Recent research has demonstrated beyond a shadow of doubt that the Brahmins were not the aborigines of India. At some remote period of antiquity probably more than 3,000 years ago, the Aryan progenitors of the present Brahmin race descended upon the plains of Hindoo Koosh, and other adjoining tracts. According to Dr. Pritchard, the Ethnologist, they were an off-shoot of the great Indo-European race, from whom the Persians, Medes and other Iranian nations in Asia and the principal nations in Europe like- wise are descended. The affinity existing between the Zend, the Presian and Sanskrit languages, as also between all the European languages, unmistakably points to a common source of origin. It appears also more than probable that the original cradle of this race being an arid, sandy and mountainous region and one ill calculated to afford them the sustenance which their growing wants required, they branched off into colonies, East and West.
The extreme fertility of the soil in India, its rich productions, the proverbial wealth of its people and the other innumerable gifts which this favoured land enjoys, and which have more recently tempted the cupidity of the Western nations, no doubt, attracted the Aryans, who came to India, not as simple emigrants with peaceful intentions of colonisation, but as conquerors.
CUNNING & ARROGANT ARYANS
They appear to have been a race imbued with very high notions of self, extremely cunning, arrogant and bigoted. Such self-gratulatory, pride-flattering epithets as Arya, Bhoodev etc. with which they designed themselves, confirm us in our opinion of their primitive character, which they have preserved up to the present time, with, perhaps, little change for the better. The aborigines whom the Aryans subjugated, or displaced, appear to have been a hardy and brave people from the determined front which they offered to these interlopers. Such opprobrious term as Sudra insignificant, the great foe, etc. with which they designated them, undoubtedly show that originally, they offered the greatest resistance in their power to their establishing themselves in the country, and hence the great aversion and hatred in which they are held.
From many customs traditionally handed down to us, as well as from the mythological legends contained in the sacred books of the Brahmins, it is evident that there had been a hard struggle for ascendancy between the two races.
The wars of Devas and Daityas, or the Rakshasas, about which so many fictions are found scattered over the sacred books of the Brahmins, have certainly a reference to this primeval struggle.
The original inhabitants with whom these earth-born gods, the Brahmins, fought were not inappropriately termed Rakshas, that is the protectors of the land. The incredible and foolish legends regarding their form and shape are no doubt mere chimeras, the fact being that these people were superior stature and hardy make.
PARASHURAMA’S CRUELTIES
Under such leaders as Brahma, Purshram and others the Brahmins waged very protracted wars against the original inhabitants. They eventually succeeded in establishing their supremacy and subjugating the aborigines to their entire control. Accounts of these conguests, enveloped with a mass of incredible fiction are found in the books of the Brahmins.
In some instances, they were compelled to emigrate, and in others wholesale extermination was resorted to. The cruelties which the European settlers practiced on the American Indians on their first settlement in the new world, had certainly their parallel in India on the advent of the Aryans and their subjugation of the aborigines.
The cruelties and inhuman which Purshram atrocities committed on the Kshetrias, the people of this land, if we are to believe even one tenth of what the legends say regarding him, surpass our belief and show that he was more a fiend than a god.
Perhaps in the whole range of history it is scarcely possible to meet with such another character as that of Purshram, so selfish, infamous, cruel and in human.
The deeds of Nero, Alaric or Machiavelli sink into insignificance before the ferocity of Purshram. The myriads of men and defenceless children whom he butchered, simply with a view to the establishment of his co- religionists on a secure and permanent basis in this land, is a fact for which generations ought to execrate his name, rather than deify it.
This, in short, is the history of Brahmin domination in India. They originally settled on the banks of the Ganges whence they gradually spread over the whole of India. In order, however, to keep a better hold on the people they devised that weird system of mythology, the ordination of caste and the code or cruel and inhuman laws to which we can find no parallel amongst other nations. They founded a system of priestcraft so galling in its tendency and operation, the like of which we can hardly find anywhere since the times of the Druids.
