This article is a chapter from the book, “Swami Vivekananda on India and Her Problems“. This book (Code: AVE061) can be purchased from Advaita Ashrama.
CASTE PROBLEM IN INDIA
“I
have a message for the world, which I will deliver without fear and
care for the future. To the reformers I will point out that I am a
greater reformer than any one of them. They want to reform only little
bits. I want root-and-branch reform.”
- Swami Vivekananda
CASTE IN SOCIETY AND NOT IN RELIGION
Though
our castes and our institutions are apparently linked with our
religion, they are not so. These institutions have been necessary to
protect us as a nation, and when this necessity for self-preservation
will no more exist, they will die a natural death. In religion there is
no caste. A man from the highest caste and a man from the lowest may
become a monk in India and the two castes become equal. The caste system is opposed to the religion of Vedanta.
Caste
is a social custom, and all our great preachers have tried to break it
down. From Buddhism downwards, every sect has preached against caste,
and every time it has only riveted the chains. Beginning from Buddha to
Rammohan Ray, everyone made the mistake of holding caste to be a
religious institution and tried to pull down religion and caste
altogether, and failed.
In
spite of all the ravings of the priests, caste is simply a crystallized
social institution, which after doing its service is now filling the
atmosphere of India with its stench, and it can only be removed by
giving back to people their lost social individuality. Caste is simply
the outgrowth of the political institutions of India; it is a hereditary trade guild. Trade competition with Europe has broken caste more than any teaching.
THE UNDERLYING IDEA OF THE CASTE SYSTEM
The older I grow, the better I seem to think of caste and such other time-honored institutions of India.
There was a time when I used to think that many of them were useless
and worthless, but the older I grow, the more I seem to feel a
difference in cursing any one of them, for each one of them is the
embodiment of the experience of centuries.
A
child of but yesterday, destined to die the day after tomorrow, comes
to me and asks me to change all my plans and if I hear the advice of
that baby and change all my surroundings according to his ideas I myself
should be a fool, and no one else. Much of the advice that is coming to
us from different countries is similar to this. Tell these wiseacres,
“I will hear you when you have made a stable society yourselves. You
cannot hold on to one idea for two days, you quarrel and fail; you are
born like moths in the spring and die like them in five minutes. You
come up like bubbles and burst like bubbles too. First form a stable
society like ours. First make laws and institutions that remains
undiminished in their power through scores of centuries. Then will be
the time to talk on the subject with you, but till then, my friend, you
are only a giddy child.”
Caste
is a very good thing. Caste is the plan we want to follow. What caste
really is, not one in a million understands. There is no country in the
world without caste. Caste is based throughout on that principle. The
plan in India is to make everybody Brahmana, the Brahmana being the ideal of humanity. If you read the history of India
you will find that attempts have always been made to raise the lower
classes. Many are the classes that have been raised. Many more will
follow till the whole will become Brahmana. That is the plan.
Our
ideal is the Brahmana of spiritual culture and renunciation. By the
Brahmana ideal what do I mean? I mean the ideal Brahmana-ness in which
worldliness is altogether absent and true wisdom is abundantly present.
That is the ideal of the Hindu race. Have you not heard how it is
declared he, the Brahmana, is not amenable to law, that he has no law,
that he is not governed by kings, and that his body cannot be hurt? That
is perfectly true. Do not understand it in the light thrown upon it by
interested and ignorant fools, but understand it in the light of the
true and original Vedantic conception.. If the Brahmana is he who has
killed all selfishness and who lives to acquire and propagate wisdom and
the power of love - if a country is altogether inhabited by such
Brahmanas, by men and women who are spiritual and moral and good, is it
strange to think of that country as being above and beyond all law? What
police, what Military are necessary to govern them? Why should any one
govern them at all? Why should they live under a government? They are
good and noble, and they are the men of God; these are our ideal
Brahmanas, and we read that in the SatyaYuga there was only one caste,
and that was the Brahmana. We read in the Mahabharata that the whole
world was in the beginning peopled with Brahmanas, and that as they
began to degenerate they became divided into different castes, and that
when the cycle turns round they will all go back to that Brahmanical
origin.
