Jawaharlal Nehru on Secularism

Jawaharlal Nehru

I shall now come to the proposal which touches upon the exchange of population. In the present context this can only mean a forcible exchange of population. As far as voluntary exchange is concerned, it is already taking place. The doors are open and people come and people go. In fact, it taking place at such a pace that we can hardly cope with it. Indeed, it has created what is called the refugee problem. Now, on the one hand, we are unable to cope with this problem because of the pace at which the voluntary exchange is taking place; on the other, it is suggested that the pace would be increased, that the process be made speedier. They say it should be a planned exchange, as if the addition of the word 'planned' makes any difference. Plan, by all means. Nobody prevents people, for instance, from rehabilitating the incoming refugees. but if we fail in this, what guarantee is there that we would succeed if ten times the present number of people should suddenly come? We are bound to fail. Planning depends on a hundred other factors. It is not confined to the question of money, though of course money is necessary. 

Apart from the principles these proposals violate, these proposals are unacceptable even from the practical point of view. In fact, far from taking us towards a solution, they take us miles away from any solution. That is why I ventured to say on the first day that I wondered if I was lacking in sanity or whether some of the honourable Members were lacking in it.

An exchange of population must be a compulsory one. It must inevitably mean sending away people who do not want to go. It means, of course, as an honorable Member acknowledge, scrapping our Constitution. Scrap it if you want to but know what you are doing. We have bandied about the word 'secular', which I dislike. It means acknowledging our inability to cope with any national problem in a civilised manner. This brutal and barbarous approach would be unique in the annals of history and, of course, completely at variance with all that the Congress has stood for. You are certainly at liberty to put an end to the Congress itself but do so with your eyes open. Such proposals shame us in the eyes of the world. They show that we are narrow, petty-minded, parochial bigots who talk of democracy and secularism but who, in fact, are totally incapable of even thinking in terms of the world or of this great country. They put us in a position in which we have to say to people who are our own fellow-citizens, 'We must put you out, because you belong to a faith different from ours'. This is a proposition which, if it is followed, will mean the ruin of India and the annihilation of all that we stand for and have stood for. I repeat that we will resist such a proposition with all our strength, we will fight it in houses, in fields and in market places. It will be fought in the council chambers and the streets, for we shall not let India be slaughtered at the altar of bigotry.

This is an excerpt from Jawaharlal Nehru’s reply to debate on the Bengal situation in Parliament, New Delhi, August 9, 1950

Courtesy: Jawaharlal Nehru’s Speeches 1949-1953 

Publications Division,Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India

First Published 1954, Fourth Impression, June 1967 (Page174-175)

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The Decline of Buddhism In India

DD Kosambi

The Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Chuang (830 A.D.) saw images that had sunk into the damp Indian soil, and was told local prophecies to the effect that thereligion of the Teacher would vanish completely when the image had sunk out of sight altogether. Shashanka, king of Bengal who had systematically destroyed Buddhist religious structures, cut down and burned the sacred tree at Gaya under which the Buddha had attained enlightenment twelve centuries earlier.

The tree was soon nursed back to growth from a sprout discovered by Purnavarman, the last descendant of Ashoka. Harsha repulsed Shashanka, restored the devastated Buddhist foundations, and built many new ones. Monasteries by the thousand still housed and fed a vast army of monk. The richly endowed University of Nalanda was at the zenith of its fame. All seemed well.

The real damage came from within, and may be discerned in the report of the same Chinese traveler, though he was perhaps not conscious of what his words signified: “(The Buddhist scholar who) can explain three classes (of sacred texts) has allotted to him different servants to attend and obey him....He who can explain five classes is then allotted an elephant carriage. He who can explain six classes of books is given a surrounding escort.... If one of the assembly distinguish himself (in disputations) by refined language, subtle investigation, deep penetration, and severe logic, then he is mounted on an elephant covered with precious ornaments, and conducted by a numerous suite to the gates of the abbey. If, on the contrary, one of the disputants breaks down in his argument, or uses poor and inelegant phrases, or if he violates a rule in logic, they proceed to disfigure his face with red and white, and cover his body with dirt and dust, and then carry him of to some deserted spot or leave him in a ditch. Thus they distinguish between the meritorious and the worthless, between the wise and the foolish.”

