Sikh, nor a member of the Untouchable Classes, nor any self-respecting Hindu like the non-Brahman of South India, can visualise without horror the prospect of a Caste-Hindu majority coming into political power again in India.. It is a calamity they would stake their all to prevent.
What is the cause of this Universal opposition to Hindu Rule? If I say that Brahmanism or Caste Rule is at the root of all disunion and discord in India, you may not understand it. Even if you could under-stand, you would not readily believe it. I must explain! the point in the light of a parallel history which you can more easily appveciate, what has happened in.. Japan and may again happen if the incredible blunders of British Rule in India are re-enacted by the Allies in that country. The ignoble attempt of Japan, at World’ -.Domination and her more ignoble downfall are the-necessary outcome of the pursuit of a rotten mediaeval culture hidden under a cloak of superficial modernism.. ‘Fortunately it seems that the Allies have recognised that the only way to prevent Japan rising again as a threat to world peace is to obliterate that barbarous culture and convert her people to the modern way of thinking and living:
(a) The pivot of Japanese national life was the-Divine Emperor to whom all were bound in unquestioning submission and obedience. He was the mysterious: source of all law and power, responsible to no one on earth.
(b) Under the shadow of the Spiritual Authority of the Emperor grew up a Military hegemony which exercised autocratic powers over every aspect of the life
of the people.
(c) A small exclusive group of rich families controlled the economic life of the country. It and the Military hegemony formed the left and right hand respectively
of the immaculate Emperor.
(d) ‘ The Japanese people were bond-slaves to this -three-headed Divine Government. Individual freedom political, social, intellectual and spiritual—was crushed under the paralysing weight of a cleverly veiled Theocratic-
(e) The women were denied all freedom and opportunity to share the national life.
(1) Having enslaved the people morally and financially and tied them as dumb cattle to the wheels of imperialistic ambitions, it was easy for the Divine Government of Japan to embark on the civilizing mission of -world domination and lead the people to ultimate foreign subjection.
The Allies have succeeded for the present in averting the calamity of a Japanese victory. But suppose they preserve intact the Divine Character of the Emperor, the autocratic power of the Military and Financial cliques and continue to feed the Japanese people on the old ideology of their race-superiority, the superiority of ‘their Emperor to the heads of other nations, their divine mission of world domination, state Shintoism, Harakiri and subjection of women, their present victory shall have proved infructuous in another generation. As soon .as the restraints of foreign domination are removed Japan will rearm herself for revenge.
The Indian problem is in all essentials the same as the Japanese but a hundredfold magnified.
Indian Hirohitos.—Instead of one Hirohito who claims divine authority and superiority to all other human ‘beings, there are in India many millions of Brahman Hirohitos who claim similar authority and superiority and have played with the destiny of the nation for many centuries as atrociously as the Japanese Emperor and brought about the same inevitable retribution–abject subjection. In every village in India there is the divine Brahman with his citadel, the Temple, from where he spreads over the whole nation the’ death-dealing tentacles of caste, priestcraft superstitions and restrictions on the elementary human rights of all in the country. He proclaims the caste-laws renewed and revised as it suits his interests and keeps the entire population perpetually divided, their self-respect crushed, sense of freedom destroyed, and trained hereditarily in body and mind to bear the yoke of humiliation and bondage in the name. of ancestral Dharma, unique spiritual culture, Intrinsic superiority of the Hindu Race and Hindu way of life to, every other culture and civilization in the world.
India’s Military Lords. Under the spiritual authority of the Brahmans we have the many hundreds of Kshatriya Rajas or Indian Princes who constitute the sanction behind Brahmanical Theocracy. Brahman prestige and supremacy are faithfully preserved, caste-laws are mercilessly enforced, the wholes State or a considerable portion of its revenue is dedicated to. the Brahman or his temple and the people are kept in superstitious awe and submission to ancient ideologies by the Hindu Rajas whose self-preservation demands the preservation of Brahmanism.
India’s Financial Magnates.—The Vaishyas or Banias: were intended to be the financial backbone of Brahman-ism and even to-day we find that Hindu capitalists throughout India are led by the nose by their Brahmanl Gurus, Purohits, Priests and Brahman sycophant-seem taries. They are hand-and-glove with Brahmanism in every enterprise whether it is religion, commerce or politics. They place their resources at the disposal of’ every movement interested in preserving the castes, maintaining the Temples, Idols and their Priests, and in restoring Hindu Raj of the days of mythological Rama. In no other country is capitalism so abjectly wedded to all reactionary elements of the national life as in India,. It is lavish in the cause of Idols, Temples, Sadhus, Mahatmas, Pilgrimages, Festivals, Sacrifices, Ancient, Scriptures, Caste and other paraphernalia of Brahmanism, for which many crores of rupees are annually spent, but most miserly in regard to education, medical relief, uplift of the down-trodden, water-supply, improvement of roads, scientific research, village reconstruction] and other crying needs of the nation.
