JAT-PAT-TODAK MANDAL OF LAHORE-VI
Caste does not
result in economic efficiency. Caste cannot and has not improved the race.
Caste has however done one thing. It has completely disorganized and
demoralized the Hindus.
The first and
foremost thing that must be recognized is that Hindu Society is a myth. The
name Hindu is itself a foreign name. It was given by the Mohammedans to the
natives for the purpose of distinguishing themselves. It does not occur in any
Sanskrit work prior to the Mohammedan invasion. They did not feel the necessity
of a common name because they had no conception of their having constituted a
community. Hindu society as such does not exist. It is only a collection of
castes. Each caste is conscious of its existence. Its survival is the be all
and end all of its existence. Castes do not even form a federation. A caste has
no feeling that it is affiliated to other castes except when there is a
Hindu-Muslim riot. On all other occasions each caste endeavours to segregate
itself and to distinguish itself from other castes. Each caste not only dines
among itself and marries among itself but each caste prescribes its own distinctive
dress. What other explanation can there be of the innumerable styles of dress
worn by the men and women of India which so amuse the tourists ? Indeed the
ideal Hindu must be like a rat living in his own hole refusing to have any
contact with others. There is an utter lack among the Hindus of what the
sociologists call " consciousness of kind ". There is no Hindu
consciousness of kind. In every Hindu the consciousness that exists is the
consciousness of his caste. That is the reason why the Hindus cannot be said to
form a society or a nation. There are however many Indians whose patriotism
does not permit them to admit that Indians are not a nation, that they are only
an amorphous mass of people. They have insisted that underlying the apparent
diversity there is a fundamental unity which marks the life of the Hindus in as
much as there is a similarity of habits and customs, beliefs and thoughts which
obtain all over the continent of India. Similarity in habits and customs,
beliefs and thoughts there is. But one cannot accept the conclusion that
therefore, the Hindus constitute a society. To do so is to misunderstand the
essentials which go to make up a society. Men do not become a society by living
in physical proximity any more than a man ceases to be a member of his society
by living so many miles away from other men. Secondly similarity in habits and
customs, beliefs and thoughts is not enough to constitute men into society.
Things may be passed physically from one to another like bricks. In the same way
habits and customs, beliefs and thoughts of one group may be taken over by
another group and there may thus appear a similarity between the two. Culture
spreads by diffusion and that is why one finds similarity between various
primitive tribes in the matter of their habits and customs, beliefs and
thoughts, although they do not live in proximity. But no one could say that
because there was this similarity the primitive tribes constituted one society.
This is because similarly in certain things is not enough to constitute a
society. Men constitute a society
because they have things which they possess in common. To have similar thing is
totally different from possessing things in common. And the only way by which
men can come to possess things in common with one another is by being in
communication with one another. This is merely another way of saying that
Society continues to exist by communication indeed in communication. To make it
concrete, it is not enough if men act in a way which agrees with the acts of
others. Parallel activity, even if similar, is not sufficient to bind men into
a society. This is proved by the fact that the festivals observed by the
different Castes amongst the Hindus are the same. Yet these parallel
performances of similar festivals by the different castes have not bound them
into one integral whole. For that purpose what is necessary is for a man to
share and participate in a common activity so that the same emotions are
aroused in him that animate the others. Making the individual a sharer or
partner in the associated activity so that he feels its success as his success,
its failure as his failure is the real thing that binds men and makes a society
of them. The Caste System prevents common activity and by preventing common
activity it has prevented the Hindus from becoming a society with a unified
life and a consciousness of its own being.
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