This was surely not the way merit had been judged in the days of the Buddha. The original function of the ever-wandering almsmen had been to explain the way of righteousness to all, in the simplest possible words, and the languages of the common people. The new class of disputatious residents of wealthy monasteries cared nothing for the villagers whose surplus product maintained them in luxury. The original rules laid dorm and followed by the Buddha had permitted only the mendicant's trifling possessions without even the touch of gold, silver or ornaments. The Buddhas of Ajanta are depicted wearing jewelled crowns, or seated upon the costliest thrones. 

Similarly, the old Buddhism had turned Ashoka away from war to the path of peace. His edicts state that the army would henceforth be used only for spectacles and parades. The devout emperor Harsha, on the other hand, managed to reconcile war with Buddhism just as he reconciled hip worship of the Sun god and Maheshwar. Harsha's army increased during thirty years of constant, aggressive warfare, to 64000 elephants, 104000 cavalry, and a still larger number of foot soldiers. He was Buddhist enough to forgive the assassin whom he had disarmed, when the assembled kings and nobles demanded the death punishment. The common people, who had to pay for his wars and for the triumphal pageantry, might have preferred his putting the assassin to death and idling less people on fewer battlefields.

In a word, Buddhism had become uneconomic. The innumerable monasteries and their pampered inmates were a counterpart of the costly military establishment. Buddhism had, from the very beginning, favored the growth of a universal monarchy, which would stop petty warfare. The Buddha is chakkravartin, spiritual counterpart of the emperor. But such great, personally administered empires had themselves become uneconomic; Harsha's was about the last of the sort in India. Thereafter, kingdoms were much smaller till feudalism from below gave the state a new basis of feudal landowners. The administration gradually drifted into the hands of a feudal hierarchy growing from below with new (feudal) property rights in land.

Ruins of Nalanda University

The village defeated both the empire and the organized religion that accompanied it. The self-contained village was hereafter the norm of production. Taxes had to be collected in kind, and consumed locally, for there was not enough trade to allow their conversion into cash. Transport of grain and raw material over long distances would have been most difficult under medieval Indian conditions. Harsha traveled constantly with court and army, through his extensive domains. The Chinese pilgrim states that Indians rarely used coins for trade, which was conducted by barter. This seems confirmed by the absence of coins struck by Harsha, which contrasts with the tremendous hoards of punch-merited coins that had circulated under the Mauryans.

Buddhism owed its initial success precisely to its fulfillment of a great social need. Society in the Gangetic basin of the 8th century B.C. was not organized into peaceful villagers producing mostly for themselves. The much thinner population was divided into a set of warring semi-tribal principalities and some tribes not yet on the level of agrarian production with the plough. Vedic Brahminism and tribal cults were fit only for the pastoral tribe at war with all neighbors. The Vedic animal sacrifices were far too onerous for a developing agrarian economy. The thin pre-Mauryan settlement required trade in metals, salt, and cloth over long distances, which could not be conducted without the protection of a powerful state. The passage from a group of tribes to a universal society, therefore, needed a new social philosophy.

That the universal monarchy and the religion of the universal society were parallel is proved by the rise of both in Magadha, at about the same time. Not only Buddhism, but also numerous other contemporary Magadhan sects preached about the same thing: the Jains, Ajivikas, and others all denied the validity of Vedic sacrifice, and the need for killing. Buddhism accompanied and protected the first traders into wild country, peopled by savage tribes. This is shown by the ancient monuments at Junnar, Karle, Nasik, Ajanta, and elsewhere on the junctions of primitive trade routes.

The major civilizing function of Buddhism had ended by the seventh century A.D. The ahimsa doctrine was universally admitted, if not practiced. Vedic sacrifices had been abandoned except by some rare princeling whose revivalist attempt had little effect upon the general economy. The new problem was to induce docility in the village cultivators, without an excessive use of force. This was done by religion, but not by Buddhism The class structure in the villages appeared as caste, always scorned by the Buddhists. Primitive tribesmen were enrolled as new castes. Both tribesman and peasant relied heavily upon ritual, which the Buddhist monk was forbidden to practice; ritual remained a monopoly of the Brahmin.