Morally Enslaved People. As in Japan, so in India, these three forces have successfully enslaved the entire Hindu population, and after nearly two centuries of British Rule they remain unredeemed from their slavery to Brahmanism. All the Hindus, except the few Brahman Hirohitos, are by their inherited mental constitution happy to live in subjection and inferiority, which have become natural to them. True sense of freedom, true self-respect, true spirit of human equality and citizen-:ship, true sense of justice between an and man, all these are concepts which hang like ceremonial robes but do not touch the hearts of the caste-minded Hindus. Sometimes the latter do not hesitate to stigmatise -them as the gaudy labels of an alien civilization.
No Sense of Freedom—Human beings are not born in Hindu Society only Caste Creatures take birth in the land of the Hindus. Every Hindu is a Caste Creature as naturally and. unalterably as a dog is dog or a pig is – pig. To talk of human freedom as the birthright is a lie in such a society. Born un free, the Hindus live all their life in the bondage of caste. They tolerate with pride, – the deprivation of the most elementary human rights¬- the right to study the scriptures, right to use public hotels, tanks, wells, right to marry, right to choose a profession, etc. Caste denies the Hindu freedom in all these respects.
No True Self-Respect.—Self-Respect is impossible except for the Brahman, at whose feet even the Ruling-Princes prostrate themselves and whose blessing every Hindu craves for success in this world and salvation in the next. Moral, nay, spiritual humiliation is the birth—right of every non-Brahman, and the Hindu Rajas rival their shameful submission to the exploiting priest and .his idol.
Fellow-Feeling and Common Citizenship Impossible.—Divided into thousands of hereditary water-tight castes – and sub-castes, without the freedom to associate in the common affairs of daily life, the Caste-Hindus are doomed to eternal disunion, discord, and mutual distrust. They
have no philosophy of unification or amalgamation. Their fundamental concept of social organization is division into heireditary castes, expulsion of all recalcitrant persons from the Hindu fold and insulting refusal to admit any non-Hindu to the fellowship of Hindu religion and society. The caste-laws not only make the Hindu castes mutually untouchable in many respects but they make the non-Hindus, Muslims, Christians and others, damned untouchables in the sacred land of the Hindus. The Caste Order is thus a standing insult to all humanity, the most grievous moral and social wrong inflicted on mankind.
Justice and Civic Responsibility.—A, caste-minded Hindu can never be truly just to a person of another caste when the dispute is between a member of his own caste and one of another caste. The Brahmans who claim divinely ordained superiority and. look upon all other human beings as inferior, form the most exclusive and most arrogant nation in the world and can never be _just to a member of another caste. If they can use their discretion they are certain to use it adversely to the others. There is a proverb in an Indian language which :says that when a Brahman and a non-Brahman were -caught in a flood and were being drowned side by side,
the former in his dying moments asked the latter not – to drink the same clear water that a Brahman drank but to stir it a little and drink the tidy water instead. Net entire system of law and administration based on the recognition of the castes and the authority of the ancient “‘books, with their cruel discrimination between man and -man in every walk of life, is the ingenious creation of man-hating Brahman lawyers, judges, Pandits, philosophers, historians, journalists and others who exploited the presence of alien rulers whether they were Arab,. Moghul, Afghan or British, and co-operated with them in enslaving their countrymen to humiliating injustices. and discriminations for the purpose of preserving their own hereditary superiority. Even to-day they are making: use of the Indian Legislatures to impose caste-fetters on the Hindu masses and prevent their unification. To the non-Brahman, Brahman rule is more humiliating and soul-crushing than British Rule.
In the case of the Untouchable Classes there is no question of a choice between the Brahmans and the non-Brahmans. They hate and distrust all Hindus. They have no hope of ever recovering their human dignity so. long as they are Hindus and subjected to Hindu Rule. Even the so-called greatest man of the world, Mahatma _ Gandhi, has not succeeded in persuading the Hindus to perform so harmless and simple an act of decency as the throwing open of the temples to all Hindus for worship—a right which can be easily enforced by any policeman. if the Government makes up its mind to do. it. So the Untouchable Classes can never expect the Hindus to do justice to them.
