The Bridgeport evening farmer, June 27, 1916
CASTE SYSTEM IS MISREPRESENTED' SAYS HINDU EDITOR
In regard to the article entitled "India’s 19,000 Castes," also giving a story of a child of a Brahmin being allowed to drown in a well rather than permit one of the Shudra caste to rescue it, I would like to say that this story was published in a number of papers and magazines about six years ago. The stories of this kind appeared to us Hindus to be circulated by missionaries who seem to make it their special business to pick out the most glaring examples of the evil effect of the Caste system, for the purpose of trying to show how deep we are in heathenism and degradation.
Suppose that a Hindu who had traveled in this country on returning to India were to report only cases of atrocious crimes that are constantly being committed here; murders, rapes, (committed even by clergymen), lynchings of negroes, kidnappings of girls for prostitution, the general prevalence of divorce, nine million unmarried women, millions of children working in factories,—what monsters of iniquity the Americans would appear to be and how atrocious their civilization. Just as there is another side of life in this country so there is another side in India which is kept concealed because the one source of information is devoted to trying to convert us to Christianity and the other is determined to keep us in political subjection. The Caste system is a natural outgrowth of division in labor. In the short history of the United States caste has already secured a firm foothold. Servants in houses are not received in the society of their mistresses, garbage men do not associate with judges. All kinds of small tradespeople are not allowed to associate with the wealthy. The Caste of labor is against the owners of capital; so strong that they are in continual war with each other; then there are the almost innumerable cliques in the social scale from New York’s 400 down to the small group of the exclusive set even in the smallest town. If this division which has been growing in western civilization is not checked it will not be long before castes will be as deeply ingrained here as in India.
There is a great movement in India called “Young India,” or the "Gadar" party. One of its purposes is the overthrow of the Caste system. Raja Mehendra Partap Singh, who is reported to be in the German ranks fighting against the British, when he was in India, at the time of the marriage of his sweeper (of the Shadra caste), he invited one hundred Hindu princes and many prominent members of the Brahmin Pundits from Benares to attend the ceremony. They all dined together with the sweeper and his family and shook hands with the sweeper.
In 1907 at a great gathering of the Indian National Congress containing representatives from every class and from all parts of India under the leadership of the aged Marhatta, B. G. Tilak, editor of the daily “Kesree” of Poona, a Brahmin of the highest caste, and one of the few translators of the Vedas, on this occasion all distinctions were laid aside. Brahmins and Shudras fraternizing on a basis of strict democratic equality.
As the British watchword in India is "Divide and Conquer," the government viewed this movement with alarm and a few months later brought charges of sedition against B. G. Tilak and imprisoned him for a period of five years in Fort William in Burma. The government is doing everything in its power to prevent the disintegration of the Caste system. A united India means the overthrow of the British domination. But the movement has gone too far to be stopped. The example has been given and is being continually given by the greatest religious leaders who command the respect and full confidence of the people.
It is not true that there are 19,000 castes in India, and if every small division in a community is to be called a caste, there are just as many here as in India. There are only four castes in India, and those are now broken.
RAM CHANDRA.
Editor Hindustan Gadar, San Francisco, Cal.
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