Moreover, the Brahmin at that time was a pioneer who could stimulate production, for he had a good working calendar for predicting the times of ploughing, sowing, and harvest. He knew something of new crops, and trade possibilities. He was not a drain upon production as had been his sacrificing ancestors, or the large Buddhist monasteries. A compromise could also be affected by making the Buddha an avatara of Vishnu. So formal Buddhism inevitably faded away.

Its main lesson need never be lost: that good thoughts require cultivation and training of the mind by the individual's personal efforts, no less carefully than good singing that of the voice or craftsmanship that of the hand. The value of the thoughts, on the other hand, is to be judged by the social advance, which they encourage.

Author's Note: From the Times of India, May 24, 1956, by kind permission of the editor; the title has been changed from “Buddhism in history” and minor corrections made. The topic may be pursued further, by those interested, in my book: Introduction to the Study of Indian History (Bombay, 1956).

Courtesy: Exasperating Essays, People’s Publishing House, New Delhi

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Science versus Miracle: Assorted Miracles in Temples

B Premanand

At Tirupurakundram in Tamilnadu, two eagles come to the temple exactly at 12 noon to partake in the prasad offering of the god in the temple. Garuda is believed to be the vahana (vehicle) of Vishnu whose idol is installed in the temple.

Experiment: 124

Courtesy: Wikipedia

Effect: Eagle appearing at 12 noon in a temple.

In 1945, I visited the temple to see this miracle. It was found that these two eagles, after being caught, were given food exactly at 12 noon at the temple premises. The food contained opium and thus they became addicted. Later, after verification that they had become addicts, they were let free and every day at 12 noon they came back to the temple to eat the drugged food.

Experiment: 125

Effect: Natural gas burning without the crude oil catching fire.

At Jwalamukhi temple in Himachal Pradesh, natural gas burns without the boiling crude oil catching fire.

While at Shimla, I was cornered by a scientist who explained to me a miracle at Gorakhnath Dibba in the Jwalamukhi temple. This temple is constructed on the natural gas outlet which comes through a pipe and it bums constantly. So the goddess there is named Jwalamukhi.

Inside the temple there is the Gorakhnath Dibba. Here, in a well, one can see boiling oil and the natural gas escaping from it. The Gorakhnath Panthi lights this gas. When devotees come to the spot to see the miracle, and surprisingly the boiling crude does not catch fire. If the devotees place money m the plate, they sprinkle the oil on the heads by taking the boiling oil in their hands which turns cold. The scientist told me that he had visited the temple several times and can vouch for truthfulness of this miracle.

While at Jwalamukhi, I made it a point to visit the temple. Bubbles were coming out of the liquid in the well. The priest lit a piece of paper and kept it above the liquid and immediately the gas started burning. Later he splashed the liquid in the well over the fire and it got extinguished. Then he put his hand in the bubbling liquid and sprinkled the contents over the heads of the devotees who had put money in the plate. When he was sprinkling the liquid, I stealthily dipped my finger in the liquid and found it to be icy cold. It was not crude oil, but water! The natural gas passes through the water from the left side of the well and when it escapes bubbles in the water make people believe that it is boiling oil! The water being contaminated has turned so heavy that it looks like crude oil.

Experiment: 126

Effect: Lashing with a whip without getting hurt.

In Kali temples, the oracle, when possessed by the goddess, is lashed with a whip and is not hurt at all. When other try to take the whip lashes, their skin is pealed off.

Props: A jute thread whip, thick at the top handle-side and thinning down at the other end, made by plaiting the threads like a pony tail.

Method: If the whip is plaited properly to the very end, and a person is lashed by that whip, only a sound is heard but it causes no pain. But when a knot is tied at the farthest end and a person is beaten, the skin will peel off at the place where the knot touches the skin.

