Castes in India quotes

Many of us, I dare say, have witnessed local, national, or international expositions of material objects that make up the sum total of human civilization. But few can entertain the idea of there being such a thing as an exposition of human institutions.

Exhibition of human institutions is a strange idea; some might call it the wildest of ideas.

But as students of Ethnology I hope you will not be hard on this innovation, for it is not so, and to you at least it should not be strange.

But amalgamation can never be the sole criterion of homogeneity as predicated of any people. Ethnically all peoples are heterogeneous.

It is the unity of culture that is the basis of homogeneity.

Taking this for granted, I venture to say that there is no country that can rival the Indian Peninsula with respect to the unity of its culture.

From time immemorial man as compared with woman has had the upper hand. He is a dominant figure in every group and of the two sexes has greater prestige. With this traditional superiority of man over woman his wishes have always been consulted.

Woman, on the other hand, has been an easy prey to all kinds of iniquitous injunctions, religious, social or economic. But man as a maker of injunctions is most often above them all.

Such being the case, you cannot accord the same kind of treatment to a surplus man as you can to a surplus woman in a Caste.

This is especially true where there exist no authentic or written records, or where the people, like the Hindus, are so constituted that to them writing history is a folly, for the world is an illusion.

But institutions do live, though for a long time they may remain unrecorded and as often as not customs and morals are like fossils that tell their own history.

If this is true, our task will be amply rewarded if we scrutinize the solution the Hindus arrived at to meet the problems of the surplus man and surplus woman.

and O Maheshvara,” she adds with a most touching human cry, “I desire not paradise itself if thou art not satisfied with me!”

Why compulsory widowhood is honoured I know not, nor have I yet met with any one who sang in praise of it, though there are a great many who adhere to it.

The eulogy in honour of girl marriage is reported by Dr. Ketkar to be as follows: “A really faithful man or woman ought not to feel affection for a woman or a man other than the one with whom he or she is united.

But this should not blind us from understanding the results that flow from them. One might safely say that idealization of means is necessary and in this particular case was perhaps motivated to endow them with greater efficacy.

Calling a means an end does no harm, except that it disguises its real character; but it does not deprive it of its real nature, that of a means.

You may pass a law that all cats are dogs, just as you can call a means an end. But you can no more change the nature of means thereby than you can turn cats into dogs;

Calling a means an end does no harm, except that it disguises its real character; but it does not deprive it of its real nature, that of a means.

You may pass a law that all cats are dogs, just as you can call a means an end.

But you can no more change the nature of means thereby than you can turn cats into dogs;

My own interpretation is that they were honoured because they were practised. Any one slightly acquainted with rise of individualism in the 18th century will appreciate my remark.

At all times, it is the movement that is most important; and the philosophies grow around it long afterwards to justify it and give it a moral support.

In like manner I urge that the very fact that these customs were so highly eulogized proves that they needed eulogy for their prevalence.

Having explained the mechanism of the creation and preservation of Caste in India, the further question as to its genesis naturally arises.

The question of origin is always an annoying question and in the study of Caste it is sadly neglected: some have connived at it, while others have dodged it.

Some are puzzled as to whether there could be such a thing as the origin of caste and suggest that “if we cannot control our fondness for the word ‘origin’, we should better use the plural form, viz., ‘origins of caste’.”

As for myself I do not feel puzzled by the Origin of Caste in India, for, as I have established before, endogamy is the only characteristic of Caste and when I say origin of caste I mean the origin of the mechanism for endogamy.

The atomistic conception of individuals in a Society so greatly popularised—I was about to say vulgarized—in political orations is the greatest humbug.

To say that individuals make up society is trivial; society is always composed of classes. It may be an exaggeration to assert the theory of class-conflict, but the existence of definite classes in a society is a fact. Their basis may differ.

The atomistic conception of individuals in a Society so greatly popularised—I was about to say vulgarized—in political orations is the greatest humbug.

To say that individuals make up society is trivial; society is always composed of classes.

It may be an exaggeration to assert the theory of class-conflict, but the existence of definite classes in a society is a fact. Their basis may differ.

… of caste would be very much facilitated, for we have only to determine what was the class that first made itself into a caste, for class and caste, so to say, are next door neighbours, and it is only a span that separates the two.

A caste is an enclosed class.

The study of the origin of caste must furnish us with an answer to the question—what is the class that raised this “enclosure” around itself?

Unless he was a tyrant who held all the population in subjection it cannot be imagined that he could have been allowed to dispense his patronage in this grossly unjust manner, as may be easily seen by a mere glance at his “Institutes.”

I may seem hard on Manu, but I am sure my force is not strong enough to kill his ghost. He lives, like a disembodied spirit and is appealed to, and I am afraid will yet live long.

One thing I want to impress upon you is that Manu did not give the law of Caste and that he could not do so. Caste existed long before Manu.

I have urged so much on the adverse side of this attitude, not because the religious sanctity is grounded on scientific basis, nor to help those reformers who are preaching against it.

Preaching did not make the caste system, neither will it unmake it.

My aim is to show the falsity of the attitude that has exalted religious sanction to the position of a scientific explanation.

The question is, were they compelled to close their doors and become endogamous, or did they close them of their own accord? I submit that there is a double line of answer:

Some closed the door: others found it closed against them.

The one is a psychological interpretation and the other is mechanistic, but they are complementary and both are necessary to explain the phenomena of caste formation in its entirety.

and if he lives in an endogamous enclosure, should not the rest follow his example? Frail humanity! Be it embodied in a grave philosopher or a frivolous housemaid, it succumbs. It cannot be otherwise.

Imitation is easy and invention is difficult.

Yet another way of demonstrating the play of imitation in the formation of castes is to understand the attitude of non-Brahman classes towards those customs which supported the structure of caste in its nascent days until, in the course of history, it became embedded in …

I will proceed to offer my own explanation by making one remark which I will urge you to bear constantly in mind. It is this: that caste in the singular number is an unreality. Castes exist only in the plural number.

There is no such thing as a caste: there are always castes.

To illustrate my meaning: while making themselves into a caste, the Brahmans, by virtue of this, created a non-Brahman caste; or, to express it in my own way, while closing themselves in they closed others out. I will clear my point by taking another illustration.

Caste rules are inexorable and they do not wait to make nice distinctions between kinds of offence. Innovation may be of any kind, but all kinds will suffer the same penalty.

A novel way of thinking will create a new Caste for the old ones will not tolerate it.

The noxious thinker respectfully called Guru (Prophet) suffers the same fate as the sinners in illegitimate love. The former creates a caste of the nature of a religious sect and the latter a type of mixed caste.

The noxious thinker respectfully called Guru (Prophet) suffers the same fate as the sinners in illegitimate love. The former creates a caste of the nature of a religious sect and the latter a type of mixed caste.

Castes have no mercy for a sinner who has the courage to violate the code.

The penalty is excommunication and the result is a new caste. It is not peculiar Hindu psychology that induces the excommunicated to form themselves into a caste: far from it.

[pg 95]

Sentiment must be outlawed from the domain of science and things should be judged from an objective standpoint.

For myself I shall find as much pleasure in a positive destruction of my own ideology, as in a rational disagreement on a topic, which, notwithstanding many learned disquisitions is likely to remain controversial for ever.