THE OLD ORDER: CASTE AND COMMUNISM.
There is certainly a most remarkable movement taking place in India
to-day, towards modern commercialism and Western education and ideas,
and away from the old caste and communal system of the past--a movement
which while it is in some ways the reverse of our Western socialist
movement answers curiously to it in the rapidity and intensity of its
development and in the enthusiasm which it inspires. The movement is of
course at present confined to the towns, and even in these to sections
and coteries--the 90 per cent. agricultural population being as yet
practically unaffected by it--but here again it is the old story of the
bulk of the population being stirred and set in motion by the energetic
few, or at any rate following at some distance on their lead; and we
may yet expect to see this take place in the present case.
Knowing as we do at home the evils which attend our commercial and
competitive order of society it is difficult to understand the interest
which it arouses in India, until we realise the decay and degradation
into which caste and the ancient communism have fallen. On these latter
institutions commercialism is destined to act as a solvent, and though
it is not likely that it will obliterate them--considering how deeply
they are rooted in the genius of the Indian people, and considering
how utterly dissimilar that genius is to the genius of the West--still
it may fairly be hoped that it will clean away a great deal of rubbish
that has accumulated round them, and free them to be of some use again
in the future, when the present movement will probably have had its
fling and passed away. On all sides in India one meets with little
points and details which remind one of the Feudal system in our own
lands; and as this passed in its due time into the commercial system
so will it be in India--only there is a good deal to indicate that the
disease, or whatever it is, will not be taken so severely in India as
in the West, and will run its course and pass over in a shorter time.
The complexity into which the caste system has grown since the days
when society was divided into four castes only--Brahmans, Kshattriyas,
Vaisyas, and Sudras--is something most extraordinary. Race, occupation
and geographical position have all had their influence in the growth
of this phenomenon. When one hears that the Brahmans alone are
divided into 1,886 separate classes or tribes, one begins to realise
what a complicated affair it is. “The Brahmans,” says Hunter in his
_Indian Empire_, “so far from being a compact unit are made up of
several hundred castes who cannot intermarry nor eat food cooked
by each other.” Of course locality has a good deal to do with this
sub-division; and it is said that a Brahman of the North-West is the
most select, and can prepare food for all classes of Brahmans (it
being a rule of all high caste that one must not touch food cooked
by an inferior caste); but family and genealogical descent also no
doubt have a good deal to do with it; and as to employment, even among
the Brahmans, though manual labor is a degradation in their eyes,
plentiful individuals may be found who follow such trades as shepherds,
fishermen, porters, potters, etc. Dr. Wilson of Bombay wrote two large
volumes of his projected great work on Caste, and then died; but had
not finished his first subject, the Brahmans!
In the present day the Brahmans are I believe pretty equally
distributed all over India, forming their own castes among the other
races and castes, but of course not intermarrying with them, doing as
a rule little or no manual work, but clustering in thousands round
temples and holy places, full of greed and ever on the look-out for
money. Though ignorant mostly, still they have good opportunities in
their colleges for learning, and some are very learned. They alone
can perform the temple services and priestly acts generally; and
oftentimes they do not disguise their contempt for the inferior castes,
withdrawing their skirts pharisaically as they pass, or compelling an
old and infirm person to descend into the muddy road while they occupy
the narrow vantage of the footway.
This pharisaism of caste marks not only the Brahmans, but other
sections; a thousand vexatious rules and regulations hedge in the
life of every “twice-born” man; and the first glance at the streets
of an Indian town makes one conscious of something antagonistic to
_humanity_, in the broad sense by which it affords a common ground to
the meeting of any two individuals. There are difficulties in the way
of mere human converse. Not only do people not eat together (except
they belong to the same section); but they don’t _touch_ each other
very freely; don’t shake hands, obviously; even the terms of greeting
are scanty. A sort of chill strikes one: a _noli-me-tangere_ sentiment,
which drives one (as usual) to find some of the most grateful company
among the outcast. Yet the people are disposed to be friendly, and in
fact are sensitive and clinging by nature; but this is the form of
society into which they have grown.
The defence of the system from the native religious point of view is
that Caste defines a man’s position and duties at once, limits him to
a certain area of life, with its temptations and possibilities and
responsibilities--(caste for instance puts a check on traveling; to go
to sea is to break all bounds)--and saves him therefore from unbridled
license and the insane scramble of the West; restricts his outward
world and so develops the inward; narrows his life and so causes it
to reach higher--as trees thickly planted spire upward to the sky.
