms, but I think we may be pretty sure that, from sanitary motives, if from no others, they would in future take the Sacrament in a place where they would not be liable to such contact. Their feelings and senses would be shocked by such contact as I have imagined, but their sensations would merely bear the same proportion to the sensations of a high-caste vegetarian Hindoo who had to drink after a Pariah that a trifling cause of disgust would bear to the most intolerable and lasting degradation. Now, to people in this country, this may seem an extraordinary thing; but they will think it less extraordinary when I tell them that, if I could not take the Sacrament unless amongst Pariahs, I would never take it again, unless perhaps, I were to put myself bodily into one of Professor Tyndall's cotton-gauze air-cleansers, and drink the sacramental wine after it had been boiled at a temperature of 212 degrees, and pa.s.sed through a filter. And when I talk of the lowest castes as carrion-eaters, I must tell the reader that I am not in the slightest degree guilty of exaggeration, and that they are carrion-eaters in exactly the same sense that vultures are carrion-eaters. In fact, these men never get any meat unless that of animals that have died of disease; and as in these climates decomposition is extremely rapid, the reader can imagine the result of coming in contact with a man who has, perhaps, a few hours before been eating a ma.s.s of diseased and half decomposed meat. And in case the reader should not be able to imagine what the result is, I may mention the following circ.u.mstance. A few days after I had killed a bison I had occasion to point out some pieces of sawn wood which I wished to be removed from the jungle to my house, and I accordingly took with me a native overseer, and two coolies to carry the timber. When I was pointing out the pieces to them, I smelt a strong smell of putrid meat, which seemed to fill the air so entirely that I at once concluded that a tiger must have killed some animal and left the carcase near the spot. My overseer and myself looked about everywhere, but at last happening to pa.s.s the coolies, I at once perceived that the smell arose from their breath, and on questioning them, I found that before coming to work they had been feasting on decayed bison flesh. In fact, after killing a bison, we could never go near our coolies for some days afterwards. But to see a party of these men sitting like vultures around the carcase of some animal that has just died of some abominable disease is quite enough to inspire even an unprejudiced European meat-eater-with the most wholesome horror; and the reader need not, I think, be surprised at the feelings of disgust which these men's habits inspire amongst the respectable cla.s.ses of the community. But independently of all feelings of disgust, there are sanitary considerations which are of infinitely more importance, for it so happens that, at a time when the weather is hottest and the season most unhealthy, a larger number of animals die; and I have very little doubt that this eating of rotten meat causes amongst the Pariahs a large quant.i.ty of disease, and especially of cholera, which they would not fail to disseminate with fatal certainty amongst all cla.s.ses, were the native Christians compelled to take the Sacrament indiscriminately. And, in my own experience, I have observed that cholera has pa.s.sed through districts, that the upper cla.s.ses have been free from it, but that amongst the lower the victims were many. And the same sanitary reasons that apply to the Sacrament apply equally well to the mixing of castes indiscriminately in the churches; for it might so happen, as it frequently does, that fever and cholera may be prevalent amongst the lower castes, while the higher may be at that time comparatively free from such diseases. So that, when we take all these points into consideration, we shall find that the German missionaries were perfectly right in placing the men of the higher caste on one side of the church, and those of the lower on the other, and that they were equally right in allowing the higher castes to approach the Sacrament at a different time from the lower. I may here remark that I once mentioned this taking of the Sacrament in a sort of order of precedence to a clergyman in a country parish, when he told me that exactly the same sort of thing occurred in his parish, and that the lord of the manor invariably took the Sacrament first, and, if I recollect rightly, the parish clerk last; and a special instance of this in a Scotch parish was mentioned to me not long ago.

The same sanitary considerations will also naturally be of value when we come to consider that indiscriminate social intercourse which the missionaries so much insist upon as one of the necessary signs of grace. I do not, of course, say that it is not advisable, and that it would not be desirable to see a little more intercourse between cla.s.s and cla.s.s than exists at the present. But between all the better cla.s.ses there is a much greater degree of intercourse than our missionaries would have us believe; and it is not true that one caste will eat only the food prepared by a person of his own caste. I cannot, of course, say what may be the case as regards other parts of India; but, as regards my own district, each caste will eat of the food prepared by any of the castes higher, or at least purer, than its own. For instance, a Gouda, who will not allow that the Lingayet caste is better than his own, will eat of food prepared by a Lingayet, while a Lingayet will not eat of food prepared by a Gouda. And the explanation of this is, that the Lingayet is a vegetarian, and meat might have been boiled in the Gouda's pots, while there would be nothing to offend the Gouda customs in the pots of a vegetarian host. But in these matters I entirely agree with the good Bishop Heber, who said that we had no right to interfere in their private life, or to meddle in any way with their social customs, as long as there was no idolatry in them.

