History of Dharmashastra (Ancient and Mediaeval Religious and Civil Law in India) v2.c19.4.4

v2.c19.4.4

In the cities we may find some people taking their food together but the real India is in the villages, where in spite of the loud denunciations of reformers for a hundred years, the restrictions on taking food and inter-caste marriages are almost as rigid as they once were. Our efforts must be directed to wide and rapid spread of literacy among the village people, the diffusion of the idea of one people and one nationality and gradual fusion of small subcastes into larger-similar units. We in India have no doubt reached a critical stage in our history when old ideals, institutions and habits are being shattered by the impact of new ideas and by the onrush of world forces. We have to decide whether we shall make or be able to make a clean sweep of all old ideals and institutions as so much debris and rubbish or whether while keeping the old ideals and some of the old institutions as foundations we shall build up a new social order and create and foster new habits of thought and action. It is beyond the scope of the present work to write more on this point.