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Communal Violence: Who is to be blamed?

Ram Puniyani

A friend with dogged determination to show that the BJP is a lesser culprit of communal violence and that Congress is the major party to be blamed, listed the major communal riots in India and showed that most of the time when violence took place, it was Congress which has been the ruling party. He asks, so why get stuck with one episode of Gujarat violence and put it as a major point against Narendra Modi or BJP for that matter? Others also regularly point out that the role of Congress was no different in anti Sikh pogrom of 1984 in Delhi, when so many Congressmen were involved at various levels in anti Sikh pogrom. If Modi justified Gujarat by saying ‘every action has an opposite reaction’ Rajiv Gandhi also told us ‘when a big tree falls, the earth shakes’. So why single out Modi-BJP being worse than Congress on the scale of ‘who is more responsible for communal violence’.

Gujarat - 2002

The story so far has been that in India the communal violence began with the British implementing the policy of ‘divide and rule’ and for achieving that they did introduce communal historiography, looking at Kings through the prism of ‘Kings’ religion’, this vision of history being taken up by the declining classes of landlords and Raja-Nawabs. These declining sections of society laid the foundation of communalism, Muslim and Hindu both. Hindu communalists blamed Muslim kings for temple destruction and forcible conversions, while Muslim communalists claimed that they were the rulers of the country. This distorted version of the past created an atmosphere of mutual hate amongst Hindus and Muslims. The communal violence gradually went up as communal parties, Muslim League and Hindu Mahasabha along with other communal formations created an atmosphere of mutual hate. Still they did not get success in the electoral arena.

During the British period while the blame can be put to the communal history introduced by British and their subtle moves to play one community against the other, the communal forces cannot be exonerated for their role in perpetuating violence. The police authorities that time played the role of a neutral observer. What is important here to see that there are multiple agencies that played different types of role in the tragedy of Hindu Muslim violence? The blame at this stage has to be apportioned to British policies (especially there introduction of communal historiography and the policy of ‘divide and rule’), to the communal forces in equal measures. At this stage the police-administration cannot be blamed for the role in violence.

Things gradually started changing. After independence the role of Administration-Police gradually started becoming partisan. The research of Dr. V.N.Rai, police officer of repute, showed that no violence can go on unless the administration, political forces included, wants it that way. The major blame has to go to the communal forces, who not only kept on spreading canards against minority community but some of their elements used communal violence to polarize the community along religious lines. The polarization along religious lines did help the communal forces to consolidate themselves in the social-political and electoral arena. Many a politicians from other parties also sometimes used the violence to either retain the power or to come to power. The inquiry commission reports during this time uniformly tell the role of communal forces. Jagmohan Reddy Commission on Ahmadabad riots of 1969 talks of the active participation of RSS-Jansangh leaders, Jan Sangh is the previous avatar of BJP. Major blame has to go to these forces, though they were not in power.

In Bhivandi Jalgaon riots of 1970 Justice D.P. Madon states that ‘section of Hindu elements particularly RSS and some PSP men were bent upon crating mischief, and they could succeed because of the passive police’. Justice Joseph Vithayathil on Tellicherry riots of 1971 points out that the anti Muslim propaganda was begun by RSS-Jan Sangh which changed the situation leading to communal polarization. In 1979 Jamshedpur riots, the report of commission of inquiry says that Samyukta Bajarangbalis Akhada Samiti, related to RSS was the one which deliberately created the dispute on the issue of route of procession and the members of Samiti raised anti Muslim slogans leading to violence. Justice Venugopal on Kanykumari 1982 riots makes the observation about the role of RSS in spreading rumors etc., the rumors acted as instigation to violence. Justice Srikrishna Commission also makes it clear that the BJP ally Shiv Sena’s role in Mumbai violence was very stark.

So the question is if there is some ruling party, should it be totally blamed? The violence is an outcome of divisive propaganda, communal instigation, role of police and the attitude of the ruling party. They all have separate blames to take. While the ruling party, which has been Congress most of the places has to be blamed for its soft handing of violence, sometimes overlooking the violence, and sometimes being the active instigator as in the example of Delhi in particular. The role of police is very central. The police which was neutral at the time of British rule today has gone to become the most partisan player in this tragic phenomenon as seen in the Dhule riots of 2012 in Maharashtra. Here the role of the Hindu mob was not needed as police did the firing on its own and killed the hapless minority victims.

