Caste and Race in India c12.66

c12.66

The British brought with them a casteless culture and a literature full of thoughts on individual liberty. With the introduction of English education many of the intelligent minds of the country came in closer contact with the religion of the rulers and some outstanding personalities amongst them. As a result some Indians like Raja Ram Mohan Roy and Devendranath Tagore started movements which aimed at liberalizing religion and practising the brotherhood of man. The Brahmo Samaj had not only monotheism to preach but also to establish a brotherhood wherein man shall not be divided from man because of caste. The Bombay Prarthana Samaj, inspired by the ideals of Brahmo Samaj in Bengal, has also thrown caste overboard as far as its tenets go. While this movement of repudiating caste was being fostered, other capable Hindu minds thought of remodelling Hindu society after the pristine ideals supposed to be enshrined in the Vedas. Swami Dayanand preached that the fourfold division of the Hindu people should be substituted for the manifold ramifications of contemporary caste. The one important innovation that this school of thought carried out in their programme of reconstruction was that even the fourth class of the Hindu society, viz. the Śūdras, could study the Vedas.¹ Viewing both these movements as an outsider one cannot but be impressed by the manifest success of the Arya Samaj movement of Swami Dayananda. Speaking of the Prarthana Samaj of Bombay, it will be very hard to point out examples from among its high-caste leaders, who, when they had to arrange for the marriages of their sons or daughters, made any effort to practise the ideal they preached. Nay, some of the eminent leaders of the Samaj while openly denouncing caste, busied themselves with the affairs of the caste-groups in which they were born. The greater popularity of the Arya Samaj, compared with that of the Prarthana Samaj, is due to the following reasons: First, the Arya Samaj tried to revive the ancient purity of the Vedic society and thus appealed to the traditional sentiment of the people; secondly, the sincerity of the members of the Arya Samaj was much better demonstrated in actual practice; and thirdly, its chief centre of activity was transferred to the Punjab, where caste has been flexible.