Turning now to the third point I proposed to consider, I have a few remarks to make regarding the only (from a Christian point of view) solid objection that can, I conceive, be made to the inst.i.tution of separate orders of men; namely, that the tendency of caste is to shut up the bowels of compa.s.sion towards all the world outside of a man's particular cla.s.s. And here I confess that I am very much in want of information, and can think of no unprejudiced individuals to whom to apply for the facts as really existing in other parts of India. As for books, when I look into them for any information, I am at once met by quant.i.ties of unlimited condemnations, or a host of contradictory statements. And, as an instance of the latter, I may mention that in Kerr's "Domestic Life of the Natives of India" we are informed, at page 31, that "alms are given to the poor without distinction of caste," while at page 343 of the same volume we are told that "to extend kindness and hospitality to one of a different caste is regarded as sinful." But in matters of this sort we want the experience of individuals who have actually lived amongst the people, as much as anyone can who is not actually one of them. As for my own part of the country, I can answer for it that caste has no such effect as has been alleged to arise from it regarding the extension of hospitality and kindness to people of various castes; and, as a confirmatory ill.u.s.tration, may mention that I have found members of every caste a.s.sembled at the house of a toddy man to inquire how he was, and to see whether they could do anything for him. These toddy-drawers rank at least third amongst the castes in Manjarabad, and though none of the members of the farmer castes above them would eat of food prepared in a toddy-drawer's house, yet there were numbers of both these castes present. This feeling would not, that I am aware of, go as far as one of the carrion-eating Pariahs, but I am quite certain that it would extend to any other caste but theirs in the country. But on this point I do not offer any decided opinion, as, for what I know to the contrary, acts of kindness and hospitality may, no doubt, often have been extended even to the lowest. And I may also mention here that I have slept in the veranda of a farmer's house, in which members of the family slept close to some of my people, who were of the toddy-drawer caste above alluded to, and who, I am sure, were quite as welcome as members of their own caste would have been. But as regards all these matters concerning the inner life of the people, we know nothing, unless we actually live amongst them, and sleep in their houses, and, in fact, see the people at home; and as it is extremely difficult to find anyone who has done anything of the kind, it naturally follows that it is almost impossible to find anything like reliable sources of information regarding native habits throughout India. You may, it is true, stuff your very soul with information of some sort or other, if you go about asking questions, but if you do you will find yourself much in the same predicament that Johnson found himself in his tour to the Hebrides; and the reader may recollect that the worthy doctor very soon found that nothing could be more vague, unsatisfactory, and uncertain than the answers of an unsophisticated simple people, who were not much in the habit of being asked questions of any sort. However, the reader may, in the meantime, reasonably infer that the conduct of the people in the rural districts of India, and situated under similar circ.u.mstances, would not materially differ, as regards matters of caste, from the practice as existing in Manjarabad. And should that turn out to be the case, it is plain that those notions, as regards the practice of caste, which have been so industriously circulated in England, are almost entirely false.

I have said that I proposed inquiring, further, whether there are not some compensating advantages in this division of the people into castes which tend, in a great measure, to neutralize the prejudicial effects that arise from people's sympathies and feelings being more or less confined to members of their own caste, instead of being distributed over the human race considered as a whole. Now, it is perfectly true that the tendency of caste is to weaken the claim that humanity in general has on an individual; but though the claim of society in general is weakened, it must be remembered that the claims of each caste on the members of it are strengthened. And though this fact may militate against an enlarged and Christian philanthropy, the aggregate force of claims will be found to amount to a much larger sum than if one part of a society had no more claim on a man than another. A man of one caste would not, for instance, perhaps feel that a man of another caste had much claim on him; but he would distinctly and strongly feel that a member of his own caste had. And every caste acting on the same principle of supporting and helping its members, I am convinced that the aggregate force of a.s.sistance rendered must be greater than in a country where there is little or no caste principle. This may seem a rash a.s.sertion, and of course it is one that it is impossible, as far as I am aware, to prove. But the fact that there is not a poor-house from one end of India to the other, seems to me a significant and satisfactory circ.u.mstance; and the only way I can account for there being no need of such a thing is,[42] that caste feeling must often come in where all other aids fail. Nor are we in this country without instances of the value of caste feelings, and both the Jews and the Scotch may still be pointed to as ill.u.s.trations of what I mean. A Scotchman still has a sort of caste feeling for a Scotchman, and would do things for a man, as a Scotchman, that he would not do for people of either English or Irish descent. This principle may now have lessened, and is, no doubt, daily lessening. But when I started in India, I very soon experienced the benefit of this caste feeling; and, as one ill.u.s.tration to the point, I may mention that, before my estates came into bearing, I was attended in a long and serious illness by two Scotch doctors (one of whom attended on me for six weeks incessantly), both of whom resolutely declined any remuneration whatever. I cannot, of course, positively a.s.sert that these gentlemen would not have attended me on the same terms had I been an Englishman, but, from my general experience with other doctors, I am sure that these gentlemen must have been not a little influenced by caste feeling. And I have no doubt whatever that the way the Scotch get on, wherever they go, is to be attributed, in no small measure, to the existence of the same feeling. It may seem to many of my readers that to use the term caste as a principle which impels one Scotchman to help another is not exactly correct; and I must admit to having some doubts on the subject myself. The case of the Jews, however, admits of none; and, if ever there was a caste of people in the world, in the strict Hindoo sense, they are certainly an unmistakable example. And what are the results of caste feeling with them? As to other parts of the world I have no precise information; but in England I have ascertained from the best authority that caste feeling has produced some extremely favourable results. In the first place, Jews are seldom or never found in our workhouses; and all cases of poverty are carefully investigated by a visiting committee, or board of guardians, and relief or employment is always afforded to every Jewish pauper. Then, again, no Jewish child ever was, and no Jewish child is now, without the means of obtaining elementary instruction; and it would be difficult to find an English Jew unable to read and write. Means are taken to secure the attendance of all poor children, and a sound middle-cla.s.s education is afforded, while the study of the Hebrew language is compulsory. There were only, when I obtained my information on the point, about twenty Jewish (princ.i.p.ally foreigners) convicts in England, and no female convict was to be found.