Caste, it is said, holds society in a definite form, without which
vague turmoil would for ever ensue, distracting men to worldly cares
and projects and rendering them incapable of the higher life. When
however this last is developed within an individual, then--for him--the
sanction of caste ceases, and he acknowledges it no more. As to the
criticism--so obvious from the Western point of view--of the unfairness
that a man should be confined all his life to that class or stratum in
which he is born, to the Indian religioner this is nothing; since he
believes that each man _is_ born in those surroundings of life which
belong to his stage of progress, and must get the experience which
belongs to that stage before moving farther.
However this may be, the rigidity of caste as it yet exists gives a
strange shock to one’s democratic notions. “Once a _dhobi_ always
a _dhobi_,” says the proverb. The washerman (dhobi) is one of the
poorest and most despised of men; the word is in fact a common term
of reproach; but once a washerman, a washerman (save in the rarest
cases) you will remain. And once a pariah always a pariah--a thing
that no caste man will touch. Yet--and here comes in the extraordinary
transcendental democracy (if one may call it so) of the Hindu
religion--Brahm himself, the unnameable God, is sometimes called
the _dhobi_, and some of the greatest religious teachers, including
Tiruvalluvar, the author of the Kurral, have been drawn from the ranks
of the Pariahs.
The English themselves in India hardly realise how strong are the
caste feelings and habits among all but the few natives who have
fairly broken with the system. At a levee some few years back a
Lieut.-Governor, to show his cordial feeling towards a native Rajah,
put his hand on the prince’s shoulder, while speaking to him; but the
latter, as soon as he could decently disengage himself, hurried home
and took a bath, to purify himself from the touch! Nor to this day can
the mass of the people of India get over the disgust and disapprobation
they felt towards the English when they found that they insisted on
eating _beef_--a thing that only the very lowest classes will touch;
indeed this habit has not only done a good deal to alienate the
sympathies of the people, but it is one of the chief reasons why the
English find it so hard or next to impossible to get servants of good
caste.
An acquaintance of mine in Ceylon who belongs to the Vellála caste told
me that on one occasion he paid a visit to a friend of his in India who
belonged to the same caste but a different section of it. They had a
Brahman cook, who prepared the food for both of them, but who being of
a higher caste could not eat _after_ them; while _they_ could not eat
together because they did not belong to the same section. The Brahman
cook therefore ate _his_ dinner first, and then served up the remainder
separately to the two friends, who sat at different tables with a
curtain hanging between them!
I myself knew of a case in which an elderly native gentleman was quite
put to it, and had to engage an extra servant, because, though he had
a man already who could cook and draw water for him to drink, this man
was not of the right caste to fill his bath! Can one wonder, when caste
regulations have fallen into such pettiness, that the more advanced
spirits hail with acclaim any new movement which promises deliverance
from the bondage?
Another curious element in the corruption of caste is the growth of the
tyranny of respectability. Among certain sections--mainly I imagine the
merchant and trading castes--some of the members becoming rich form
themselves into little coteries which take to themselves the government
of the caste, and while not altogether denying their communal
fellowship with, do not also altogether conceal their contempt for,
the poorer members, and the divergence of their own interests and
standards from those of the masses. Of course with this high-flying
respectability goes very often (as with us) a pharisaical observance of
religious ordinances, and a good deal of so-called philanthropy.
I have before me a little book called “The Story of a Widow
Re-marriage,” written by a member of the Bunya caste, and printed (for
private circulation) at Bombay in 1890. The author of this book some
years ago married--in defiance of all the proprieties of high-caste
Hinduism--a lady who was already a widow; and he tells the story of
this simple act and the consequent caste-persecution which he had to
endure in a style so genuine and at once naïve and shrewd that the
book is really most interesting. The poor girl whom he married had
lost her husband some years before: he in fact was a mere boy and she
a child at the time of his death. Now she was an “unlucky woman,” a
widow--one of those destined to spend all her life under a ban, to
wear black, to keep away from any festivity lest she should mar it by
her presence. “What happiness in the world have I,” said she, when the
author at their first meeting condoled with her on her fate; “nothing
but death can relieve me of all my woes. I have abjured food for the
last twelve months; I live only on a pice-worth of curd from day to
day. I starve myself, in order that any how my end may come as soon
as possible. I have often thought,” she continued, “of committing
suicide by drowning myself in the sea or in the neighboring tank of
Walkeshwar, or by taking opium. But there are many considerations which
hold me back. According to our Brahmans the Shastras say that those who
commit suicide are doomed to die a similar death seven times over in
their future existence. Moreover I myself believe that taking one’s own
life is as sinful as taking the life of any other person. This gives
me pause, and I do not do what I would do. I have however forsaken all
food, in order that the happy deliverance may come to me in a short
time. I have nothing in this life to live for. If I had a child of my
own, I would have had some cause for hope.”
