The Outcastes' hope, or, Work among the depressed classes in India

Front matter

^ OFPBI*^

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I

Contents

PAGE

Editorial Note iii

Author’s Preface ....... v

Chapter I Who Are The Outcastes ?

SUMMARY

How India Esteems the OuffCASTE

The Outcaste’s Rights: His Inability to use Them

Famous Outcastes

(a) Their Origin {b) Their Numbers \c) Their Distribution The Condition of the Outcastes —

{a) Degradation {b) Poverty

{c) The Effects of Famine (cf) The Burden of Debt

Government Efforts on the Outcaste’s Behalf versus a Corrupt Public Opinion The Outcaste’s Religion Alleviations of the Outcaste’s Lot A Challenge

“ That’s not the village, that’s the paracheri ” (t.e. the How India place where the pariahs live). You have seen at a little distance two groups of thatched houses nestling among palm trees, and when you point to one and ask what village it is, such is the answer you will receive. There is a world of suggestiveness in the tone in wlrich it is given. It means that that place is not to be dignified with a n^e of its own; it is a mere appendix to the: other group of houses, which may be a much smaller group and yet is what counts as the village. The man born in the outcaste village may as soon think of building his house in the other group as a pig may think of going to live in his master’s front room. The common proverbial speech of the land says, “ The palmyra tree has no shade, and the pariah has no decency ” : “A pariah needs a stick three times as long as himself to keep him in order ” : “ Only if he is beaten will the pariah get sense ” : “ Though seventy years of age, the pariah will only do what he is compelled to do.” i

That is how India has thought of the pariah, and

how India has treated him. Before Christ, had told the world that the heavenly Father cares for each j

“little one,” Manu had told India that the low caste 1 man was created to be the slave of Brahmans. As

to certain classes of outcastes he had laid down the

following regulations: — “The abode of -a Chandala and a Swapaca must be out of the town ; they must not have the use of entire vessels ; their sole wealth must be dogs and asses. Their clothes must be the mantles of the deceased ; their dishes for food, broken pots ; their ornaments, rusty iron ; continually must they roam from place to place. Let no man, who regards his duty, religious and civil, hold any intercourse with them ; let their transactions be confined to themselves, and their marriages be only between equals. Let food be given to them in potsherds, but not by the hand of the giver and let them not walk by night in cities and towns.” Manu’s code fortunately is out of date in modern India, but the spirit that could treat even the lowest of human beings as Manu commanded them to be treated is still living and is still a curse in India.

WHO ARE THE OUTCASTES?

The system of caste, which presses so heavily on the mriah, is a rigid division of society into sections between vhich there may be neither intermarriage, social intercourse, nor any contact. It depends entirely on heredity ;

I I man is bom into the caste of his fathers and naturally ollows their craft, trade, or profession. No one not bom r n the caste can be admitted to it, though any member of f t may be ejected if he breaks his caste rules, which chiefly 1 loncern marriage, food, and bathing. Such a man becomes . in outcaste and is cut off from his family and caste fellows. i. laste rests on a religious basis : the four chief castes i priests, [warriors, merchants, and cultivators) are popularly ( upposed to have been born from BrShma the Creator, and : he Brahmans (members of the priestly caste) are worshipped 5 gods by all others. The four original castes have been Mihost endlessly subdivided, but beneath even the lowest lil them are the millions of outcastes with whom this book !!eals.

I “ But,” someone at once feels inclined to say, “ there is Ijaste in England. Will an army man have social intercourse with a tradesman ? Is not the professional man ften ready to regard himself as made of different clay from 'i;he manual labourer ? ” Certainly ; and it is a thousand jities that it is so. But it would be a complete confusion |f terms to regard what goes under the name of caste in lilngland as in any way equivalent to caste in India. The ;.rmy man is quite aware that sons of successful tradesmen frequently become officers, and he sees in that no fearful jtreach of the laws of nature. If the professional man one I'ay by accident took his food with a manual labourer he Vould not consider his social standard ruined and his •erson defiled. Even where English “ caste ” is said most 0 prevail there is nothing absolutely rigid about it ; one ‘ caste ” at its borders imperceptibly fades off into anoth»

The

Outcaste’s Rig;hts : his Inability to use them.

** caste,” and it is quite possible to move from one class' into another. But in India the bounds of caste are of I steel; and as soon may a black puppy-dog be changed ^ into a white one as a barber become a Brahman. That is : the exact comparison used in one of the best-known populai stories in India.

