Then, of course, comes the connubial ban whereby all the members of the caste are prohibited from giving any of their children in marriage to those of his household. To the Hindu who believes that marriage is not only the God-given right of every human being, but who also implicitly believes that it is a heavenly injunction whose fulfilment rests as a duty upon every father in behalf of his children, this interdict is the most oppressive of all. But it is enforced with heartless severity in every case; and any family which may defy the caste in this respect by entering into conjugal relationship with that of the one under ban, is at once outcast.
Another mighty resource of the organization, in this connection, is to interdict to the recreant member the use of all caste servants. For instance, the caste barber and washerman are commanded to serve him and his no longer. The severity of this interdiction cannot possibly be realized by westerners, who are not always dependent upon these functionaries. But in India every one depends upon the barber and washerman for their service even more than a westerner does upon the service of the butcher or the doctor. The Hindu never dreams of the possibility of doing for himself the duties performed by these caste servants for him. Moreover, the barbers and washermen of other castes would, under no circumstance, be allowed to render him the service thus prohibited to him by his own caste.
Add again to these inflictions the further one of complete isolation in times of domestic bereavement. Should a member of his family die, not one of the caste members is permitted to help in the last sacred rites for the dead. Even at that moment, when one would expect the icy barriers to melt away, the heart of caste is as hard and its severity as rigid as ever. The helplessness of a family under these circumstances is, to any one who is not a slave to the whole accursed system, most pitiful and heartrending.
Another caste penalty which has received undue public prominence of late is called prayaschitta, which means atonement. It is usually applied as punishment to those who have had the temerity to cross the ocean for foreign travel, business, or study. More correctly, it is rather a process of cleansing and ceremonial rehabilitation than an act of punishment. The exclusiveness of caste delighted in calling all foreigners Mlechhas, which, though perhaps not as vigorous a term as the Chinese sobriquet, "black devils," connoted, and still connotes, to the caste Hindu, "unclean wretches," contact with whom brings ceremonial pollution and sin. He who crossed the ocean would necessarily be debased by these defiling ones and would be, as a matter of course, engulfed in the pollutions of their life! To prohibit travel, which necessarily involved such sin and degradation, became therefore the concern of the ancient lawmakers of India. Hence the prayaschitta, under which the educated community of India chafe so much at the present time. For many of the best and most promising youth of India travel abroad or reside temporarily in England, with a view to perfecting their educational training so as to qualify themselves for highest positions of usefulness in the homeland. Others go abroad on business or to behold and study the wonders of western life and civilization. All men of culture and power in India, at the present time, are convinced of the evil and absurdity of this caste law, which is common to all castes, because it is a part of the general legislation of their religion. They decline to believe that it is either sin or pollution to go in search of the best that the West and the East have discovered and can bestow upon one, and that which is to-day doing most in the elevation and redemption of India herself. And many of them are defying this obsolete and debasing law of their faith. Many others are crying for a modern interpretation of the law—an interpretation which will explain away its bitterness and render it innocuous. For it is not simply or chiefly the reactionary and absurd character of this legislation which exasperates the intelligence of the land; it is the very offensive and revolting nature of the expiation which preëminently stirs up the rebellion. In former centuries of darkness, Hindus may have been willing to submit to the humiliation of eating the five products of the cow as an atonement for the supposed sin of sea-travel. The culture and intelligence of the present time is neither so abject nor so superstitious as to submit to this, without, at least, a vigorous protest. And yet, what the culture of India seeks to-day is not the abolishing of this law, which is equally repulsive to their taste and to their intelligence; it asks only that some way of avoiding the penalty may be found! And all that Hinduism and caste require of these foreign-travelled men is not an intelligent submission to its behests, but an outward observance of them. So the faith and its conservative defenders are satisfied to see these men of culture, as they return with the acquired treasures of the West, submit outwardly to this offensive rite, while their sensitive nature rises in rebellion against it. And these young scions of the East willingly practise this hypocrisy and submit to this indignity in order to live at peace with, and indeed to live at all in, their ancestral caste! It is only an illustration of the hollowness of the major part of the life of the educated community in this great land. Well may one exclaim, what can be expected from a people whose leading men of culture are living this double and mean life! This is verily "peace with dishonour"!
CHAPTER V
THE HINDU CASTE SYSTEM (continued)
IV
The agency through which, and the occasion upon which, caste penalizes its members are manifold.