The
son of a Brahmana is not necessarily always a Brahmana; though there is
every possibility of his being one, he may not become so. The Brahmana
caste and the Brahmana quality are two distinct things.
As
there are sattva, rajas and tamas - one or other of these gunas more or
less - in every man, so the qualities which make a Brahmana, Kshatriya,
Vaishya or a Shudra are inherent in every man, more or less. But at
time one or other of these qualities predominates in him in varying
degrees and is manifested accordingly. Take a man in his different
pursuits, for example : when he is engaged in serving another for pay,
he is in Shudra-hood; when he is busy transacting some some piece of
business for profit, on his account, he is a Vaishya; when he fights to
right wrongs then the qualities of a Kshatriya come out in him; and when
he meditates on God, or passes his time in conversation about Him, then
he is a Brahmana. Naturally, it is quite possible for one to be changed
from one caste into another. Otherwise, how did Viswamitra become a
Brahmana and Parashurama a Kshatriya?
The
means of European civilization is the sword; of the Aryans, the
division into different varnas. This system of division into varnas is
the stepping-stone to civilization, making one rise higher and higher in
proportion to one’s learning and culture. In Europe, it is everywhere victory to the strong and death to the weak. In the land of Bharata (India), every social rule is for the protection of the weak.
Such
is our ideal of caste, as meant for raising all humanity slowly and
gently towards the realization of the great ideal of spiritual man, who
is non-resisting, calm, steady, worshipful, pure and meditative. In that
ideal there is God.
We
believe in Indian caste as one of the greatest social institutions that
the Lord gave to man. We also believe that through the unavoidable
defects, foreign persecutions, and above all, the monumental ignorance
and pride of many Brahmanas who do not deserve the name, have thwarted
in many ways, the legitimate fructification of this glorious Indian
institution, it has already worked wonders for the land of Bharata and
it destined to lead Indian humanity to its goal.
Caste
should not go; but should be readjusted occasionally. Within the old
structure is to be life enough for the building of two hundred thousand
new ones. It is sheer nonsense to desire the abolition of caste.
INEQUALITY OF PRIVILEGE VITIATES THE SYSTEM
It
is in the nature of society to form itself into groups; and what will
go will be these privileges! Caste is a natural order. I can perform one
duty in social life, and you another; you can govern a country, and I
can mend a pair of old shoes, but that is no reason why you are greater
than I, for can you mend my shoes? Can I govern the country? I am clever
in mending shoes, you are clever in reading Vedas, that is no reason
why you should trample on my head; why if one commits murder should he
be praised and if another steals an apple why should he be hanged? This
will have to go.
Caste
is good. That is only natural way of solving life. Men must form
themselves into groups, and you cannot get rid of that. Wherever you go
there will be caste. But that does not mean that there should be these
privileges. They should be knocked on the head. If you teach Vedanta to
the fisherman, he will say, “I am as good a man as you, I am a
fisherman, you are a philosopher, but I have the same God in me, as you
have in you.” And that is what we want, no privilege for anyone, equal
chances for all; let everyone be taught that the Divine is within, and
everyone will work out his own salvation. The days of exclusive
privileges and exclusive claims are gone, gone for ever from the soil of
India.
UNTOUCHABILITY - A SUPERSTITIOUS ACCRETION
Formerly
the characteristic of the noble-minded was - (tribhuvanamupakara
shrenibhih priyamanah) “to please the whole universe by one’s numerous
acts of service”, but now it is - I am pure and the whole world is
impure. “Don’t touch me!” “Don’t touch me!” The whole world is impure,
and I alone am pure! Lucid Brahmajnana! Bravo! Great God! Nowadays,
Brahman is neither in the recesses of the heart, nor in the highest
heaven, nor in all beings - now He is in the cooking pot!
We
are orthodox Hindus, but we refuse entirely to identify ourselves with
“Don’t- touchism”. That is not Hinduism; it is in none of our books; it
is an orthodox superstition, which has interfered with national
efficiency all along the line. Religion has entered in the cooking pot.