So how do we compare BJP and Congress as far as communal violence is concerned? BJP is the political child of RSS. Communal propaganda, rumors, polarization, instigation and violence has been led by RSS combine from the front by this organization and its affiliates, the different progeny of RSS. Gujarat is the ‘total’ example, while in other episodes also it has played the crucial central role. Not being in power does not mean it has not played the central instigator role. This argument that Congress has been mostly in rule so it is to be blamed for violence has been cleverly constructed for propaganda purposes. While Congress cannot be exonerated for its role in the violence, its role cannot be compared with that of BJP in any sense. Barring one example of the tragedy of Anti Sikh violence, where the role of Congress was central, in other cases mostly its acts were that of omission, while BJP and company have central role in most acts of violence.

Anti-Sikh Riots - Delhi 1984
Courtesy: Wikipedia

Role of Congress in 1984 anti Sikh pogrom will be a permanent blot on its own inheritance of pluralism and secularism. It has tried to rectify it by apologizing for the same and its plural character is also reflected by its prime minister who is a Sikh, having the longest uninterrupted reign as PM after Nehru.  As such BJP cannot be compared with any other political party as it is a political child of RSS, which is working for Hindu nation. Some social scientists have very well given the contrasting nature of the politics of Congress and BJP. Aijaz Ahmed points out that BJP is programmatically communal while Congress is pragmatically-opportunistically communal. Mukul Kesvan in one of his recent article says that Congress is inherently plural and is opportunistically communal, while BJP is ideologically communal and opportunistically secular.

Notwithstanding the fact that communal violence is a multi-factorial phenomenon, two wrongs don’t make a right, Congress needs to tighten the total link from bottom to top, and rectify the factors which have been leading to communal violence. The communal propaganda, the laxity of laws, the impunity with which the guilty officers get away. It needs to bring in anti communal violence bill to see that this sub human phenomenon is put to rest. The propaganda emerging from RSS combine stable is totally misleading to say the least. 

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The Scientific Attitude and Religion

DD Kosambi

In what follows, some social aspects of religion are considered in so far as they serve to keep India a backward country. The methods of cure suggested are by legislation, education and improved social conditions, with a brief example or two to bring out the basic idea in each case.

Reports by great religious leaders of the past show that they regarded their own experiences and revelations as the most exhilarating and profound happenings of a lifetime. But the details show that exactly similar and often-identical experiences may be had by the use of certain drugs, electrical stimulus of the brain, lesions of the cerebral cortex and in dreams. The trouble begins when people impose their views, on the basis of such experience, upon others.

Damodar Darmanand Kosambi

My treatment of the phenomenon is purely materialistic, no matter what the source of the revelation. Argument with men or religion on their own ground implies that their sacred books or some other sacred books have a peculiar intrinsic validity, not to be challenged by experiment or reason. I am not prepared to admit that religion cannot be understood or discussed by a man of no faith, This comes to saying that only a confirmed drunkard can be competent to deal with alcoholism. Whenever reform from within succeeded in India, the result was the addition of one more sect to the innumerable existing sects.

The figure of speech about alcoholism has been deliberately introduced. Not only wine but also mescaline and other drugs have formed the core of ancient or primitive modern religion. The potent soma of the sacred Vedas was a drink of this sort too. Hashish was a reward for and stimulus to the murder of inconvenient opponents, as used by a fanatical Muslim sect of the Middle Ages in Asia Minor. The drug and its use gave rise to the word assassin. The sect itself changed into the more innocuous one of the Aga Khan. Religions have recognized kinship and rivalry between the spiritual and the spirituous. Thus Buddhism and Islam banned wine. If such a ban can now be defended on grounds of social necessity and prohibition be made part of a democratic constitution, why should other hallucinogens not be treated on the same basis? And what more powerful hallucinogen than religion?

