From Adam's Peak to Elephanta

by Edward Carpenter

When I was at Kurunégala in Ceylon, an amusing dispute took place between the barber caste and the Brahmans of the locality. The barbers—though a very necessary element of Hindu society, as shaving is looked upon as a very important, almost religious, function, and is practised in a vast variety of forms by the different sections—are still somewhat despised as a low caste; and it appeared that the Brahmans of the place had given offence to them by refusing to enter the barbers’ houses in order to perform certain religious ceremonies and purifications—the Brahmans no doubt being afraid of contaminating themselves thereby. Thereupon the barbers held a caste meeting, and decided to boycott the Brahmans by refusing to shave them. This was a blow to the latter, as without being properly scraped they could not perform their ceremonies, and to have to shave themselves would be an unheard-of indignity. They therefore held a meeting, the result of which was that they managed to get a barber from a distant place—a kind of blackleg—who probably belonged to some other section of the barber community—to come over and do their scraping for them. Things went on merrily thus for a while, and the blackleg no doubt had good times, when—in consequence of another barbers’ meeting—he was one day spirited away, and disappeared for good, being seen no more. The barbers also, in defiance of the Brahmans, appointed a priest from among their own body to do their own religious choring for them—and the Brahmans were routed all along the line. What steps were taken after this I do not know, as about that time I left the place.

When at Bombay I had another instance of how the caste-guild acts as a trade-union, and to check competition among its members. I was wanting to buy some specimens of brass-work, and walking down a street where I knew there were a number of brass-workers’ shops, was surprised to find them all closed. I then proposed to my companion, who was a Hindu, that we should go to another street where there were also brass-workers’ shops; but he said it would be no good, as he believed this was a half-holiday of the brass-workers’ caste. “But,” I said, “if it is a half-holiday, there may yet be some who will keep their shops open in order to get the custom.” “Oh, no,” he replied with a smile at my ignorance, “they would not do that; it would be against all caste rules.”

Thus we see that the caste-system contains valuable social elements, and ancient as it is may even teach us a lesson or two in regard to the organization of trades.

When we come to the other great feature of Indian social life, Communism, we find it existing under three great forms—agricultural, caste, and family communism. Of the first of these—agricultural communism—I know personally but little, having had no opportunity of really studying the agricultural life. The conditions of village tenure vary largely all over India, but apparently in every part there may be traced more or less distinctly the custom of holding lands in common, as in the primitive village life of Germany and England. In most Indian villages there are still extensive outlying lands which are looked upon as the property of the community; and of the inlying and more settled lands, their cultivation, inheritance, etc., are largely ruled by common custom and authority. Maine, however, points out in his Village Communities that the sense of individual property, derived from contact with the West, is even now rapidly obliterating these ancient customs of joint tenure.

Of the second, the caste communism, I have already spoken. It no doubt is less strongly marked than it was; but still exists, not certainly as an absolute community of goods, but as a community of feeling and interest, and some degree of mutual assistance among the members of the caste. The third is the family communism; and this is still pretty strongly marked, though the first beginnings of its disintegration are now appearing.

In speaking of the Family it must be understood that a much larger unit is meant than we should denote by the term—comparatively distant relations being included; and there seems to be a tacit understanding that the members of this larger Family or Clan have a claim on each other, so that any one in need can fairly expect support and assistance from the others, and without feeling humiliated by receiving it. This has its good side—in the extended family life and large-heartedness that it produces, as well as in its tendency to keep wealth distributed and to prevent people playing too much for their own hands; but it has its drawbacks, chiefly in the opportunity it affords to idle “ne’er-do-weels” to sponge upon their friends.

I have mentioned the case (p. 90) of a young man who came to read English with me in Ceylon, and who, though married and having children, turned out to be living with and dependent on his parents. I must not speak of this as a case of a ne’er-do-weel, as the fellow was genuinely interested in literature, and was in the habit of giving lectures on philosophy in his native place—and if one began calling such people names, one might not know where to stop; but to our Western notions it was a curious arrangement. Certainly a Bengali gentleman whom I met one day complained to me very bitterly of the system. He said that he was in an official position and receiving a moderate salary, and the consequence was that his relatives all considered him a fair prey. He not only had his own wife and children, and his father and mother, to support—of which he would not make a grievance; but he had two or three younger brothers, who though of age had not yet found anything to do, and were calmly living on at his cost; and besides these there were two aunts of his, who had both married one man. The husband of the aunts had died leaving one of them with children, and now he, the complainant, was expected to provide for both aunts and children, besides the rest of his family already mentioned! To a man once bitten with the idea of “getting on” in the Western sense of the word, one can imagine how galling it must be to have indefinite strings of relations clinging around one’s neck; and one can guess how forcibly the competitive idea is already beginning to act towards the disruption of family communism.

In Calcutta and other places I noticed considerable numbers of grown youths loafing about with nothing to do, and apparently with no particular intention of doing anything as long as their friends would support them. And this no doubt is a great evil, but I think it would be hardly fair to lay it all at the door of the family communal habits. It is rather to the contact of the old communal life with the new order of things, and to the dislocation of the former which ensues, that we must attribute the evil. For under the old order a youth growing up would no doubt, by the obligations of his caste, religion, etc., have his duties and calling so distinctly set out for him, that the danger of his giving himself up to idleness and infringing on the hospitality of his family would seldom arise; but now the commercial and competitive régime, while loosening his old caste and religious sanctions, often leaves him quite unprovided with any opening in life—indeed forbids him an opening except at the cost of a struggle with his fellows—and so tempts him to relapse into a state of dependence.

The closeness of the family tie still subsisting is, when all is said, a beautiful thing. The utmost respect is accorded to parents; and to strike a father or mother is (as I think I have already remarked) an almost unheard-of crime. I was much impressed in talking to Justice Telang at Bombay by the way in which he spoke of his parents. I had asked him whether he intended coming over to England for the National Congress—to be held in London in 1893—and reply was that he should like to, but his parents “would not let him” (no doubt on account of the loss of caste in crossing the sea). This from a man of forty, and one of the leading Mahrattas, indeed one of the most influential politicians in Bombay, was sufficiently striking; but it was said with a tenderness that made one feel that he would forego almost anything rather than wound those of whom he spoke.

Thus as in the social progress of the West the sword descending divides, with often painful estrangement, brother from sister, and child from parent; so is it also in the East. Only that in the East the closeness of the parental tie makes the estrangement more odious and more painful, and adds proportionately to the obstacles which lie in the path of progress.