Everyone who knows village life in India knows that while in the eye of the British law and according to all the rules of British administration, the outcaste has equal rights with men of all castes, in point of fact there is many a village post-office and many a government courthouse in which he dare not set his foot. He cannot wear his loin-cloth so that it hangs below the knee. He must' stand in a servile posture in the presence of every village head-man. If by some rare good fortune he has gained a, i little piece of land, he cannot retain the ownership of it , without constant watchfulness and struggle against en-'-i croachments and plots by his caste neighbours.

One of the few Indian gentlemen who has seriously cared' about the condition of the depressed classes and has worked hard for their elevation, recently addressed a number of their; head-men in Mangalore on the West Coast. Here are some extracts from his speech which give us an idea of the? treatment accorded to the outcastes : — “ And what are you now, ye descendants of Nanda (an ancient honoured king) ? You have no lands, no house and garden, no money wherewith to eat what you like and put on the raiment you want. You are absolutely without education. Your approach is considered unholy, and even your shadow is hated. Men touch dogs and pigs, but they won’t touch you, ye descendants of Nanda ; you are called pariahs. A' land-owner selling his lands to another sells you and yours to the vendee, whose property you become. A land-owner in need of money pledges you for four or six rupees, and

WHO ARE THE OUTCASTES?

I until the pledge is redeemed you are the property of the I pawnee ! You are all called by that abominable term r pariah. Among the higher caste people it is a term of ’ abuse. A liar or a thief, a drunkard or a traitor who is to be rebuked is called pariah I The benign British Govern- I ment is kind towards you ; it pities you and wants you to be called by the more honourable name of panchamas (fifth caste). When you are beaten severely you go to the petition-writer, pay him and get the complaint written. He gets money from you for the court fee required for complaint and for process to witnesses, puts the complaint and the stamps in a cover before you, and asks you to drop the cover in the post-office letter-box, assuring you that you and your witnesses will get notices from the magistrate shortly.

As without your knowing it, the cover is addressed to the petition-writer himself, it is delivered to himself the next day and you expect for months together to get orders from the magistrate and finally blame the Government that it is indifferent towards you ! 1 ”

It is a fact that in Travancore the PulSyans and Pariahs, whose near approach is sufficient, long before contact is reached, to pollute the high castes, were, within the memory of men still living, the slaves of the land-owner, bought and sold with the land. To this day, although the letter of the law is on their side, custom and popular prejudice deny them^ the free use of the public roads, bridges, and ferries, and the law itself is not strong enough to secure them free access to the law-courts and schools.

Yet here is a remarkable fact, that in spite of all this Famous cruel repression some outcastes have been people of whom Outcastes India to-day is proud. The poet whose concise, brilliant couplets are more quoted in the Tamil country to-day than any others himself belonged to the people roughly denoted

Who are the Outcastes ?

(a) Their Origin.

in the newspapers as the “untouchables/^ and the poetess whose words are recited in schools throughout the same area is said to have been his sister. Among the worshippers of Siva, one outcaste, Nanda,i has been deified and is worshipped to-day. These examples alone, coupled with the results which have already been obtained by Christian Missions to the depressed classes, are sufficient to show that the outcastes are degraded more through lack of opportunity than through lack of capacity for good. As a matter of fact, when outcaste children to-day are given equal educational opportunities with their caste brothers and sisters, they usually show quite equal capacity for improvement. But it is just the equal opportunity which is so hard to secure for them in the present state of Hindu ^ society. Imagine an infinitely strong trades’ union with its whole strength turned mercilessly against a particular class of workers, and you will have a faint idea of how the caste system presses upon the pariah.

The question naturally arises, “ Who are these outcastes ? How did they come in- the first place to occupy their present position ? How many of them are there, and in what parts of India are they chiefly to be found ? ” Unfortunately most of these questions cannot yet be answered with any certainty. The origin of the pariah and other outcastes is one of the hitherto unsolved problems of ethnology. It is generally thought that they represent races with a long past, that a thousand years ago pariahs were respectable, that many of them were weavers and that they had very ancient rights in the land. If this be correct

^ See p. 4.

* The word “Hindu” means strictly speaking an adherent of the Hindu religion. It is often used loosely in England as if equivalent to the word “ Indian,” in such a phrase as “ Hindu Christians,” which is really a contradiction in terms. Throughout this book it is intended in its religious meaning, the word “ Indian ” covering all other meanings.

WHO ARE THE OUTCASTES?

and the pariahs represent ancient races which have come down in the world, not only has the work of raising theni from their present low level a special interest, but also it is easier to understand why they show such marked capacity for improvement when the right influences are brought to bear upon them.