There is one difference that drugs can generally be relied upon to produce exaltation. Its purveyors are taxed and subject to regulation, while the individual who uses them has to observe public decorum and, is severely punished for breaking law and order. Curative treatment is given to addicts. We have been very slow and hesitant in dealing with the purveyors of religion on the same basis. Only the most gruesome malpractices have been banned: sati (widow burning; defended as ‘voluntary’ by many pundits), hook swinging, and the most obscene features of the holi festival are now forbidden. The last comes directly from prehistory; even Asoka had trouble with the institution.

But we have stopped halfway. Pilgrim taxes are levied by many places (Banaras) whether the visitor is a pilgrim or not. Why not tax all income from any religious source, including the ‘voluntary’ contributions from the pious? Why are temples and mosques not taxed on the same basis as many buildings reserved for the use of a special group? Marriage and divorce are now regulated to some extent by civil procedure; monogamy has become a legislative measure, regardless of religion. Why not secularize these social institutions completely and compulsorily?

Some people, although willing to admit that Indian religion has its harmful aspects, insist that education is the sole remedy. It is not, of course, but there is every advantage in educating people out of their superstition. That is one way of improving Indian education and social conditions, provided education is understood in a sense far wider than that of the schoolroom. The crudest of Indian superstitions is faith in astrology. Millions still bathe at a solar eclipse, not as a hygienic measure but to free the sun from a demon of darkness.

It is known, however, that there is no longer a risk of perpetual darkness if the ritual bath be omitted. The precise time and duration of the eclipse is predictable long in advance, not by the Brahmin’s stock in trade but by Newtonian theories of the universe. It is not enough to make this fact public, namely that the Indian almanacs surreptitiously borrow their information about eclipses from foreign sources, while retaining the tripe about planetary influences upon horoscopes.

The panchang almanacs sell by the hundred thousands all over, the country, each area having one or more of its own. Their very existence must be turned to good use by inserting useful information: first aid hygiene, element of legal rights for the citizen, possibilities of getting aid from sources other than the blood-sucking money lenders in time of need and so on. Let the planets stay, and give their positions by all means; but make the traditional almanac into a really useful educational document.

Here the modern educator is definitely at fault. He works through a bureaucratic mechanism originally imposed by a foreign government and allowed to continue by inertia. His own education has, more often not, consisted in learning foreign books by rote where his grandfather might have recited Sanskrit texts with as little understanding. Often, he can teach the latest scientific theories in school and maintain outside the classroom that his ancestors three thousand years ago could fly through the air by the power of yoga and see the atomic nucleus and viruses by their inner sight. He never turns scientific methods upon the study of superstition. Why did the superstition arise? Did the Indian almanac ever perform any useful function at all? If not, how can one account for its rise and spread?

The basic fact is that the whole of Indian agriculture turns upon the monsoon. The annual rains begin at about the same time every year in any given part of the country, but the land has to be prepared for the sowing well before then. Similarly, the harvest has to be taken in after the last normal rain has fallen. But the calendar is a very advanced scientific concept in primitive life, determined mainly by long observation of the positions of the sun, moon and planets. We know that these heavenly bodies merely mark time: for primitive man, they made the weather as the very word meteorology indicates. So, they also seemed to control man’s destiny. These all-powerful stars would have to be propitiated according to the priest’s instructions.

To counteract this, education is the best method. Just as eclipses can be predicted, the onset and strength of the monsoon can also be predicted. Not as accurately as astronomical phenomena, but much better than the varsha-phala (‘yield of the rains’) given in every Indian almanac. It is easier to send out storm warnings by radio and much quicker too. With radios in every key village, the farmer could be advised - given an efficient weather bureau - when to sow and to harvest. But this means leaving the panchang almanac alone.  If we do this, superstition will survive much longer, and may be perverted to strange uses by some interested people.