Moved by the sufferings of the unhappy Dhunkore, as well as by her
youth and beauty, Madhowdas fell genuinely in love with her; and she,
in return, with him; and ere long they determined--notwithstanding
the relentless persecution of the more influential members of the
caste, which they knew would follow--to get married. Madhowdas was in
business, and there was the utmost danger that he would be boycotted
and ruined. To Dhunkore her chief trouble was the thought of the grief
this step would occasion to her mother (with whom she lived). She might
be intimate with Madhowdas “under the rose”--that would be venial; she
might if there were any serious consequences go a “pilgrimage,” as so
many widows do, to some quiet place where a delivery would not attract
attention; but to be publicly married--that could never be forgiven.
Not only her wealthy relations, but even her mother, would never see
her again. So inexcusable would be the act, so dire its consequences.
Nevertheless the pair decided to go through with it. With the utmost
secrecy they made their preparations, knowing well that if any
rumors got abroad the arrangements would likely be interfered with
by mercenary violence; the young woman might even be kidnapped--as
had happened in a similar case before. Only sympathisers and a few
witnesses were invited to the actual ceremony, which however was safely
performed--partly owing to the presence of a European officer and a
body of police! The next morning the _Times of India_, the _Gazette_,
and other Bombay papers were out with an account of the widow
re-marriage, and the native city was convulsed with excitement--the
community being immediately divided (though very unequally) into two
hostile camps over their views of it.
The mother’s alarm at the mysterious disappearance of Dhunkore was only
partly allayed when she found among her daughter’s trinkets a little
note: “Be it known to my dear mother that not being able to bear the
cruel pangs of widowhood, I forsook all kinds of food, and ate only
a piece of curd every day. The consequence was that I became very
weak, but did not die, as I hoped.... My dear mother, it is not at all
likely that we shall meet again hereafter. You may therefore take me
for dead. But I shall be very happy if I ever hear from the lips of
any one that you are all doing well. I have not done this thing at the
instigation of any one, but have resolved upon it of my own free will;
so you will not blame anybody for it. I have taken away nothing from
your house, and you will kindly see for yourself that your property is
quite safe....” And the alarm was changed into dismay when the news
came of what had really happened. A meeting of wealthy relations and
influential members of the caste was called; everything was done to
damage the credit and ruin the business of Madhowdas; and finally he
and his wife were solemnly excommunicated!
The pair however struggled on, contending against many difficulties and
trials, and supported by a few friends, both among their own caste and
the resident English, for some years. Though crippled, their worldly
prospects were not ruined. Gradually Madhowdas established himself
and his business, drew round him a small circle of the more advanced
spirits, settled in a roomy house at Girgaon, and snapped his fingers
at his enemies. Indeed his house became a centre of propaganda on the
subject of widows’ wrongs, and an asylum for other couples situated
as he and his wife had been; meetings, of both English and native
speakers, were held there; quite a number of marriages were celebrated
there; and it appears that the house, to confirm its mission, now goes
by the name of “Widow Re-marriage Hall!”
But what I set out to note in telling this story was the curious way
in which wealth asserts itself even in the caste system of India to
form a tyranny of so-called respectability and of orthodoxy--dividing
the caste, in some cases at any rate, into distinct parties not unlike
those which exist in our society at home. “The real opponents of
widow re-marriage,” says Madhowdas in his book, “are not generally
the simple and poor members of a caste, but its Shetthias. They pose
before the public as the most enlightened members of their caste. In
their conversation with European or Parsi acquaintances they declare
themselves to be ardent advocates of social reform, and they pretend
to deplore the folly, the stupidity, and the ignorance of their
caste-fellows. But as a matter of fact it is these same Shetthias,
these leading citizens, these enlightened members of society, who
are really the bitterest and most uncompromising enemies of social
progress.... Can the reformer turn to the educated classes for help? I
am grieved to say, yet the truth must be told, that their moral fibre
is capable of a great deal of strengthening; and as to their active
faculties, they still lie perfectly dormant. They have indeed the
intelligence to perceive social evils. But their moral indignation on
the tyranny and barbarism of custom evaporates in words.... A race of
idle babblers these. They will speak brave words from the political
platform about their country’s wrongs and their countrymen’s rights.