And how many outcastes are there ? It is difficult (b) Their to give an exact number. We have to count not only the Pariahs, Malas, and Madigas in the South, but many people in similar positions in the North — the Chamars, Chuhras, Dorns, aboriginal or hill tribes such as the Kols and Santals, and many more. Broadly speaking, there are about fifty million outcastes in India : truly we are not dealing with an insignificant number.

There are more people belonging to the depressed classes in India than there are men, women, and children in Great Britain and Ireland. They are scattered over all parts of (c) Their India, and differ very much from one another in language ^isf^'ibution. and customs, yet everywhere we find amongst them the same common features of poverty and degradation, due to the contemptuous treatment they suffer at the hands of the caste people. As the type of them all I shall be speaking in this book mainly of the pariah of the Madras Presidency because I know him best, but shall take care to say only such things as are, according to the testimony of missionaries from every part of India, true of the depressed classes generally. .

In these pages therefore “ the pariah ” will stand for the vast multitude of the outcastes as a whole. It is a host of fifty* millions of our fellow-men in India whose cry goes up before God by reason of their oppressions. Caste is their Pharaoh saying, “ Who is the Lord that I should hearken unto his voice to let them go ? ” But Moses has come ;

Pharaoh is seeing strange miracles, and the Lord is preparing to bring them out of bondage by their hosts.

The Condition of the Outcastes.

(a) Degradation.

(b) Poverty.

After what has been said it will surprise no one to hear that the “ untouchables ” have sunk into deep degradation. Their houses are usually filthy hovels, and it is exceptional for them to contain more than one room, in which the whole family of both sexes sleeps at night. Look at the illustration facing page 3. Not a few of their customs are unfit for detailed description. Many of them eat carrion, some subdivisions of them eat rats. The writer will not easily forget seeing one day in a time of scarcity a buffalo which had fallen dead in a field round which scores of pariahs from the nearest village were crowding, hacking great lumps from the carcase and rushing home with their booty. From a little distance the sight was exactly like that of flies swarming over a piece of rotten meat. According to the Government census of 1901, 99.5 per cent, of the pariahs can neither read nor write. This, of course, excludes those who have become Christians. Most of them are terribly addicted to drink, their chief beverage being “ toddy ” (the fermented juice of the palmyra tree), a liquor both cheap and very intoxicating, so that a man can get thoroughly drunk for three half-pence. Statistics show that alcoholic drinking of all kinds and among all classes is seriously increasing in India, but as there are no separate figures for the lower classes it is impossible to say how much of the increase is due to them, though it is a common impression of Christian workers among them that they are drinking more than ever in these days. Not long ago a fisherman in a village on the seacoast near Madras made a lucky haul, and in a single night caught about £10 worth of fish, an amount fabulous according to his modest standards. The sole result of this good fortune was that for a full fortnight afterwards there was not a sober man in two whole villages.

And yet there are many times when these poverty-

WHO ARE THE OUTCASTES ?

1 stricken people are forced to be sober by sheer lack of the ; wherewithal to be anything else. Most of them are agri- I cultural labourers and have no land of their own. They I are commonly paid a daily wage of twopence or three- I pence in addition to a little food at midday. As long as this wage is steadily coming in a man will manage to feed himself and his wife and family on it, and he will lead a very cheerful life. But there are several months in the year in which there is practically no work to be done on the land. After the harvest has been reaped and threshed

I the hot weather comes on ; there is neither ploughing nor ^ sowing to be done and the ground is as hard as iron.

Then the outcaste has to wander away to look for work,

II carrying stones for some Government road near his village, II or going to the nearest seaport town to load coal or work ? in a tannery, or do any other unskilled labour which is ! available. Often for a week together he finds nothing to

do, and for months even of a very normal year he and his family have to live on one meal of grain per diem. Then i some year there is a partial failure of the monsoon, and the crops are very scanty, so that less field labour is required. The coolie is poorer and hungrier than ever ; his little boy’s ribs are more conspicuous and his stomach strangely j protuberant, because he has been eating every unwholesome scrap of food he could come across. The next year the monsoon fails altogether, the fields are baked and bare of i even a blade of grass. All the earth-works, the mending of the hand or bank damming up the great reservoir for the water of the rainy season, the digging of wells, the clearing away of cactus bushes^ the mending of roads — all these have been finished and the money for them has all been spent by the local authbrities.