The best way is to have a reasonably efficient long-range weather forecasting system. This is now well within our reach with air-mass analysis and observation satellites. The information must then be put into every almanac and the basis of calculation carefully explained in simple language. The peasant will see for himself that the stars have nothing to do with the weather or the monsoon and will be willing to listen when other bits of really useful scientific information are given.  Even now he knows that fertility rites are much less effective than the proper use of fertiliser. But we must not throw away the magnificent chance of utilizing an old institution like the almanac to cut down the very superstition it promotes.

The last section says in effect that tout comprendre is by no means equivalent to tout pardonner. Let use try the method on the most obscurantist of all Indian religious and social institutions, caste.   The evils of the caste system are known, but no one asks himself why the system originated and why it has held on in spite of so ·great a change in Indian life. Why should the Brahmin’s pretensions be believed when he puts his sons to work in an office, which uses only English, not Sanskrit, and is perhaps headed by a beef-eating sahib?

The answer is quite obvious. Caste was socially useful at one time, when production was at a much lower level. It was the one way of keeping people together in co-operative effort rather than have every man strike out for himself with the common ruin of all. The village was the firm basis of caste, because land was generally held by a kinship group. Tenure of land and membership of the group went together. Whoever was outcast could no longer survive in the village. With feudal tenure, caste was still powerful as a common bond against unlimited oppression. Whole villages would desert en masse if the baron bore down too hard. Their caste-fellows were bound to help these peasant strikers in distress. Further, the village need for a potter, blacksmith, carpenter or barber was fulfilled by artisan castes when the level of commodity production was low.

Today, factory production, overcrowded cities, road and rail transport have changed all this. Caste persists only because some people gain from it, namely, those who possess land, hold the priesthood, and so on. Caste disabilities persist in spite of legislation and-in many places-mass conversion as to Buddhism. The root cause is the abysmally low economic status of the lowest castes and their total lack of opportunity. Neither legislation, nor conversion, nor schoolroom education can remove this. The sole possible cure is more efficient production and distribution of the product in a manner equitable for all; most people call this socialism. But equality on paper and the adult franchise will not be enough, when politicians can use caste for vote catching and distribution of patronage.

To take an allied but smaller point: most economists see no future for India without birth control. The national income and production are not rising at a faster rate than the population, so that the net gain is virtually nil. But why do people want children in a poor country? The usual answer is, ‘superstition’. A son is essential so that the parents may go to heaven and be given the annual oblation to keep them there.

Silly as this is, it contains an ancient historical truth. Archaeology tells us that it was a tremendous and extremely rare achievement in the older Stone Age for any human being to reach the age of forty years. Food production instead of food gathering made it possible for a substantial number of people to live longer. This only meant that some people lived to an age where they could no longer fend for themselves and had to be fed by others as in childhood. The offering to the manes (pinda) is simply an extension of this practice, when the ancestors have entered upon the long sleep of the grave.

If, now, birth control were by some miracle enforced, it would mean that every person who reached a certain age and physical condition would have no one to feed him in the present social set up. Children are necessary precisely because Indian parents have no other means of subsistence in old age. Insurance, savings, landed property, pensions or other means of income would not suffice, at a guess, for as much as five per cent of the population. So, the birth control expert is in fact asking people to starve to death in old age so that some other people will be better off.

Most of us are not likely to listen to the argument. Where food was very scarce, e.g., in Rajasthan until the last century, a dreadful form of population control was affected by female infanticide. Today, population control will be successful only if people are convinced that there would be enough for them to live on in their old age even if they have no children.

The real stupidity lies with the ‘planners’ who try to regulate the total numbers of the people by theory, without assurance of a reasonable livelihood for the people in existence. The expert who talks of epidemic and famine as natural checks upon the ‘population explosion’ himself runs to consult the doctor the moment he has a fever; and never goes without a full meal if he can help it. There are modern superstitions in the guise of science, quite as deadly as those of religion.

The need is less for reform or even the abolition of religious superstition than for basic changes, which can only be described as revolutionary. Unfortunately it is possible to have a revolution without its promised benefits, but never the benefits without a revolution.

This essay is taken from Science, Society & Peace (15 essays by Damodar Dharmanand Kosambi) published by The Academy of Political and Social Studies, Pune

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