Another of the princ.i.p.al complaints brought against caste is the fact that it has a tendency to keep one caste fixed below another; but even here we shall find some compensating considerations which are of great value. For, if caste in this respect has a keeping-down tendency, it has also a levelling one. It may keep one order above another, but within the limits of that caste order it has a levelling tendency, and in one respect the poorest of each cla.s.s feel themselves on a level with the richest. Nor is a poor man of good caste made to experience the bitter sense of degradation which falls to the lot of a gentleman who, from poverty and misfortune, has fallen out of his original cla.s.s into another far below him. The Indian may descend into the most humble spheres, but if he attends to the regulations of his caste he is always a member of it, and his feelings of self-respect are maintained by the fact that, however poor, it is quite possible that his daughter may be married by a man of wealth and position. But in this country, where a man has gone a long way down the hill, when he has descended--as many gentlemen especially do in our colonies--into the lower ranks of life, he loses all connection with people who are of his own rank by birth. I do not, of course, mean to allege that this want of caste feeling is to be lamented with us, but I am merely stating facts which seem to me to show the number of ways in which this much-reviled caste system can be proved to have compensating advantages which tend to counterbalance the drawbacks of the situation.

Before concluding this chapter, it may be useful to make a few remarks as to the way in which caste laws act as regards the social condition of people who have by wealth raised themselves above the general average of their order; and I shall at the same time notice a few instances that have fallen within my observation as to the way in which caste laws of the most stringent nature are occasionally set aside by universal consent.

The old idea we entertained of caste was that, to use the words of Tennent, "each cla.s.s is stationed between certain walls of separation, which are impa.s.sable by the purest virtue or the most conspicuous merit;"

or that, to come to more recent times, and to use the words of the late Mr. Wilson, in his speech before leaving for India, "in India you see people tied down by caste, and, whatever their talents or exertions may be, they cannot rise." Now the history of many families that have risen to eminence entirely belies this a.s.sertion, and the evidences are so numerous that I need not weary the reader by quoting them. But one instance I may perhaps mention, as the circ.u.mstances seem to me somewhat extraordinary, and a reference to them here may induce some one to make more particular inquiries in the locality alluded to. Buchanan notices that "in Bhagulpore there were certain families who, from having adopted a pure life, had within the memory of man risen from the lowest dregs of the people to the highest ranks of the n.o.bility." In this instance, however, I cannot help suspecting that the families must have risen on something more substantial than their pure habits. But in matters of this sort we are very much in want (as indeed we are on almost every Indian subject) of more detailed and particularly substantiated evidence. As regards the subject of low castes raising themselves in the social scale, I know of no instances that have fallen within my own observation, but I have obtained information from other parts of Mysore, the truth of which I have no reason to doubt, although I would advise the reader to receive what I have to say on this point with the same caution that he should receive all information which is even in the smallest degree removed from the experience of personal observation. With this caution, I may then observe that, from information I have received, I have ample reason to believe that in the interior of Mysore there are many families of Pariahs who are as well off, in point of cattle, cash and land, as the average of the farmer caste, notwithstanding that the forefathers of these Pariahs were merely the servants of the farmer tribe. Nor is this all. Many instances, I believe, may be pointed out of members of the farmer tribe being the tenants of the once-despised Pariah. The Pariah, it is true, does not reap all the advantages from his altered circ.u.mstances that might be expected in other countries, but it is a mistake to suppose that wealth does not tell in India as it does elsewhere.[43] The well-to-do Pariah (and in the Nuggur division of Mysore I am told there are many such) receives that respect which is invariably paid to those who have much substance. He no longer stands respectfully without the veranda of a farmer of ordinary position, but takes his seat in the veranda itself, and on terms of perfect equality. But the farmer will not eat with his visitor, nor give him his daughter in marriage. This to us would be a disagreeable reflection, no doubt; but, in their present political state, I cannot see that the happiness or prosperity of the people is in any way affected by these facts, nor am I aware that any one has attempted to prove that the natural comforts of the people have been in any way lessened by these social separations.

