Besant, Annie Wood: Wake up, India: a plea for social reform (Adyar, India , Krotona [i.e. Los Angeles], 1913)

system in the past; it is because the caste system of
to-day fails to meet those facts of nature, it is because
the dharma of the caste and the name of the caste are
now entirely unrelated, that the caste which was
natural has now become artificial, and that which was
a defence to Hinduism has now become a danger and
a menace to progress. Changing conditions are all
around us, and every nation is adapting itself to those
changes brought about by the inevitable progress of
evolution, which, let me remind you, is the expression
of the will of God.

Now we notice that in Indian history great re-
formers have tried practically to abolish the caste
system. You find Guru Nanak, for instance, and the
latest of the ten great Gurus of the Sikhs, Guru
Govind—you find they tried to make an equal brother-
hood without recognition of caste. You cannot read
the institution of the definite organisation of Sikhism
by the tenth Guru, without seeing that he was
sweeping away entirely all differences that could be
called differences of caste. Nevertheless, in modern
Sikhism those differences have grown up again.
Hindu reformers of more orthodox type, they also
for a time, like Chaitanya, have tried to do away with
caste; none the less it has ever returned. Even in
the Christian Church you may have noticed that there
is caste among Indian Christians as well as among
the Hindus; and quite lately in the Court some of the
Christians claimed their right to go into the chancel

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