DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.636#0484
474 Caste in relation to Trades and Industries.
India, caste has been useful in promoting self-sacrifice, in
securing subordination of the individual to an organized body,
in restraining from vice, in preventing pauperism. And
certainly the antagonism of these caste associations and trade
leagues has helped us to govern the country by making
political combinations impracticablel. Our wisest policy will
be to convert caste from a master into a servant; to defeat
its evil action, not so much by forcible suppression as by the
gradual application of corrective influences; to counteract its
false teaching by imparting true ideas of liberty—true principles
of political economy, social science, and morality; to supplant
its tyrannical enactments by considerate legislation, based on
the ancient laws and customs of the country; to make its
hard support and iron grasp needless by helping the masses
to ameliorate their own condition, and stimulating them to
improve their own national arts, trades, and industries in their
own way. By doing this will England best fulfil her mission;
best discharge her sacred trust; best advance the cause of
religion and justice; best promote the well-being and con-
ciliate the affections of the countless millions of her Eastern
Empire.
1 The great diversity of languages and dialects, numbering at least
200—not to mention religious and sectarian differences which accompany
caste—is doubtless another great element of safety. It may be well,
however, to point out that the increasing employment of English as a
common medium of communication among an increasing number of
intelligent natives educated by us in every separate district and pro-
vince of India, is contributing in no small degree towards making
national union possible, and towards weakening the wall of partition
hitherto strengthened by linguistic divergences.
India, caste has been useful in promoting self-sacrifice, in
securing subordination of the individual to an organized body,
in restraining from vice, in preventing pauperism. And
certainly the antagonism of these caste associations and trade
leagues has helped us to govern the country by making
political combinations impracticablel. Our wisest policy will
be to convert caste from a master into a servant; to defeat
its evil action, not so much by forcible suppression as by the
gradual application of corrective influences; to counteract its
false teaching by imparting true ideas of liberty—true principles
of political economy, social science, and morality; to supplant
its tyrannical enactments by considerate legislation, based on
the ancient laws and customs of the country; to make its
hard support and iron grasp needless by helping the masses
to ameliorate their own condition, and stimulating them to
improve their own national arts, trades, and industries in their
own way. By doing this will England best fulfil her mission;
best discharge her sacred trust; best advance the cause of
religion and justice; best promote the well-being and con-
ciliate the affections of the countless millions of her Eastern
Empire.
1 The great diversity of languages and dialects, numbering at least
200—not to mention religious and sectarian differences which accompany
caste—is doubtless another great element of safety. It may be well,
however, to point out that the increasing employment of English as a
common medium of communication among an increasing number of
intelligent natives educated by us in every separate district and pro-
vince of India, is contributing in no small degree towards making
national union possible, and towards weakening the wall of partition
hitherto strengthened by linguistic divergences.