Turning now to glance at the way in which caste laws are sometimes set aside, it is impossible to avoid suspecting that the instances given of caste feeling in these respects, though perhaps true in themselves, are not fair examples of what would universally occur in cases of emergency even with the most caste-observing people in India. From the instances given (and those most commonly given refer to natives preferring to die of thirst rather than take water from the hands of a person of inferior caste), people are led to believe that under no circ.u.mstances will a breach of caste take place, or be overlooked if it does take place, by members of the caste. But the ill.u.s.tration I have to give seem to point to a contrary conclusion, and if that is the case with people whom I know to be extremely strict, it seems very probable that we have adopted some very exaggerated notions as to the rigidity of caste laws. And what has contributed not a little to these delusions is, that tricky servants frequently make caste a most convenient pretence for avoiding to do this or that, or as an excuse wherever an excuse is for any purpose convenient.

But however all this may be, the reader may form his opinions from the following cases.

The first I have to give of violation of caste law is certainly the most extraordinary that I ever heard of. The act was, indeed, a remarkable and touching tribute of regard, or I may even say of affection, on the part of a native overseer of the farmer caste in Manjarabad, and was a better monument than any that could have been erected to one of the best and most unselfish men I have over met. When Mr. W----, my late manager, unhappily died on the estate, this overseer in question, understanding that it was considered by us as an honour to the deceased, volunteered to make one of the carrying party. This extraordinary determination was absolutely forbidden by the caste potail, or head man, who was present; but Rama Gouda[44] showed the same coolness and resolution that he always did in the case of a bear or a tiger, and simply saying, "Let my caste go to-day," he made one of the carrying party in spite of every remonstrance.

Hundreds of all castes were present, but so strong were their feelings of regard for Mr. W----, that no notice whatever was taken of the offence which was so publicly committed. The repugnance of all castes, except the very lowest, to touching the body of a European, is very well known to everyone who has been in India, and so fearful was the caste head man of sanctioning, even with his presence, this violation of caste law, that he immediately went home.

In the next instance I have to give, one of the Lingayet caste (vegetarians, and abstainers from intoxicating drinks) was wounded by a tiger, and there was a caste question raised, as to whether, under the circ.u.mstances, he should take wine. The occurrence came about in this way.

Some miles from my house I once wounded a tiger, somewhat late in the day, and, owing to the broken nature of the ground, and a general confusion that seemed to take possession of the people, it seemed impossible to bring the affair to a satisfactory conclusion, so I went home. The following morning I returned to take up the track of the tiger, but it was unluckily reported that the animal had quitted the jungle we had left him in, so the party (I having been posted at a point where the tiger would probably break cover, in case the report should prove false), it appears, blundered carelessly into the place where the animal had been last seen the evening before. Now, this particular spot was full of a long sort of reed that grows in swampy ground, so that the people could not see far before them, and, to make a long story short, it seems that the tiger bided his time, sprang suddenly into the party, and gave one of them a fatal bite in the loins. The moment I heard the three roars, I expected that something disagreeable must have occurred, and, on arrival at the scene of events, I found a fine young fellow of the Lingayet caste lying bathed in blood, and my people vainly endeavouring to stanch the wounds.

He was half swooning away from loss of blood, and I offered him some wine to keep up his strength. This, however, he refused to take, unless the head man of his village, who happened to be present, would consent. The head man, evidently wishing to shirk the responsibility, shook his head doubtfully; but the members of his caste all called out--"It's no matter; let him drink;" and he drank accordingly. While this was going on, I had a rough stretcher made, and, doing up his wounds as well as we could, sent him off on the way to his village. While we were attending to the wounded man, rather an amusing incident occurred. It appears that when the tiger charged, one of the party, a toddy-drawer, at once climbed up a tree, and when the party retreated, carrying off the wounded, he was afraid to come down. His absence had not been remarked, and when we were engaged in doing up the wounded man, the toddyman, who had taken heart and come down, slunk quietly out of the jungle, and startled some of the party not a little, as they thought that it was perhaps the tiger coming down on them again.

However, this toddyman reported that the tiger was still almost in the same spot where he had been lying when he made his attack: and I then proposed we should go into the jungle, and see how we liked the look of him. But the tiger had given such indications of temper that the main body of the people seemed to have no desire to see him again, and I think that only ten (and those mostly my own people) accompanied me. As I was, Europeanly speaking, single-handed, this may have seemed an imprudent course, and no doubt it was not altogether unattended with danger; but it luckily turned out that the tiger was stone dead, though he was lying in such a natural position that we had some doubts as to whether he might not be shamming, even when we got within fifteen yards of him. As we were skinning the tiger, the wounded man (who had by that time only been carried a few hundred yards) expired: so, observing that it was "written on his forehead,"[45] we took up our man and our skin, and went home.

