CASTE IN INDIA

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 156, 20 March 1923, Page 11

CASTE IN INDIA

THE HORRORS OF HINDUISM ADDRESS BY MRS. BOOTH TUCKER “Bhisti” is the name for a carrier of water in India, and, as readers of Kipling will know, each regiment has so many “bhisti” to assuage the thirst of the men when necessary. At Saturday’s meeting in the Salvation Army Citadel Mrs. Commissioner Booth Tucker stated clearly that “caste” in India did not mean class as we' understood it-—it more nearly represented trade unionism. A water carrier, bhisti, was caste. The real meaning of tho word was “the man from heaven.” That was because he brought the water —and water —the rams —meant more than anything in India. If there were good rains all was well, but if not it meant famine and often death to perhaps millions of people. So the bhisti was ong caste, and the washers of clothes another, and the sewers of cloth another, and so on. The men washed the clothes in India, and the men did the sewing. If c\iie asked a woman iif India to do any sewing, she would look surprised and say, “But that is man’s work!” The women did a good dgal. of the coolie work in the fields, carrying loads. “I have seen women strapped to loads that you men here would not look at. “I was staying in the mountains oneg,” said Mrs. Tucker, “when a girl came rushing in to me, and told me to come and witness an awful sight—a woman carrying a piano up the hill. I could scarcely believe my eyes, but sure enough there was a woman staggering up the hill with a small cottage piano on her back, and straps round her forehead and chest, as she bent double to take the strain. I was indignant, and asked the officer of the station where the woman’s husband was. “Oh,” he replied, “he is probajjy on ahead carrying the key!” Mrs. Tucker said that people do not marry out of their caste in India-—if they do, they “lose caste,” which is a very great disgrace. But people here might say, what if the son of a water-carrier falls in love with the daughter of a tailor —what then? Her reply was that such things did not happen in India, and such happenings as divorces and separations such as litter up our Courts in New Zealand did not occur in India. It was the duty of parents to find wives and husbands for their children, and tins they did when the children were five or six years old—they were pledged then, and married when they became 15 or 16 years of age. They were never consulted as to their choice —if they were they would simply say: “How should we know?—our parents know best! And' so it had been for thousands of years. It was the ambition of all parents in India to have their children married at an early age. The first question one native askod of another was: “Are you married?” and then: “have you a son?” If you are not married you are a disgraceful person —- if you have no children they do not think much of you. This arrangement of marriages .in infancy really saved a lot of trouble when one canie to think about it. No one had to bother any further about it. It had been her lot on many occasions to find suitable wives and husbands among the famine children who had come under the care or Hie Army. Then it would be asked: How did it pan out? It was perfectly all right, especially where they were Christian natives, whose homes were models of cleanliness and happiness. Mrs. Tucker, referring to the religions of India, , said that Mohammedanism was a simple and straightforward religion. Thev said: “There is no God but one God, and Mohammed is his prophet!” There you had tho whole thing. If you believed that and prayed five times a day you were sure to go to Heaven. The first prayer was at sunrise, when a priest mounted a tower or turret, and at sunrise called out three times as loud as he could: “Prayer is batter than sleep.” By the time the third call had been made by the muezzin every good Mohammedan should be out of bed and on his knees. There was a good deal ih what they said and she was passing on the Idea to Colonel Molnness. (Laughter.) On the contrary, the Hindu religion was a bad and wicked religion. They had so many gods that the Hindus themselves did not know them all, and the stories of the supposed lives of these gods were- immoral and impure, and not fit for reading by anyone. The Hindu temples were seething with wickedness. Young girls, taken as infants, were kept prisoners until old enough to be married to the gods, .which meant that they simply became the slaves of the priests. Mrs. Tucker displayed a stone amulet, one of tho kind which was hung round tne neck of girl on the day she. h! as “Initiated” to the horrors of Hinduism. There were 170,000.000 Hindus in Tnclia.