CRIME , CASTE & CHRISTIAN EUROPE.

I  caution that some if not all might experience “COGNITIVE  DISSONANCE” after reading this posting. In psychology, cognitive dissonance is the mental stress or discomfort experienced by an individual who holds two or more contradictory beliefs, ideas, or values at the same time, or is confronted by new information that conflicts with existing beliefs, ideas, or values.(Wikipedia)

All along we had been taught that CASTE is an excrescence of Hindu India, and that the civilizing mission of the White-men & their religion, had extricated the masses from the dark depths to which they had sunk. With such propaganda, the gullible among  us are even now thinking that the ‘colonizers” had “SAVED” us by putting in place law & order, new social institutions, infrastructure  & DEMOCRACY, which we understand now are proving to be tenuous.

At one point of time, the men doing research on  crime in England, had toyed with the idea of introducing the CASTE SYSTEM  in Europe. Such was the effectiveness of Caste in maintaining a peaceful social order. Since it posed a barrier to conversion, the Missionaries started maligning that institution, and it was later on taken up by Leftists, Reformers, Ambedkarites etc. Daily in newspaper reports, we see condemnation of caste indirectly & directly.

The following passage from the book “Crime & Its Causes” is very informative.

Quote : “Those remarks of Sir William Hunter afford an insight into the coercive power exercised by the caste system on the Indian population. Without that system it is probable that the criminal statistics of India would present as high a proportion of crimes of violence and blood as now exists among the peoples of Southern Europe. But with that system in active operation, the evil influence of climate is completely neutralized and India at the present moment enjoys a remarkable immunity from violent crime. With the example of India before us we are justified in coming to the conclusion that homicide and crimes of a kindred nature need not necessarily be the malign products of climate. Whatever climate has to do with fostering these offences may be obviated by a better form of social organization. It would be ridiculous to dream of basing western society upon Indian models; but at the same time India teaches us a lesson on the construction of the social fabric which it would be well to learn. The tendency of western civilization at the present time is to herd vast masses of men into huge industrial centres. It is useless discussing the abstract question whether this is a good thing or a bad; we must reconcile ourselves to the fact that it is a process forced upon communities by the necessities of modern industrialism; and we must accordingly make the best of it. In our efforts to make the best of present tendencies, and to render them as innocuous as possible to social welfare, there is one point at least where India is able to teach us an instructive lesson. In India a man seldom becomes, what he too often is, in all our large cities, a mere lonely, isolated unit, left entirely to the mercy of his own impulses, constrained by no social circle of any description, and unsustained by the pressure of any public opinion for which he has the least regard. In India he is always a member of some fraternity within the community; in that fraternity or caste he feels at home; he is never isolated; he belongs to a circle which is not too big for his individuality to be lost; he is known; he has a reputation and a status to maintain; his life within the caste is shaped for him by caste usages and traditions, and for these he is taught to entertain the deepest reverence. Caste is in many of its aspects a state in miniature within the state; in this capacity it performs a variety of admirable functions of which the state itself is and must always remain incapable.”

All Excerpts From

William Douglas Morrison. “Crime and Its Causes.” iBooks. (Pages 56 -7of 231 )- First Published in 1891, by London Swan Sonnenschein & Co., LIM. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons. William Douglas Morrison had worked in H.M.Prison, Wandsworth.

CASTE –SECULARISM NOT SUITABLE FOR INDIAN DISPOSITION !!!???

Whatever  be said against Caste, it is ‘closely intertwined’ with religion, as Missionary experiences in this matter reveal.  Missionary frustration in getting converts from the ‘higher and middle castes’, results in hatred against  Caste System, Brahmins and Hindu Religion. Missionary accounts though highly prejudiced

   reveal the veneration of caste institutions, by the people of India. As a corollary to the whole situation, SECULARISM does not suit the Indian disposition !!!!