These instances of infringement of caste rules will show the reader the way in which they are sometimes abandoned; and I could mention other minor points where I have seen them occasionally abandoned. But not only are these rules thus, on urgent occasions, summarily set aside, but within a very short distance I have observed an alteration of custom. For instance, on our side of the river which separates our county from the next, neither the farmers nor the toddy-drawers will eat of an animal that has even been touched after death by a Pariah; whereas, on the other side of the river, the Pariahs who came out shooting not only touched, but carried a couple of wild boars we had killed. And yet the people on one side of the river are exactly of the same caste as those on the other. But the fact seems to be, that many of the minor points of what is called caste law have arisen from some accident, and in the course of time have hardened into local customs.

And here, before bringing this chapter to a close, I find it impossible to refrain from again alluding to the numerous instances where caste has been made the common scapegoat of every Indian difficulty. What is the meaning of this? What is the meaning of that? Why won't the natives do this, and why won't they do that? Caste--and caste is the common refuge; and with most of our countrymen who have tried to introduce new customs or a new religion, caste has ever been a handy and convenient peg on which to hang any difficulties they may meet with, or any problem they cannot readily solve. In short, it is hard to say what difficulty has not been disposed of in this fashion. Let us glance at two instances to ill.u.s.trate my meaning.

For the first instance, I cannot select, perhaps, a better example than that afforded by the Rev. G. U. Pope, in the notes he has made when editing a second edition of the valuable work of the Abbe Dubois. And, in alluding to these footnotes, it is impossible to repress some feeling of annoyance that the valuable work of the Abbe should, in an evil hour, have fallen into the hands of a writer who has thought fit often, in a few brief and contemptuous words, summarily to dismiss and overrule those conclusions which were the result of a life spent on more intimate terms with natives than any I have ever been able to hear of. And Mr. Pope's statements are the more calculated to impose on the general reader, as he speaks of having had "more than twenty years of a somewhat intimate intercourse with the Hindoos;" the fact being that he spent the greater part (in fact, all but a few years, as far as I have been able to ascertain) as head of the Grammar School on the Nilgiri Hills, where he had no more opportunity of having any intercourse with natives than a Hindoo would have of gaining experience of the natives of England, were he to take up his residence on the Grampians, and interchange a few words occasionally with the shepherds of those mountains. But as to what caste has done. "Caste," says Mr. Pope, "has prevented the Hindoos from availing themselves of the opportunities afforded them of acquiring the sciences, arts, and civilization of nations with whom they have come in contact."

Caste, "the great petrifier," we are again told, is the real cause of the stagnation that everywhere abounds. Caste, again, "upholds immutable distinctions by arbitrary and absurd laws, which are enforced by irresponsible authority, and maintains a standard of right and wrong entirely independent of the essential principles of moral science;" and, in order that everything may be included at one blow, we are finally told, in a note appended to the remarks of the Abbe on the moral and social advantages of caste, that "caste, and its offspring custom, are among the hindrances to all good in India."

But it is still more curious to observe how men of intelligence and observation can be led, by the force of inherited opinion, into statements as to the effects of caste which are actually contradicted by their own experience. And in Mr. Raikes's interesting work, "Notes of the North-Western Provinces," we find an instance of how people will always attribute everything to this universal bugbear. Observing on the pride of high caste, "which withers whatever it touches," Mr. Raikes informs us that the Brahmins and Rajpoots of the rich province of Benares will not touch the plough owing to pride of caste. He next tells us that caste is little regarded to the north of Allahabad, where, from various causes, the demand for labour is greater. All of which, being traced to its true cause, simply amounts to this, namely, that where landed proprietors of good family are well off they naturally do not care to work, whereas in another part of the country where they are not well off, or cannot procure labourers, they do work. In the same way, the author, after telling us that infanticide has at one time or other been common all over the world, tells us that in India it is entirely caused by caste. Now, if we take caste to mean family pride solely, it certainly has influenced the matter, or at least tended to maintain the evil complained of; but I know of one instance, at least, in India where infanticide can be traced to satisfactory causes, and amongst a people who have always been observed to be remarkably free from what are called caste prejudices. The Toda tribe, on the Nilgiri Hills, are polyandrists, and, in order to keep down the number of the tribe, they naturally had recourse to female infanticide.

This they have now abandoned, and my Toda guide very soon told me the reason. He said, "Formerly we used to kill the females, because we had little more than the produce of our buffaloes to depend on; but now that more people have flocked to the hills we can let our lands and get plenty to eat." He added, also, that the Government had ordered them not to kill their children; but, unless their means had improved, it is plain that a Government order would have had little effect. But, as regards this subject of infanticide, it seems to be a thing difficult to avoid, whenever conditions arise which are favourable to its extension; nor will repressive measures alone ever place any very complete check upon it. Like every other demand, it rises and falls with the necessities of the situation, and can never be originally caused by anything in the shape of caste feelings or regulations; and amongst these necessities I, of course, include the desire to avoid shame, or the prospect of shame in the family, or starvation, as well as the fact that women are an enc.u.mbrance to some tribes. Some people, I may add, are under the impression that polyandric habits, when once established, become necessarily a cause of infanticide.