The present religion of the Hindus is neither the path of Knowledge or
Reason - it is “Don’t-touchism”. - “Don’t touch me”, “Don’t touch me” -
that exhausts its description.
“Don’t
touchism” is a form of mental disease. Beware! All expansion is life,
all contraction is death. All love is expansion, all selfishness is
contraction. Love is therefore the only law of life. See that you do not
lose your lives in this dire irreligion of “Don’t- touchism”. Must the
teaching (Atmavat sarvabhuteshu) - “Looking upon all beings as your own
self” - be confined to books alone? How will they grant salvation who
cannot feed a hungry mouth with a crumb of bread? How will those, who
become impure at the mere breath of others, purify others?
We
must cease to tyrannize. To what a ludicrous state are we brought! If a
bhangi comes to anybody as a bhangi, he would be shunned as the plague;
but no sooner does he get a cupful of water poured upon his head with
some muttering of prayers by a padri, and get a coat to his back, no
matter how threadbare, and come into the room of the most orthodox
Hindu, I don’t see the man who then dare refuse him a chair and a hearty
shake of hands! Irony can go no farther.
Just see, for want of sympathy from the Hindus, thousands of pariahs in Madras
are turning Christians. Don’t think that this is simply due to the
pinch of hunger; it is because they do not get any sympathy from us. We
are day and night calling out to them “Don’t touch us! Don’t touch us!”
Is there any compassion or kindliness of heart in the country? Only a
class of “Don’t-touchists” ; kick such customs out! I sometimes feel the
urge to break the barriers of “Don’t-touchism”, go at once and call
out, “Come all who are poor, miserable, wretched and downtrodden”, and
to bring them all together. Unless they rise, the Mother will not awake.
Each
Hindu, I say, is a brother to every other, and it is we, who have
degraded them by our outcry, “Don’t touch”, “Don’t touch!” And so the
whole country has been plunged to the utmost depths of meanness,
cowardice and ignorance. These men have to be lifted; words of hope and
faith have to be proclaimed to them. We have to tell them, “You are also
men like us and you have all the rights that we have.”
SOLUTION OF THE CASTE PROBLEM
Our
solution of the caste question is not degrading those who are already
high up, is not running amuck through food and drink, is not jumping out
of our own limits in order to have more enjoyment, but it comes by
every one of us fulfilling the dictates of our Vedantic religion, by our
attaining spirituality and by our becoming ideal Brahmana. There is a
law laid on each one of you in this land by your ancestors, whether you
are Aryans, or non-Aryans, rishis or Brahmanas or the very lowest
outcaste. The command is the same to you all, that you must make
progress without stopping, and that from the highest man to the lowest
pariah, every one in this country has to try and become the ideal
Brahmana. This Vedantic idea is applicable not only here but over the
whole world.
The Brahmana-hood is the ideal of humanity in India
as wonderfully put forward by Shankaracharya at the beginning of his
commentary on the Gita, where he speaks about the reason for Krishna’s
coming as a preacher for the preservation of Brahmana- hood, of
Brahmana-ness. That was the great end. This Brahmana, the man of God, he
who has known Brahman, the ideal man, the perfect man, must remain, he
must not go. And with all the defects of the caste now, we know that we
must all be ready to give to the Brahmanas this credit, that from them
have come more men with real Brahmana-ness in them than from all the
other castes. We must be bold enough, must be brave enough to speak
their defects, but at the same time we must give credit that is due to
them.
Therefore,
it is no use fighting among the castes. What good will it do? It will
divide us all the more, weaken us all the more, degrade us all the more.
The solution is not by bringing down the higher, but by raising the
lower up to the level of the higher. And that is the line of work that
is found in all our books, in spite of what you may hear from some
people whose knowledge of their own Scriptures and whose capacity to
understand the mighty plans of the ancients are only zero. What is the
plan? The ideal at the one end is the Brahmana and the ideal at the
other end is the chandala, and the whole work is to raise the chandala
up to the Brahmana. Slowly and slowly you will find more and more
privileges granted to them.