SUPREME HATRED
The institution of caste, which has been the main object of their laws, had no existence among them originally. That it was an after- creation of their deep cunning is evident from their own writings. The highest rights, the highest privileges and gifts, and everything that would make the life of a Brahmin easy, smooth going and happy-everything that would conserve or flatter their self-pride, — were specially inculcated and enjoined, whereas the sudras and atisudras were regarded with supreme hatred and contempt, and the commonest rights of humanity were denied them. Their touch, nay, even their shadow, is deemed a pollution. They are considered as mere chattels, and their life of no more value than that of meanest reptile; for it is enjoined that if a Brahmin, “kill a cat or an ichneumon, the bird Chasha, or a frog or a dog, a lizard, an owl, a crow or a sudra“, he is absolved of his sin by performing a fasting penance, perhaps for a few hours or a day and requiring not much labour or trouble.
ENLIGHTENED BRITISH RULERS
While for a sudra to kill a Brahmin is considered the most heinous offence he could commit, and the forfeiture of his life is the only punishment his crime is considered to merit. Happily, for our sudra brethren of the present day our enlightened British rulers have recognized these not preposterous, inhuman and unjust penal enactments of the Brahmin legislators. They no doubt regard them more as ridiculous fooleries than as equitable laws. Indeed, no man possessing even a grain of common sense would regard them as otherwise. Anyone who feels disposed to look a little more into the laws and ordinances as embodied in the Manava Dharma Shastra and other works of the same class, would undoubtedly be impressed with the deep cunning underlying them all. it may not, perhaps, be out of place to cite here a few more instances in which the superiority or excellence of the Brahmins is held and enjoined on pain of divine displeasure:
(Then he cites 12 instances of Brahmin superiority. We have deleted this passage as all readers of DV are experts with It Brahminical law — EDITOR).
would be needless to go on multiplying instances such as these. Hundreds of similar ordinances including many more of a worse character than these can be found scattered over their books. But what can have been the motives and objects of such cruel and inhuman laws? They are, | believe, apparent to all but to the infatuated, the blind and the self-interested. Anyone who runs may read them.
FABRICATING FALSEHOODS
Their main object in fabricating these falsehoods was to dupe the minds of the ignorant and to rivet firmly on them the chains of perpetual bondage and slavery which their selfishness and cunning had forged. The severity of the laws as affecting the sudras and the intense hatred with which they were regarded by the Brahmins can be explained on no other supposition but that there was, originally between the two, the deadly feud, arising as we have shown above, from the advent of the latter into this land. It is surprising to think what a mass of specious fiction these interlopers invented with a view to holding the original occupiers of the soil fast in their clutches and working on their credulity, rule securely for ages yet to come.
Anyone who will consider well the whole history of Brahmin domination in India, and the thraldom under which it has retained the people even up to the present-day, will agree with us in thinking that no language could be too harsh by which to characterize heartlessness the and selfish the consummate cunning of the Brahmin tyranny by which India has been so long governed.
How far the Brahmins have succeeded in their endeavours to enslave the minds of the sudras and atisudras, those of them who have come to know the true state of matters know well to their cost. For generations past they have borne these chains of slavery and bondage. Innumerable Bhut writers, with the selfsame objects as those of Menu and others of his class, added from time to time to the existing mass of legends, the idle phantasies of their own brains, and palmed them off upon the ignorant masses as of Divine inspiration, or as the acts of the Deity himself. The most immoral, inhuman, unjust actions and deeds have been attributed to that being who is our creator, governor and protector, and who is all holiness himself.
These blasphemous writings, the products of the distempered brains of these interlopers, were received as gospel truths, for to doubt them was considered as the most unpardonable of sins.
SYSTEM OF SLAVERY
This system of slavery, to which the Brahmins reduced the lower classes is in no respects inferior to that which obtained a few years ago in America. In the days of rigid Brahmin dominarcy, so lately as that of the time of the Peshwa, my sudra brethren had even greater hardships and oppression practised upon them than what even the slaves in America had to suffer. To this system of selfish superstition and bigotry, we are to attribute the stagnation and all the evils under which India has been groaning for many centuries past. It will, indeed, be difficult to name a single advantage which accrued to the aborigines from the advent of this intensely selfish and tyrannical sect. The Indian Ryot (the sudra and atisudra) has been in fact a proverbial Milch Cow. He has passed from hand to hand. Those who successively held sway over him cared only to fatten themselves on the sweat of his brow, without caring for his welfare or condition. It was sufficient for their purposes that they held him safe in their clutches to squeeze out of him as much as they possibly could.