But we have no means of knowing that this was ever the case, while the Coorgs may be pointed to as a race who once were polyandrous, but who were never, that I am aware of, accused of infanticide. The explanation of this, I apprehend, is to be found in the fact that their circ.u.mstances were comfortable enough to preclude any necessity for keeping down the population.

It is time now that I should bring this chapter to a close, but, as it may be a convenience to the reader, I think it well, before doing so, to sum up those conclusions which I a.s.sume to have been established; in doing so I shall, however, merely take notice of those points which seem to me to be of paramount importance.

In the first place, then, we compared the morality of our British counties, as regards the connection of the s.e.xes and the use of alcohol, with the morality of the Indian county of Manjarabad; and having seen that, owing to caste laws, the morality of Manjarabad is superior, I think we are justified in concluding that these laws have acted more effectually than all the religious instruction that has for centuries been lavished on the people of this country; or, to put the case in shorter terms, we may a.s.sert that, as regards the branches of morality alluded to, caste has beaten Christian influences.

In the next place we took into consideration the action of our missionaries as regards caste, and having seen that they have always insisted on their converts entirely renouncing customs which can be proved to produce the most valuable results, we came to the conclusion that it has been a fortunate thing for India that its peoples have rejected our hide-bound interpretation of Christianity. We then inquired as to whether the missionaries had any right to debar from the advantages of Christianity those who, wishing to become Christians, yet desired to retain their social customs; and, having come to the conclusion that there is nothing idolatrous in these customs, we have distinctly asked those interpreters of Christianity whom we have in India to tell us by whose authority they have ventured to act in a way which, as has been shown, the Apostles never did as regards the prejudices of their Jewish converts. And generally, as regards the action of our missionaries in this matter, we have felt ourselves justified in a.s.serting that our English missions have inflicted an incalculable injury on the cause of Christianity by presenting it to the people of India as something that must necessarily tear the whole framework of their society to pieces.

We then inquired more particularly into the origin of caste, and, having seen that it never could have originated in the way our missionaries suppose it to have done, we hazarded a conjecture as to the way in which it probably did originate, and saw grounds for supposing that the distinctions of caste came naturally about, and that they were in principle calculated to effect exactly the same ends that the Jewish lawgivers had in view when they framed that Levitical law which effectually prevented the Jews from mingling socially with the races they lived amongst. We then looked at caste from a sanitary point of view, and came to the conclusion that in consequence of the carrion-eating habits of the lowest castes, and of their liability to transmit the germs of disease, the rules which prevented them from coming into contact with the higher castes, either in the way of taking the Sacrament, or in any other way, are of the greatest value. We next inquired into the effects of caste as regards social intercourse, and especially as regards the exercise of hospitality amongst people of different castes, and saw reason to think that the restrictions of caste, with, perhaps, the exception of the very lowest, formed no bar whatever to the exercise of hospitality. Glancing subsequently at the action of caste feeling in confining the sympathies of individuals more especially to the members of their own caste, we came to the conclusion that, though caste had undoubtedly the effect of contracting the feelings within a narrow circle, there was to be found a compensating advantage in the fact that the claims of caste produced, in the aggregate, a greater amount of charity, and, in short, were calculated to produce a better general result than would be arrived at in the absence of caste feelings. And as ill.u.s.trations of the advantages of this caste feeling, we pointed to the fact of there being no poor-houses in India, and especially to the Jews in England, as affording an example of the favourable effects of caste feeling. After this, we pointed to the fact that, though caste had the effect of keeping one caste or order of men above another, it had also a levelling tendency within each caste, and produced an important point of equality which no poverty can destroy. We then took into consideration some facts which seemed to show that families could raise themselves to a higher rank in society by adopting the purer habits of the cla.s.ses above them; and we also saw that the influence of wealth does, to a very great degree, elevate a man of low caste in the social scale. We next saw reason to suppose that we have hitherto been labouring under very exaggerated notions as to the stringency of caste regulations, and two instances were given to ill.u.s.trate the way in which caste laws are sometimes set summarily aside. And, finally, we pointed out, and gave some ill.u.s.trations to prove, that with most of our countrymen who have either tried to introduce new customs or in any way to alter native habits of action, caste has ever been made, and very unjustly made, the common scapegoat.

One word more. The absolute good that caste has done may be briefly summed up. It has acted as a strong moral police, and as a preserver of order and decorum in the community,[46] and it has prevented the spread of bad habits and customs, more especially that of drinking, as far as large numbers of the people are concerned.[47] On the other hand, caste is said to have hindered the progress of the people taken as a whole. But in every instance where we have really tried the introduction of any art, the removal of any public crime (as suttee and human sacrifice, for instance), the improvement of any cultivation, the introduction of education, or of new means of moving from place to place, we have either found caste to be no impediment at all, or an impediment so slight as not to be worth mentioning.