I
regret that in modern times there should be so much discussion between
the castes. This must stop. It is useless on both sides, especially on
the side of the higher caste, the Brahmana, the day for these privileges
and exclusive claims is gone. The duty of every aristocracy is to dig
its own grave, and the sooner it does so, the better. The more he
delays, the more it will fester and the worse death it will die. It is
the duty of the Brahmana, therefore, to work for the salvation of the
rest of mankind, in India. If he does that and so long as he does that, he is a Brahmana.
Any
one who claims to be a Brahmana, then, should prove his pretensions,
first by manifesting that spirituality, and next by raising others to
the same status. We earnestly entreat the Brahmanas not to forget the
ideal of India
- the production of a universe of Brahmanas, pure as purity, good as
God Himself : this was at the beginning, says the Mahabharata and so
will it be in the end.
It
seems that most of the Brahmanas are only nursing a false pride of
birth; and any schemer, native or foreign, who can pander to this vanity
and inherent laziness, by fulsome sophistry, appears to satisfy more.
Beware
Brahmanas, this is the sign of death! Arise and show your manhood, your
Brahmana-hood, by raising the non-Brahmanas around you - not in the
spirit of a master - not with the rotten canker of egoism crawling with
superstitions and charlatanry of East and West - but in the spirit of a
servant.
To
the Brahmanas I appeal, that they must work hard to raise the Indian
people by teaching them what they know, by giving out the culture that
they have accumulated for centuries. It is clearly the duty of the
Brahmanas of India to remember what real Brahmana-hood is. As Manu says,
all these privileges and honors are given to the Brahmana because,
“with him is the treasury of virtue”. He must open that treasury and
distribute to the world.
It
is true that he was the earliest preacher to the Indian races, he was
the first to renounce everything in order to attain to the higher
realization of life, before others could reach to the idea. It was not
his fault that he marched ahead of the other castes. Why did not the
other castes so understand and do as they did? Why did they sit down and
be lazy, and let the Brahmanas win the race?
But
it is one thing to gain an advantage, and another thing to preserve it
for evil use. Whenever power is used for evil it becomes diabolical; it
must be used for good only. So this accumulated culture of ages of which
the Brahmana has been the trustee, he must now give to the people, and
it was because he did not open this treasury to the people, that the
Muslims invasion was possible. It was because he did not open this
treasury to the people from the beginning, that for a thousand years we
have been trodden under the heels of everyone who chose to come to
India; it was through that we have become degraded, and the first task
must be to break open the cells that hide the wonderful treasures which
our common ancestors accumulated; bring them out, and give them to
everybody, and the Brahmana must be the first to do it. There is an old
superstition in Bengal that if the
cobra that bites, sucks out his own poison from the patient, the man
must survive. Well then, the Brahmana must suck out his own poison.
To
the non-Brahmana castes I say, wait, be not in a hurry. Do not seize
every opportunity of fighting the Brahmana, because as I have shown; you
are suffering from your own fault. Who told you to neglect spirituality
and Sanskrit learning? What have you been doing all this time? Why have
you been indifferent? Why do you now fret and fume because somebody
else had more brains, more energy, more pluck and go than you? Instead
of wasting your energies in vain discussions and quarrels in the
newspapers, instead of fighting and quarreling in your own homes - which
is sinful - use all your energies in acquiring the culture which the
Brahmana has, and the thing is done. Why do you not become Sanskrit
scholars? Why do you not spend millions to bring Sanskrit education to
all the castes of India? That is the question. The moment you do these things, you are equal to the Brahmana! That is the secret power in India.
The
only safety, I tell you men who belong to the lower castes, the only
way to raise your condition is to study Sanskrit, and this fighting and
writing and frothing against the higher castes is in vain, it does no
good, and it creates fight and quarrel, and this race, unfortunately
already divided, is going to be divided more and more. The only way to
bring about the leveling of castes is to appropriate the culture, the
education which is the strength of the higher castes.
Note: This article is a chapter from the book, “Swami Vivekananda on India and Her Problems“. This book (Code: AVE061) can be purchased from Advaita Ashrama.