Quote “It is one of the peculiar difficulties that Christianity has to encounter in dealing with Hindus of the higher and middle castes, that the religion of the country is so closely intertwined with the usages (customary practice) of Hindu society. The more punctilious a high-caste Hindu is in the performance of his religious ceremonies, and in the maintenance of his caste purity and exclusiveness, the higher are supposed to be his claims to social respectability. It is not necessary for him to be a believer in the doctrines of his religion; but it is absolutely necessary, if he is a man of " good caste" and in affluent circumstances, that he should carefully practice all its rites. He cannot keep his place in society, he cannot claim to be regarded as a gentleman, without affecting (pretend to have or feel) to be superstitious. A poor low-caste man may be as careless as he likes about his religious duties ; but one who occupies a respectable position in society cannot choose but show himself ceremonious, just as an English gentleman cannot choose but live in a style appropriate to his rank. Hence, to propose

to a Hindu of respectability to abandon all the usages of his sect and caste, and embrace a foreign religion, sounds in his ear like asking him to abandon the proprieties (conformity to conventionally accepted standards of behavior or morals) of life and become a Pariar. No class of people are so enslaved to custom and precedent as those who are wealthy and luxurious without being enlightened.”

All Excerpts From

Caldwell, Robert, 1814-1891. “Lectures on the Tinnevelly missions : descriptive of the field, the work, and the results : with an introductory lecture on the progress of Christianity in India.” London : Bell & Daldy, 1857. iBooks. (pages 57, 58 of 185)

"CASTE, like the BRANCH ROOTS of the BANYAN TREE ARE THE PRIDE & JOY OF INDIANS" - AMY CARMICHAEL

Amy Wilson Carmichael,  the Protestant Christian Missionary  calls out to God, to DESTROY and take-away, the Pride and Joy experienced by millions of  Indians. The following paragraphs  are excerpts from her book. Similar WESTERN CHRISTIAN  hubris, modern world experienced in Iraq, Afghanistan etc etc.

Contrary to Modern-View, CASTE was a joyous institution !!!!!


Excerpt "All trees have roots. To tear up a full-grown tree by the roots, and transplant it bodily, is never a simple process. But in India we have a tree with a double system of roots. The banyan tree drops roots from its boughs. (bough = a main branch of a tree). These bough roots in time run as deep underground as the original root. And the tap root (tap root = a primary(main) root that grows vertically downward and gives off small lateral roots) and its runners, and the branch roots and theirs, get knotted and knit into each other, till the whole forms one solid mass of roots, thousands

of yards of a tangle of roots, sinuous and strong. Conceive the uprooting of such a tree, like the famous one of North India, for instance, which sheltered an army of seven thousand men. You cannot conceive it; it could not be done, the earthward hold is so strong.

The old in India are like these trees; they are doubly, inextricably rooted. There is the usual great tap root common to all human trees in all lands—faith in the creed of the race; there are the usual running roots too—devotion to family and home. All these hold the soul down.
 

But in India we have more—we have the branch-rooted system of Caste; Caste so intricate, so precise, that no Western lives who has traced it through its ramifications back to the bough from which it dropped in the olden days.

This Caste, then, these holding laws, which most would rather die than break, are like the branch roots of the banyan tree with their infinite strength of grip. But the strangest thing to us is this: the people love to have it so; they do not regard themselves as held, these roots are their pride and joy. Take a child of four or five, ask it a question concerning its Caste, and you will see how that baby tree has begun to drop branch rootlets down. Sixty years afterwards look again, and every rootlet has grown a tree, each again sending rootlets down; and so the system spreads.

But we look up from the banyan tree. God! what are these roots to Thee? These Caste-root systems are nothing to Thee! India is not too hard for Thee! O God, come!"

Excerpt  From Chapter VIII, Chapter Name : Roots, Pages 113 & 
 114 of 374 pages,

Carmichael, Amy. “Things as They Are / Mission Work in Southern India.” iBooks. 

This Book Freely available as e-book.

 Amy Wilson Carmichael was a Protestant Christian missionary in India, who opened an orphanage and founded a mission in Dohnavur, Tamil  Nadu