NOTE.--With the view of obtaining information I briefly allude here to two points with reference to caste and its effects--the (1) curious custom of the Marasa Wokul tribe in Mysore, and (2) the influence of caste in developing improved apt.i.tudes which afterwards descend by hereditary transmission.

As to the first, the mother of a girl is compelled to submit to the amputation of the terminal joints of the third and fourth fingers of the right hand on the occasion of the betrothal of her daughter, and in the event of a girl being motherless the mother of the bridegroom-elect must submit to the operation.

The custom is alluded to in the well-known work of the Abbe Dubois, and in the appendix the editor of the second edition confirms the account given, and quotes confirmatory evidence from Colonel Wilks' "Mysore," in which is published the legend which is reported to have given rise to the custom.

Colonel Wilks, early in this century, saw some of the women who had been operated on. The tribe in question lives in the north-east of Mysore, but after inquiry through the medium of natives in the interior of the country, I cannot now learn that the custom is continued. Perhaps, being a disagreeable one, it may have been given up. I should feel much obliged for any information as to the point in question.

As to the second point, I was informed in 1891 by Mr. Chatterton of the Engineering College at Madras, that he had many Brahmins under him in the workshops, and that, though more intelligent than other castes, they are less efficient, owing to their ancestors never having been practised in any mechanical work. The influence of caste was here most perceptible, and he could always pick out the work done by boys whose caste had been employed in that particular work, and he further informed me that boys showed poor proficiency in work out of the line of their particular caste.

FOOTNOTES:

[31] Manjarabad is a talook or county on the south-west frontier of Mysore.

[32] And that, I may observe, was a case in which a toddy-drawer, the third caste in Manjarabad, was concerned.

[33] I observe in the Administration Report for Mysore, 1867-68, that nearly all the cases in the lunatic asylum were traced either to drinking or bhang-smoking.

[34] _Vide_ Sproat's "Studies of Savage Life."

[35] It may be observed here that there are few who know so little as to the s.e.xual morality of the people around them as clergymen. It does not become them, of course, to enter into the gossip of the village, nor does anyone care to broach such subjects in the first instance; and I may mention here that a relative of my own, a clergyman in a country parish, told me that if anything went wrong in these respects he was the very last person in the world to hear one word about it.

[36] The Abbe Dubois makes the following remarks: "During the long period I lived in India, in the capacity of a missionary, I have made, with the a.s.sistance of a native missionary, in all between two and three hundred converts of both s.e.xes. Of this number two-thirds were Pariahs or beggars, and the rest were composed of Sudras, vagrants, and outcasts of several tribes, who, being without resources, turned Christians in order to form new connections, chiefly for the purpose of marriage, or with some other interested motive. Among them are also to be found some who believed themselves to be possessed with the devil, and who turned Christians after having been a.s.sured that on receiving baptism the unclean spirits would leave them and never return; and I will declare it with shame and confusion that I do not remember any one who may be said to have embraced Christianity from conviction and from quite disinterested motives. Among these newcomers many apostatized and relapsed into paganism, finding that the Christian religion did not afford them the temporal advantages they had looked for in embracing it; and I am very much ashamed that the resolution I have taken to tell the whole truth on this subject forces me to make the humiliating avowal that those who continued Christians are the very worst among my flock."--DR. ALLEN'S _India_, p. 522.

[37] I may mention here that Sir Bartle Frere, in his paper on "Indian Public Works," said, with reference to opening up districts. .h.i.therto unpierced by roads, "And here let me observe, in pa.s.sing, without any disparagement of my own countrymen, that I have generally found the agricultural and commercial cla.s.ses of India quite as intelligent on points of this kind as the agricultural and commercial cla.s.ses of our own old-fashioned country." But I have always found that the people who have had the best opportunities of judging have formed very favourable opinions as to the intelligence of the agricultural cla.s.ses, who are generally painted as being entirely indifferent, and even hostile, to the best schemes undertaken for their benefit.

[38] In this Circular of Bishop Wilson's, it is surprising to observe the contradictions that exist. At one part of the Circular we are told that the apostle's language is conclusive: and "Seeing ye have put off the old man, and have put on the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of Him that created him, where there is neither Greek nor Jew, circ.u.mcision nor uncirc.u.mcision, barbarian, Scythian, bond nor free, but Christ is all, and in all," is quoted as evidence of the Divine wishes.

"So overwhelming," continues the bishop, "is the flood by which all petty distinctions of nation, caste, privilege, rank, climate, position in civilization are effaced, and one grand distinction subst.i.tuted." And yet, at another part of the Circular, we are told that the distinctions in civil society are acknowledged by the Gospel, when they are "the natural result of difference of talents, industry, piety, station, and success."