CROOKED BRAHMIN BRAIN
The Brahmin had at last so contrived to entwine himself round the sudra in every large or small undertaking, in every domestic or public business, that the latter is by custom quite unable to transact any concern of moment without his aid. This is even true at the present time. While the sudra on the other hand is so far reconciled to the Brahmin yoke, that like the American slave he would resist any attempt that may be made for his deliverance and fight even against his benefactor.
Under the guise of religion, the Brahmin has his finger in everything, big or small, which the Sudra undertakes. Go to his house, to his field or to the court to which business may invite him, the Brahmin is there under some specious pretext or other, trying to squeeze out of him as much as his cunning and wily brain can manage.
The Brahmin despoils the Sudra not only in his capacity of a priest but does so in a variety of other ways. Having by his superior education and cunning monopolized all the higher places of emolument, the ingenuity of his ways is past finding out, as the reader will find on an attentive perusal of this book. In the most insignificant village as in the largest town, the Brahmin is all in all; the be all and the end all the Riot. He is the master, the ruler. The Patel of a village, the headman, is in fact a nonentity.
The Koolkurnee, the hereditary Brahmin village accountant, the notorious quarrel-monger, moulds the Patell according to his wishes.
He is the temporal and spiritual adviser of the riots, the Soucar in his necessities and the general referee in all matters. In most instances he plans active mischief by advising opposite parties differently, so that he may feather his own nest well. If we go up higher, to the Court of a Mamluttadar, we find the same thing. The first anxiety of a Mamlutdar is to get round him, if not his own relatives, his castemen to fill the various offices under him.
BRAHMINS FOMENT QUARRELS
These actively foment quarrels and are the media of all corrupt practices prevailing generally round these courts. If a Sudra or Atisudra repairs to his Courts, the treatment which he receives is akin to what the meanest reptile gets. Instead of his case receiving patience and careful hearing, a choice of abuse is showered on his devoted head, and his prayer is set aside on some pretext or other. Whereas if one of his own castemen were to repair to the Court on the self- same business, he is received with all courtesy, and there is hardly any time lost in getting the matter right. If we go up still higher to the Collector’s and Revenue Commissioner’s courts and to the other Departments of the Public Service, the Engineer, Educational etc., the same system is carried out on a smaller or greater scale. The higher European officers generally view men and things through Brahmin spectacles and hence the deplorable ignorance they often exhibit in forming a correct estimate of them. I have tried to place before my readers in the concluding portions of this book what expedients are employed by these Brahmin officials for fleecing the Coonbee in the various departments to which business or his necessities induce him to resort. Anyone knowing intimately the workings of the different departments, and the secret springs which are in motion, will unhesitatingly concur with me in saying that what I have described in the following pages is not one hundrendth part of the rogueries that are generally practiced on my poor, illiterate and ignorant Sudra brethren.
Though the Brahmin of the old Peishwa school is not quite the same as the Brahmin of the present day, though the march of Western ideas and civilization is undoubtedly telling on his superstition and bigotry, he has not yet abandoned his time- cherished notions of superiority or the dishonesty of his ways. The beef, the mutton, the intoxicating beverages stronger and fierier than the famed somarasa, which their ancestors once relished, as the veriest dainties, are fast finding innumerable votaries among them.
INDIA WON’T ADVANCE UNDER BRAHMINS
The Brahmin of the present time finds to some extent, like Othello, that his occupation is gone. But knowing full well this state of matters, is the Brahmin inclined to make atonement for his past selfishness? Perhaps it would have been useless to reprimand people over what has been suffered and what has passed away, had the present state been all that is desirable. We know perfectly well that the Brahmin will not descend from his self-raised high pedestal and meet his Coonbee and low caste brethren on an equal footing without struggle. Even the educated Brahmin who knows his exact position and how he has come by it, will not condescend to acknowledge the errors of his forefathers and willingly forego the long cherished false notions of his own superiority. At present, not one has the moral courage to do what only duty demands, and as long as this continues, one sect distrusting and degrading another sect, the condition of the Sudras will remain unaltered, and India never advance in greatness or prosperity.
