opportunities
are within the reach of all; where the religion of the people is an
aid to moral living and high ideals instead of being a hindrance to
them; where no caste system decrees that the poorest children shall
not rise above the condition of their parents; where a wage-scale
higher far than six cents a day enables the poorest to have comforts
and cherish ambitions; and where the humblest "boy born in a log
cabin" may dream of the Presidency instead {225} of being an outcast
whose very touch the upper orders would account more polluting than
the touch of a beast.

Ah, the little fate-cursed Indian brats, some of them wearing rings in
their noses and not much else, who send the message through me to
you--think of them to-night and be glad that to you the lines have
fallen in pleasanter places.

Salaam, indeed, O happy little folk of my own homeland across the
seas! Peace be to you!

Jeypore, India.

{226}

XXIII

THE CASTE SYSTEM IN INDIA

Of Hinduism as a religious or ecclesiastical institution we had
something to say in another chapter; of Hinduism as Social Fact bare
mention was made. And yet it is in its social aspects, in its
enslavement of all the women and the majority of the men who come
within its reach, that Hinduism presents its most terrible phases. For
Hinduism is Caste and Caste is Hinduism. Upon the innate,
Heaven-ordained superiority of the Brahmin and the other twice-born
castes, and upon the consequent inferiority of the lower castes, the
whole system of Brahminism rests.

Originally there were but four castes: The Brahmin or priest caste who
were supposed to have sprung from the head of Brahma or God; the
Kshatriya or warrior caste who sprang from his arms, the Vasiya or
merchant and farmer class who sprang from his thigh, and the Sudra or
servant and handicraftsmen class who came from his feet. The idea of
superiority by birth having once been accepted as fundamental,
however, these primary castes were themselves divided and subdivided
along real or imaginary lines of superiority or inferiority until
to-day the official government statistics show 2378 castes in India.
You cannot marry into any one of the other 2377 classes of Hindus; you
cannot eat with any of them, nor can you touch any of them.

Thus Caste is the Curse of India. It is the very antithesis of
democracy--blighting, benumbing, paralyzing to all aspiration and all
effort at change or improvement.

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