Another decision of the apostle is quoted in the same Circular, and it is this--"There is neither Jew or Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female, for we are all one in Christ Jesus;" and so, of course, we are all equal in his sight. And yet this is quoted as being a decision in favour of doing away with the civil inst.i.tutions of caste, which are undoubtedly the marks of that "station" which the bishop tells us is acknowledged by the Gospel, and in no way different from the station that a member of the House of Lords inherits from his predecessors. And here, though I do not think that it is advisable to cling to isolated texts as evidence of the general conduct of the apostles regarding the prejudices of their converts, I may mention that Peter, in his first Epistle, says, "Submit yourself to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake." And if we take Dean Alford's interpretation of this, and consider it as equivalent to a command, extending to every human inst.i.tution (and I can see no reason why we should not), it is plain that our missionaries in India, if they wish to follow the examples of the apostles, should yield to the prejudices of caste as long as they do not involve idolatrous rites. But it is in the general action of the apostles, as ill.u.s.trated in Acts xv. 19, that the safest guide may, I apprehend, be found; and when, with reference to difficulties as regarding the customs of their converts, St. James said (Dean Alford's edition), "Wherefore my sentence is, that we trouble not them which from the Gentiles are turned to G.o.d; but that we write to them, that they abstain from pollutions of idols, from fornication, and from things strangled, and from blood;" and again: "For it seemed good to the Holy Ghost, and to us, to lay upon you no greater burden than [these] necessary things; that ye abstain from meats offered unto idols, and from blood, and from things strangled, and from fornication; from which, if ye keep yourselves, ye shall do well;"--when the apostle said thus, I think we ought to feel little doubt as to the course we ought to pursue regarding the social customs of the peoples of India.

[39] "The name 'Laws of Manu,' somewhat resembles a pious fraud, for the 'laws' are merely the laws or customs of a school or a.s.sociation of Hindoos, called the Manavas, who lived in the country rendered holy by the divine river Saraswati. In this district the Hindoos first felt themselves a settled people, and in this neighbourhood they established colleges and hermitages, or asramas, from some of which we may suppose Brahmanas, Upanishads, and other religious compositions may have issued; and under such influences we may imagine the Code of Manu to have been composed.

"The Manavas were undoubtedly an active, energetic people, who governed themselves, paid taxes to the kins, established internal and external trade, and drew up an extensive system of laws and customs, to which they appended real and imaginary awards. This system appears to have worked so well, that it was adopted by other communities, and then the organizers announced it as laws given to them by their divine progenitor, the great Mana. They added pa.s.sages, moreover, which a.s.sert the divine claims of Brahmans and the inferiority of the rest of mankind. Such a.s.sertions are little more than rhetorical flourishes, for Brahmans never were either so omnipotent or so unamiable as the Code would represent them; nor were the Sudras ever so degraded. In Sanskrit plays and poems, weak and indigent Brahmans are by no means unfrequent; and, on the other hand, we meet with Sudras who had political rights, and even in the Code find the pedigrees of great men traced up to Sudra ancestors."--MRS. MANNING'S _Ancient and Mediaeval India_, v. i., p. 276.

[40] As an instance that a man can abandon all religious rites whatever, and retain his caste unimpaired and unaltered, I may mention that my native clerk told me that he had done nothing in the way of religion at all for years; but that, of course, made no difference to him in the eyes of his neighbours, who didn't care what he did, as long as he did not depart from the social customs of his caste. I once said to a native shopkeeper in Bangalore, "What religion are you of?" "Oh!" he answered with a smile, "no religion at all, sir." But I need not trouble the reader with further evidence to show that a man may drop his religion altogether without dropping his caste, and that therefore religion and caste have no necessary connection with one another whatever.

[41] "Caste, though distinctly denounced by their sacred hooks, and ostensibly disavowed by the Singhalese themselves, still exists in their veneration for rank, whether hereditary or advent.i.tious. Thus every district and every village has its little leader, a preeminence accorded to birth rather than property; and, by a descending scale, certain members of the community, in right of relationship or connection, a.s.sume an undefined superiority, and are tacitly admitted to the exercise of what is technically called an 'influence.' In the hamlets, so universal is this feeling amongst the natives, so habitual the impulse to cla.s.sify themselves and to look up to some one as their superior in the scale of society, that the custom descends through every gradation of life and its occupations, and in some of the villages the missionaries found it necessary to appoint two schoolmasters, even where there was less than occupation for one--'influence,' as well as ability to teach, being an essential qualification; and if the individual did not possess the former, it was most indispensable to a.s.sociate with him some other who did.[A]

Again, if a village could not furnish a master competent to teach, it was in vain to procure one from a distance; his 'influence' did not extend to that locality, and no pupils could he got to attend. Nor was caste itself without the open avowal of its force, the children of a Vellala or high-caste family being on no account permitted to enter the school-house of a lower-caste master. These are obstacles which prevail in all their original force even at the present day; and in the purely Singhalese districts, such as Matura, the prestige of caste is so despotic, that no amount of qualification in all other particulars can overcome the repugnance to intercourse with those who are deficient in the paramount requisite of rank."--SIR J. E. TENNENT's _Christianity in Ceylon_, p. 286.

[A] MS. account of Baptist Mission.

[42] In the large towns this remark might not, perhaps, be justifiable.