meland. Others
go abroad on business or to behold and study the wonders of western
life and civilization. All men of culture and power in India, at the
present time, are convinced of the evil and absurdity of this caste
law, which is common to all castes, because it is a part of the
general legislation of their religion. They decline to believe that it
is either sin or pollution to go in search of the best that the West
and the East have discovered and can bestow upon one, and that which
is to-day doing most in the elevation and redemption of India herself.
And many of them are defying this obsolete and debasing law of their
faith. Many others are crying for a modern interpretation of the
law--an interpretation which will explain away its bitterness and
render it innocuous. For it is not simply or chiefly the reactionary
and absurd character of this legislation which exasperates the
intelligence of the land; it is the very offensive and revolting
_nature_ of the expiation which preeminently stirs up the rebellion.
In former centuries of darkness, Hindus may have been willing to
submit to the humiliation of eating the five products of the cow as an
atonement for the supposed sin of sea-travel. The culture and
intelligence of the present time is neither so abject nor so
superstitious as to submit to this, without, at least, a vigorous
protest. And yet, what the culture of India seeks to-day is not the
abolishing of this law, which is equally repulsive to their taste and
to their intelligence; it asks only that some way of avoiding the
penalty may be found! And all that Hinduism and caste require of these
foreign-travelled men is not an intelligent submission to its behests,
but an outward observance of them. So the faith and its conservative
defenders are satisfied to see these men of culture, as they return
with the acquired treasures of the West, submit outwardly to this
offensive rite, while their sensitive nature rises in rebellion
against it. And these young scions of the East willingly practise this
hypocrisy and submit to this indignity in order to live at peace with,
and indeed to live at all in, their ancestral caste! It is only an
illustration of the hollowness of the major part of the life of the
educated community in this great land. Well may one exclaim, what can
be expected from a people whose leading men of culture are living this
double and mean life! This is verily "peace with dishonour"!

CHAPTER