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

292

talked over the same food. Again, when you meet
Englishmen you must meet them on terms of social
equality. You cannot do that, while your caste
keeps you separate. You have to choqse between
isolation and subjection inside your caste, or, on the
other hand, perfect political and social equality out-
side the barriers of caste. Inevitably it is coming,
whether you will or not. The Spirit of the Age is
greater than any believe who are clinging to old
customs from which the life has fled.

But you have a choice between two ways of change.
And now I venture to speak to my Brahmana
friends. There are two ways in which privilege
disappears: one when the people, who no longer
respect the privilege-holders, are angry with these
privileges which outrage their sense of justice;
and if it goes too far, you get a great uprising
like the French Revolution, and the privileged
aristocracy perish by violence and are lost in the
midst of the nation. Or you may have the wonderful
action of the privileged class in Japan, as privileged
as any of the Brahmana caste here, who, called on
for their country's sake, stripped off every privilege
they held and threw them at the feet of the Mother-
land, in order that she might become free and great.
Their privileges were even greater than the Brahmana
privileges here. They might strike down a man in
the street who they thought insulted them, striking
him down with the sword which they alone might wear.