Then it is that England begins to hear that in some part of India there is famine. The news is too familiar

(c) The Effects of Famine.

lO

THE OUTCASTES’ HQPE

(d) The Burden of Debt.

to arouse widespread interest, for there is always famine somewhere in India. But it means that in thousands of houses, as the darkness comes on, the scattered members of a household who have been hungrily wandering in search of work and its reward, food, come back wearily to their home hoping that someone at least has earned a little gruel, and sometimes hoping in vain. The writer has seen a man come home late at night to a family of five persons' with a smile of triumph at his success, and all that he had brought in a filthy pot as his day’s wage was a mess of millet gruel about equivalent to the porridge which two English children take for breakfast, -and that was the sole nourishment of five persons for that twenty-four hours. The householder next door had failed altogether, and he and his family had gone hungry to bed after drinking a little salt and water at food time. No doubt in famine times the caste people also suffer acutely, in some cases even more acutely than the outcastes, just as in England the sufferings in poverty of those who try to hold their heads high and keep themselves respectable are often more acute than those of the people who make no effort to keep up appearances. -But it is a fact patent to all that in times of universal scarcity the first and the heaviest sufferers are those who depend for their maintenance upon casual labour.

It is difficult to exaggerate the grimness of the part played by famine in the life of the Indian outcaste. Even if he has an acre or two of poor land — and he is highly favoured if he has more — the probability is that after a bad season, at the next sowing *trme he has neither seed nor money to buy it. To save himself from starvation he borrows upon any terms which the village caste men like to impose. A common rate of compound interest for such small loans is that of one anna ( = id.) per rupee ( = i6 annas) per month, which works out at 75 per cent, per

WHO ARE THE OUTCASTES ?

II annum, and to get that he has to mortgage the onlysecurity which he possesses, namely, the title-deed of his . land. Add to this the fact that he cannot read or write, and that if the unscrupulous money-lender writes down on the stamped paper recording the loan thirty rupees when he has only lelit fifteen (a thing by no means uncommon), the poor borrower puts his mark at the foot and is none the wiser — and it will readily be seen how difficult it is for the depressed classes to retain ownership of land. Scarcity, debt, and his own ignorance added to both, combine to hang a millstone round the outcaste’s neck when he wishes to rise in the world. Well for him if he can retain his personal liberty.

But someone will ask, “ What is the Government doing Government to let such things be possible ? Government is doing all it can, but in such matters as this, governments are almost caste’s Behelpless. It is difficult for Englishmen in England to half uersus realize how little can be accomplished by either legislation or administration when the ordinary feelings of society Opinion, are opposed to them. We all admit, even in England, that men cannot be made sober or honest by Act of Parliament ; but it is in countries like India that we can see most plainly how a good law and a righteous administration can be completely nullified by the rottenness of the general morals of society. For example, in certain parts of India the Government offers the poor farmer on the easiest possible terms a loan to enable him to dig a well, and is ready to receive payment out of the produce of the land by instalments spread over twenty years. Surely a generous administration could go no further. Yet as a matter of fact comparatively few farmers avail themselves of the offer, for the simple reason that when they put in their application they find that it does not reach the proper quarter unless they handsomely bribe half-a-dozen of the lower-

THE OUTCASTES’ HO?E grade officials of the revenue department. It is perfectly well known in India that the laws and the upper branches of the administration are all favourable to the poor man, and yet he is oppressed at every turn, simply because average public opinion gives the law and the administration no moral support. For instance, everyone knows that the British rule condemns slavery, yet there are many viHages where in times of distress the practice still obtains among the pariahs of selling themselves and even their children into virtual slavery by a kind of man-mortgage. For a present advance of money — a pitiably small one if the pariah’s hunger is keen — he binds himself by an agreement in legal form to work for the person making the advance until it, and sometimes the interest on it, is paid off. What is still worse, he sometimes mortgages his children. In one village at such a time a reliable Indian pastor wrote that every pariah child as soon as it was born was having a price paid for it in the caste village. The caste masters were buying up the future labour of the children but newly born, much as they would add lambs to their flock.

Here is an extract from a public speech made by a responsible Mohammedan government official on the West

Coast : — “ Mr R urged on my consideration the claims

of the panchama people (the outcastes) to enter the public service, the portals of which, thanks to the just British Government, are open to all people alike. As the representation was reasonable, I appointed a panchama to a post in the Collectorate Press. This created a stir among the people in the Collector’s office, who innocently believed that the Deputy-Collector in charge of the Press was at the bottom of the unhallowed mischief. The cowardly weapon of anonymous writing was as usual ready to hand, and some anonymops petitions were received in which the Deputy-Collector was warned of the torture that awaited

WHO ARE THE OUTCASTES ?

him at the hands of Yama, the Angel of Death, for introducing a panchama amidst the caste people.’* These instances, which could be multiplied indefinitely, all go to prove that, useful as beneficent legislation can be, it is ineffective until some influence comes that changes the general attitude of society ; the greatest changes have to grow from within, and cannot be imposed from without.