But talk to them of something to be done, some little sacrifice to
be made, they will shrink away, each one making his own excuse for
his backsliding.... The world generally believes them; and if they
occasionally give a few thousand rupees towards some charity, their
reputation for liberality and large-mindedness is confirmed still more,
and their fame is trumpeted forth by newspapers as men of munificence
and enlightenment.”
* * * * *
It must not be thought however, because the caste-system is in many
ways corrupt and effete, that it is without its better and more
enduring features--even in the present day. Within the caste there
is a certain communal feeling, which draws or tends to draw all the
members together, as forming a corporate body for common ends and
fellowship, and giving every member a claim on the rest in cases of
distress or disability. Moreover a great many of the castes, being
founded on hereditary occupation, form trade societies, having their
own committees of management, and rules and regulations, fines,
feasts and mutual benefit arrangements, almost quite similar to our
old trade-guilds and modern unions. Thus there are the goldsmiths
(a powerful caste which in South India, says Hunter, for centuries
resisted the rule of the Brahmans, and claimed to be the religious
teachers, and wore the sacred thread), the brass-workers, the weavers,
the fishers, and scores of others--each divided into numerous
sub-sections. The caste-guild in these cases regulates wages, checks
competition, and punishes delinquents; the decisions of the guild being
enforced by fines, by causing the offender to entertain all his fellows
at a feast, and by other sanctions. The guild itself derives its
funds not only from fines, but also from entrance fees paid by those
beginning to practise the craft, and from other sources. In any case
whether trade-guild or not, the caste--while it assures its members
against starvation--exercises a continual surveillance over them, as we
have seen in the case of Madhowdas--extending to excommunication and
even expulsion. Excommunication being of three kinds: (1) from _eating_
with other members of the caste, (2) from _marriage_ with them, and
(3) from use of the local barber, washerman, and priest. Expulsion is
rare; and it is said that it seldom takes place unless the offender is
a real bad lot.
As an instance of trade-unionism in caste, Hunter mentions the case
of the bricklayers at Ahmedabad in 1873. Some of the bricklayers were
working overtime, and thus were getting a few pence a day extra, while
at the same time others of them were unemployed. The guild therefore
held a meeting, and decided to forbid the overtime--the result of which
was that employment was found for all.
When I was at Kurunégala in Ceylon, an amusing dispute took place
between the barber caste and the Brahmans of the locality. The
barbers--though a very necessary element of Hindu society, as shaving
is looked upon as a very important, almost religious, function, and is
practised in a vast variety of forms by the different sections--are
still somewhat despised as a low caste; and it appeared that the
Brahmans of the place had given offence to them by refusing to enter
the barbers’ houses in order to perform certain religious ceremonies
and purifications--the Brahmans no doubt being afraid of contaminating
themselves thereby. Thereupon the barbers held a caste meeting, and
decided to boycott the Brahmans by refusing to shave them. This was a
blow to the latter, as without being properly scraped they could not
perform their ceremonies, and to have to shave themselves would be an
unheard-of indignity. _They_ therefore held a meeting, the result of
which was that they managed to get a barber from a distant place--a
kind of blackleg--who probably belonged to some other section of the
barber community--to come over and do their scraping for them. Things
went on merrily thus for a while, and the blackleg no doubt had good
times, when--in consequence of another barbers’ meeting--he was one
day spirited away, and disappeared for good, being seen no more. The
barbers also, in defiance of the Brahmans, appointed a priest from
among their own body to do their own religious choring for them--and
the Brahmans were routed all along the line. What steps were taken
after this I do not know, as about that time I left the place.
When at Bombay I had another instance of how the caste-guild acts as a
trade-union, and to check competition among its members. I was wanting
to buy some specimens of brass-work, and walking down a street where
I knew there were a number of brass-workers’ shops, was surprised
to find them all closed. I then proposed to my companion, who was
a Hindu, that we should go to another street where there were also
brass-workers’ shops; but he said it would be no good, as he believed
this was a half-holiday of the brass-workers’ caste. “But,” I said, “if
it is a half-holiday, there may yet be some who will keep their shops
open in order to get the custom.” “Oh, no,” he replied with a smile at
my ignorance, “they would not do that; it would be against all caste
rules.”
Thus we see that the caste-system contains valuable social elements,
and ancient as it is may even teach us a lesson or two in regard to the
organization of trades.