Hindu-Muslim Fellowship.—In the face of these and similar facts how can we dream of any mutual confidence between the Hindus and the Muslims? They are bound to remain irreconcilable enemies so long as insulting caste exclusiveness is the badge worn by the Hindus. British Rule has awakened the self-respect and political _ consciousness of the otherwise backward Muslim masses -and they require no other justification for opposing with their lives any attempt at establishing Hindu majority Rule. Hindus and Muslims are divided more markedly and irrevocably than any other two nations of the world. Muslims can at best offer to the Hindus such co-operation-and fellowship as the Christians or Buddhists can offer. But Hindus can offer only untouchability to the Muslims in. eating, drinking and marrying, in the temple, in the, street, in the hotel or wherever the two come into personal contact.
Failure of British Rule.—So, Sir, you will be mocking human intelligence if you talk of freedom and democracy among a caste-minded people: The allies are crushing Nazism in Germany, and Shintoisrn and all allied institutions in Japan as a prelude to educating the peoples for freedom and co-operation with the other nations of the world. In India, Britain has been trying in a way to inculcate ideas of democracy and justice and establish some -parliamentary institutions, but has all along kept intact Brahmanism, caste and their allied institutions which .have always been the graveyard of all liberal movements from the time of the Buddha to the present age. Whether Britain did this as a matter of policy or not, the fact cannot be disputed that the enforced peace which India has been enjoying under British Rule has prevented her liberation from theocratic tyranny, caste slavery, despotic rule of the Rajas and capitalistic exploitation resulting in groveling poverty, all of which have received added status and strength under British protection.
Your Duty.—If you want to flee from India in disgrace, admitting your failure to win over her people to the ways of modern civilization, and leave her to ire-arm herself to become another, but a hundredfold more powerful Japan in the future world, you have only to discuss with the Brahman or caste-minded leaders of the Congress and establish a free India at once. But if you are really interested in emancipating the people of India and helping them to take their rightful place as comrades with the common people of the rest of the world, I should like to make the following suggestions for your earnest consideration:
(a) Ask every Hindu leader you meet if he is pre-pared to extend to all Hindus in matters like eating, drinking, worshipping, marrying, etc., the same freedom and equality that Christians, Muslims and Buddhists give to their co-religionists.
(b) Ask him if he is prepared to abolish all State-recognition of caste for any purpose whatsoever.
(c). Ask him if he is willing to penalise and punish, as an offence the public profession, or practice or attributing of caste.
(d) Ask him if he would insist that every candidate for the State service should solemnly disown caste.
(e) Ask him if he would give to the non-Hindus,. Muslims, Christians and others the same freedom and status as citizens as the followers of different religions: enjoy in the free countries of the world in matters like-eating, drinking, marrying, inheriting, adopting or giving: up a religion, and use of temples, tanks,. hotels, etc.
(f) Ask him if he would give women economic rights and freedom.
(g) Ask him if he would make special provision for -the education, housing, removal of the disabilities of and’ raising to the level of the other communities, the untouchable classes who have been forcibly kept in degradation for many centuries.
(h) Ask him if he would agree to International Control of the Military for at least 25 years or until the -United Nations are satisfied that the Hindus, Muslims and’ other peoples of India will live in peace.
(j) Ask him if he would agree to the abolition of the absolute rule of the hundreds of Indian Rajas and States and establishment of full responsible government with ultimate power in the people to choose their own, form of government.
(j) Ask him if he would completely secularise the State and all State activities so that hereafter political’ power shall not be used for propping up religion nor religion be permitted to interfere with the civic life, the people.
(Most of these questions may be put to Muslim leaders also).
If the answers to these questions are satisfactory let India have freedom on these conditions. If the answers are unsatisfactory, have the courage to tell the world and India in unequivocal terms that Indians are not yet fit for freedom. Britain has so far ignominiously failed to take steps for abolishing Brahmanism and caste, but has polished and strengthened their shackles unwittingly. Either she must undertake to finish the job of liberating the people’ from these influences in a specified period or hand over the Government to International Trustees at once.
I am prepared to substantiate the allegations herein if called upon to do so and to help you in every way to understand the true situation in India.
February, 1946.
Yours in Service,
SWAMI DHARMA THEERTHA