DON’T ENCOURAGE HIGHER EDUCATION
Perhaps a part of the blame for bringing matters to this crisis may be justly laid to the credit of the Government. Whatever may have been their motives in providing ample funds and grater facilities for higher education and neglecting that of the masses, it will be acknowledged by all that in justice to the latter this is not as it should be. It is an admitted fact that the greater portion of the revenues of the Indian Empire are derived from the Ryot’s labour – from the sweat of his brow. The higher and richer classes contribute little or nothing to the state’s exchequer. A well-informed English writer states that: “Our income is derived, not from surplus profits, but from capital, not from luxuries but from the poorest necessaries. It is the product of sin and tears”.
That government should expend profusely a large portion of revenue thus raised on the education of the higher classes, for it is these only who take advantage of it, is anything but just or equitable.
Their object in patronizing this virtual high-class education appears to be to prepare scholars. Who, it is thought, would in time vend learning without money and without price. If we can inspire, say ¥ they the love of knowledge in the minds of the superior classes, the result will be a higher standard of morals in the cases of the individuals, a large amount of affection for the British Government and art unconquerable desire to spread among their own countrymen the intellectual blessings which they have received.
Regarding these objects of Government the writer, above alluded to, states that: –
BRAHMIN MONOPOLY OF HIGHER EDUCATION
“We have never heard of philosophy more benevolent and more utopian. It is proposed by men who witness the wondrous changes brought about in the Western world, purely by the agency of popular knowledge, to redress the defects of the two hundred million of India, by giving superior education to the superior classes and to them only”….
“We ask the friends of Indian Universities to favour us with a single example of the truth of their theory from the instances which have already fallen within the scope of their experience. They have educated many children of wealthy men, and have been the means of advancing very materially the worldly prospects of some of their pupils; but what contribution have these made to the great work of regenerating their fellowmen? How have they begun to act upon the masses? Have any of them formed classes at their own homes or elsewhere, for the instruction of their less fortunate or less wise countrymen? Or have they kept their knowledge to themselves, as a personal gift, not to be soiled by contact with the ignorant vulgar? Have they anyway shown themselves anxious to advance the general interests and repay philanthropy with patriotism? Upon what grounds is it asserted that the best way to advance the moral and intellectual welfare of the people is to raise the standard of instruction among the higher classes? A glorious argument this for aristocracy, were it only tenable. To show the growth of the national happiness, it would only be necessary to refer to the number of pupils at the colleges and the lists of academic degrees. Each wrangler would be accounted a national benefactor, and the existence of deans and Proctors would be associated, like the game laws and the tenpound franchise, with the best interests of the Constitution.”
SUDRAS DUPED
Perhaps the most glaring tendency of the Government system of high-class education has been the virtual monopoly of all the higher offices under them by the Brahmins. If the welfare of the Ryot is at heart if it is the duty of Government to check a host of abuses, it behoves them to narrow this monopoly, day by day, to allow a sprinkling of the other castes to get into the public service. Perhaps some might be inclined to say that it is not feasible in the present state of education.
Our only reply is that if Government look a little less after higher education and more towards the education of the masses, the former being able to take care of itself, there would be no difficulty in training up a body of men every way qualified and perhaps far better in morals and manners.
My object in writing the present volume is not only to tell my Sudra brethren how they have been duped by the Brahmins but also to open the eyes of Government to that pernicious system of high class education which has hitherto been so persistently followed and which statesmen like Sir George Campbell, the present Lieutenant Governor of Bengal, with broad and universal sympathies, are finding to be highly mischievous and pernicious to the interests of Government.
AWAY WITH BRAHMIN TEACHERS
I sincerely hope that Government will ere long see the error of their ways, trustless to writers or men who look through high class spectacles and take the glory into their own hands of emancipating my Sudra brethren from the trammels of bondage which the Brahmins have woven round them like the coils of a serpent. It is no less the duty of such of my Sudra brethren as have received any education to place before Government the true state of their fellowmen and endeavour to the bet of their power to emancipate themselves from Brahmin thraldom.
Let there be schools for the Sudras in every village; but away with all Brahmin schoolmasters.
The Sudras are the life and sinews of the country, and it is to them alone and not to the Brahmins that the Government must ever look to tide them over their difficulties, financial as well as political. If the hearts and minds of the Sudras are made happy and contented the British Government need have no fear for their loyalty in the future.
