PERIL IN INDIA

Hokitika Guardian, 4 January 1930, Page 8

PERIL IN INDIA

(Katherine Mayo in “Daily Mail.’)

LONDON, November 21

“Why after so many years of British rule, do we remain 92 per cent, illiterate?” reiterates the Indian politician, implying that the blame must be laid at the ruler’s door.

But in naming his figure, he does not call to your attention a fact which left io yourself, you would be slow to guess; lie does not tell you that of the 247,000,000 inhabitants of British .India, about 25 per cent.—6o,ooo,oo0 — have from time immemorial been specially condemned to illiteracy, even to sub-humanity, by their brother Indians.

Surely, if there be a “mystery” in India it lies fiere— it lies in the Indian’s ability anywhere, under any circumstances, to accuse any man any society, any nation, of “race prejudice,” so long as he can be remindful of the existence in India of (50,000,000 fellow Indian (Hindus without caste—“ Untouchables”) to whom he violently denies the eomon rights of man. We find the orthodox Hindu rule as to Untouchables to be roughly this: Regarded as if sub-human, the tasks held basest are reserved for them; dishonour is associated with their name. Some are permitted to serve only as scavengers and removers of night soil, some, through the ignorance to which they are condemned, are loathsome in their habits; and to all of them the privilege of any sort of teaching is sternly denied.

They may neither posses nor read the Hindu scriptures. No Brahman priest will minister to them; and, except in rarest instances they may not enter a Hindu temple to worship or pray. Their children may not come to the public schools. They may not draw water from the public wells; and if their habitation be in a region where water is scarce and sources far apart, this means for them not greater consideration from others, but greater suffering and greater toil.

They may not enter a court of justice they may not enter a dispensary to get help for their sick; they may stop at no inn. In some provinces they may not even use the public road, and as lab* ours or agriculturists they are continually losers, in that they may not enter Hie shops or even pass through the streets where shops are, hut must trust to a haphazard chain of hungary go-be-tweens to buy or sell their meagre war-

Some, in the abyss of their degradation, are permitted no work at all. These may sell nothing, not even their own labour. They may only beg. And even Ifor tliat purposes they dare not use the road, but must stand off unseen and cry out for alms from those who pass. If alms he given, it must he tossed on the ground well away from the road when the giver is out of sight and the roads empty, then, and not till then the watcher may creep up, snatch, and run.

Some, if not all, pollute, beyond caste men’s use, any food upon which their shadow falls. Food, after such defilement, can only be destroyed. Others, again, exude “distant pollulion” as an effluvium from their unhappy bodies. If one of these presume to approach and linger by a high-road, lie must measure the distance to the h'gh road If it he within two hundred years, lie must carefully place on the road a green leaf weighted down with a handful of earth.' thereby indicating that he, the unclean, is within pollution distance of that point. The passing Braham, seeing the signal, halts and shouts. The poor man forthwith takes to his heels, and only when lie has fled far enough call back, “I am now two hundred yards away. Be pleased to pass.

Still others—the Puliahs of the Malabar Coast—have been forbidden to build themselves huts, and permitted to construct for houses nothing better than a sort of leaf awning on poles, or nests in the crotches of big trees. These may approach no other type of humanity. Dubois recorded tliat, in bis day, a Nair (high-caste Hindu) meeting a Puliah in the road, was entitled to stab the offender on the spot. To-day the Nair would hesitate. But still, to-day, the Puliah may approach no caste man nearer than sixty or ninetv feet.

And dire experience shows to what lengths of blood-drenched madness the people can be goaded by a whisper that ther caste is threatened or that insults is offered to their gods.

What is thought by Mahommedans of the claim of the Hindus to rule in India may be judged by the following remarks, quoted by Miss Mayo, of Mr Noor Ala homed, of Sind.— If the Hindu society refuses to allow other human beings, fellow creatures at that, to attend public schools, and if the president of a local board representing so many lakhs of people in this house refuses to allow his fellows and brothers to bare elementary human right of having water to drink, what right have they to ask for more rights j from the bureaucracy? Before we accuse people coming from other bands we should see how we ourselves behave toward our own people. . . .

How can (we) ask for greater politic;)' rights when (we ourselves) deny elemen tnr.v rights to human beings? -Wlmt the 60.000,000 “Untouchable” Indians think of Home Rule may he judged from the following statements;—.

'Hip Pnncliamn Kalvi Abivirtlii-Abi-mama Sangn, a Madras Presidency out" castes’ association, ‘‘deprecates political change and desires only to lie saved irom the Brahman, whose motives in

seeking a greater share in the Government is tliat of the cobra seeking the charge of a young frog. -X- * -x- -xThe Madras Adi Dravida Jana Sabha organised to represent 6,000,01)0 Dravidian aborigines of Madras Presidency, has said:

The caste system of the Hindu stigmatises us as untouchables Our improvement in the social and economic scale began with and is due to the British Government, The Britishers in India—Government officers, merchants, and last but not least Christian mission ai'ies—love us, and we love them in return. Though the general condition of the community is still very low, there are some educated men among »s. But these are not allowed to rise in society on account of the general stigma attached by the Hindus to the community The very names by which these people refer to us breathe contempt.