Caste in India: The Facts and the System c6.s7.52

c6.s7.52

We should be doing the Hindus an injustice were we to attribute to their instincts of sociability alone the importance which they attach to this kind of banquet. The desire to indulge in noisy collective rejoicings, a taste which has often been noticed even in those who have least ease and pleasure in their daily lives, may well have made this penalty more frequent, but it certainly has a more serious and justifiable origin. If exclusion from the common meal is one of the most apparent and inevitable results of degradation, the admission of the rehabilitated culprit to the table of his fellows must be the public consecration of his reinstatement. The two cases are converse but complementary; both spring from the same source, which will be dealt with later, and, let it be said at once, from loftier considerations than a hasty judgement would at first be inclined to admit.