And what of the pariah’s religion ? Has he any support- The ing, consoling* or strengthening faith to carry him ^

all these 'distresses 'and to mould his character so that ultimately he may overcome all the obstacles in his path ?

Alas I that is the most hopeless feature of his life. Ask for his God, and if he is in a merry mood he smacks his stomach saying that is what he worships. If he is more serious he shows you a poor hut or a platform under a neem tree, containing three bricks raised on end and smeared with saffron, perhaps with a little cocoanut-oil lamp burning in front of them. .These bricks are his god. Sometimes the idol which the pariah worships is found on inquiry to represent one of his forefathers, it may be only two or three generations back. More commonly the images or the bricks are intended to represent some female godlings sometimes called “ virgins,” sometimes “ mothers,” which have no individuality, and consequently no character.

Each village is supposed to possess its own “ mother,” though those of different villages seem to be exactly alike.

Each “ mother ” is supposed to be the guardian of the village boundaries, to protect the inhabitants and live-stock from disease, disaster, and famine, to promote the fecundity of cattle and goats, and to give children. What part these “ mothers ” really play in the pariah’s ideas it is difficult to say. Conversation reveals that in spite of appearances he really cherishes a half-latent belief in a supreme divine

M

Creator, who is far, far above the village “ mother ” and greater than any image that can be made.

Yet the undoubted fact is that neither the bricks nor the supreme Being are half so important in his notions of things as a great multitude of intermediate beings, demons or demonesses, ghosts, ghouls or goblins of all degrees of fierceness of disposition. It is these capricious, spiteful beings, always liable to be irritated, always seeking revenge for wrongs, however unintentionally committed, who really count in the life of the pariah. One month half the people in his village are lying fever-stricken ; the godless sanitar)! inspector points out “ causes ” in the filthy state of the hedges round the houses and of the village well. But the pariah knows better. There is a “ presence ” in the neem tree at the end of the street ; possessed women have said strange things ; tom-toms ‘must be beaten, cocoa-nuts and plantains must be offered, a fowl must be sacrificed, or, better still, a sheep’s head struck off at one blow under the tree, and then only will the fever cease. When cholera is paying the village a ghastly visit, the outcastes (and in this case not they only) go round and round the village boundaries in a vociferous procession *to propitiate the cholera goddess. So it is with small-pox — which is another demoness — with plague, and with every other scourge of Indian village life. In many places the pariahs celebrate an annual festival in which not only are sacrifices offered, but the blood of the sacrifices is drunk, and other revolting ceremonies are performed.

The pariah lives in dread of the supernatural. He is afraid even to yawn for fear some hateful being should gain entrance to his body. He dare not pass one street comer at noonday and another at night, for the unseen terrors that lurk there. There is no safety for him anywhere, for even if out of his hard-earned

WHO ARE THE OUTCASTES ?

wage he has spent money on a sacrifice to the demon or deity of one local shrine, he may by that very pious act have slighted and offended some other supernatural being near by, and there is no knowing what the consequences will be.

How this superstition works out in practical life may be illustrated by the following typical story from a mission report : — “ Only a week or two ago in Poonamallee a well-to-do caste Hindu, being offended at something the pariahs of the place had done, abused their goddess Ponniammal. The pariahs were terribly offended and excited at the insult to their protectoress, and at the next devil-dance three women became ‘ possessed ’ by the goddess, and, as her mouth-piece, proclaimed that she was leaving Poonamallee and would not come back until the Hindu who had abused her, and his wife and family were dead. The Hindu pretended not to mind, but his wife was frightened and every day expected some disaster. The cholera came to Poonamallee, and the goddess of cholera is the sister of the goddess Ponniammal. The poor woman of course thought this was the doing of the 'offended spirit, and in her terror took the disease and died. 'Her husband was now frightened. He began to believe [that the curse was taking effect, and he died ; and their children, innocent little beings who had done no harm to anyone, left in the infected house, died too. Of course every pariah in Poonamallee is now thoroughly convinced of the power of the goddess Ponniammal and her sister the goddess of cholera. And this is the pariah’s religion.”