When we come to the other great feature of Indian social life,
Communism, we find it existing under three great forms--agricultural,
caste, and family communism. Of the first of these--agricultural
communism--I know personally but little, having had no opportunity of
really studying the agricultural life. The conditions of village tenure
vary largely all over India, but apparently in every part there may be
traced more or less distinctly the custom of holding lands in common,
as in the primitive village life of Germany and England. In most Indian
villages there are still extensive outlying lands which are looked upon
as the property of the community; and of the inlying and more settled
lands, their cultivation, inheritance, etc., are largely ruled by
common custom and authority. Maine, however, points out in his _Village
Communities_ that the sense of individual property, derived from
contact with the West, is even now rapidly obliterating these ancient
customs of joint tenure.
Of the second, the caste communism, I have already spoken. It no doubt
is less strongly marked than it was; but still exists, not certainly
as an absolute community of goods, but as a community of feeling and
interest, and some degree of mutual assistance among the members of
the caste. The third is the family communism; and this is still pretty
strongly marked, though the first beginnings of its disintegration are
now appearing.
In speaking of the Family it must be understood that a much larger
unit is meant than we should denote by the term--comparatively distant
relations being included; and there seems to be a tacit understanding
that the members of this larger Family or Clan have a claim on each
other, so that any one in need can fairly expect support and assistance
from the others, and without feeling humiliated by receiving it. This
has its good side--in the extended family life and large-heartedness
that it produces, as well as in its tendency to keep wealth distributed
and to prevent people playing too much for their own hands; but it
has its drawbacks, chiefly in the opportunity it affords to idle
“ne’er-do-weels” to sponge upon their friends.
I have mentioned the case (p. 90) of a young man who came to read
English with me in Ceylon, and who, though married and having children,
turned out to be living with and dependent on his parents. I must not
speak of this as a case of a ne’er-do-weel, as the fellow was genuinely
interested in literature, and was in the habit of giving lectures on
philosophy in his native place--and if one began calling such people
names, one might not know where to stop; but to our Western notions it
was a curious arrangement. Certainly a Bengali gentleman whom I met
one day complained to me very bitterly of the system. He said that he
was in an official position and receiving a moderate salary, and the
consequence was that his relatives all considered him a fair prey. He
not only had his own wife and children, and his father and mother, to
support--of which he would not make a grievance; but he had two or
three younger brothers, who though of age had not yet found anything
to do, and were calmly living on at his cost; and besides these there
were two aunts of his, who had both married one man. The husband of
the aunts had died leaving one of them with children, and now he, the
complainant, was expected to provide for both aunts and children,
besides the rest of his family already mentioned! To a man once bitten
with the idea of “getting on” in the Western sense of the word, one
can imagine how galling it must be to have indefinite strings of
relations clinging around one’s neck; and one can guess how forcibly
the competitive idea is already beginning to act towards the disruption
of family communism.
In Calcutta and other places I noticed considerable numbers of
grown youths loafing about with nothing to do, and apparently with
no particular intention of doing anything as long as their friends
would support them. And this no doubt is a great evil, but I think it
would be hardly fair to lay it all at the door of the family communal
habits. It is rather to the contact of the old communal life with
the new order of things, and to the dislocation of the former which
ensues, that we must attribute the evil. For under the old order a
youth growing up would no doubt, by the obligations of his caste,
religion, etc., have his duties and calling so distinctly set out
for him, that the danger of his giving himself up to idleness and
infringing on the hospitality of his family would seldom arise; but now
the commercial and competitive régime, while loosening his old caste
and religious sanctions, often leaves him quite unprovided with any
opening in life--indeed forbids him an opening except at the cost of a
struggle with his fellows--and so tempts him to relapse into a state of
dependence.
The closeness of the family tie still subsisting is, when all is said,
a beautiful thing. The utmost respect is accorded to parents; and to
strike a father or mother is (as I think I have already remarked) an
almost unheard-of crime. I was much impressed in talking to Justice
Telang at Bombay by the way in which he spoke of his parents. I had
asked him whether he intended coming over to England for the National
Congress--to be held in London in 1893--and reply was that he should
like to, but his parents “would not let him” (no doubt on account of
the loss of caste in crossing the sea). This from a man of forty,
and one of the leading Mahrattas, indeed one of the most influential
politicians in Bombay, was sufficiently striking; but it was said with
a tenderness that made one feel that he would forego almost anything
rather than wound those of whom he spoke.
Thus as in the social progress of the West the sword descending
divides, with often painful estrangement, brother from sister, and
child from parent; so is it also in the East. Only that in the East the
closeness of the parental tie makes the estrangement more odious and
more painful, and adds proportionately to the obstacles which lie in
the path of progress.