LIFE IN INDIA

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18206, 29 September 1933, Page 10

LIFE IN INDIA

i■' . I VISITOR’S IMPRESSIONS EVILS OF CASTE SYSTEM BRITISH RULE AITRECI- : ATisb I’ers'onal impressions of India were related by Mr. R. A. Lai til aw in an address delivered at the Auckland Rotary Club. A traveller, he said, was both fascinated and depressed by India, with its teeming millions, dire poverty, immorality and terrible idolatry. lhe country contained 353,003,000 people, equivalent to one-fifth of the world's population, or three-quarters of the population of the'British Empire. Fifty different languages were spoken. Mr. "Laidlaw said lirdians appeared to be very degenerate physically'. This was due to*child marriages, the usual age for girls tp marry being froih nine to 12 years, ’.and also to poor*food. It was a tragedy to see the ignorant, illiterate and undernourished child-mothers. The average ivoighg of Indian babies at birth was 4lb.' and 280 irf every 1000 died in tfie first; year. Gandhi, ■ who married when only 12 years of age, wrote as follows “Child* marriage is supping the vitality of thousands of our promising boys and girls, on' wlmm.Mhe future of ■ our country entirely depends. R > s bringing into the world . thousands of weaklings, who are born of immature parents.” , ■ . . ... .

MEANING*' SYSTEM • . Tho caste system-, • on- which- Indian, society was built, was just about as repellent as the marriage and moral standards. It was not snobbery, but a deep-seated religious belief in the transmigration of the soul. The caste into which a man was born was regarded as the outward sign of the history of his soul. A man was reincarnated in his caste because he deserved it, and therefore it was aiding the gods to heap any indignity on the castes below and it would be defying the gods to try and lift a. man from the caste in which lie was born. The system was like a pyramid with, the Brahmans .on top.,- There were 2309 gradations of class and under all Were the G0,P00,000 “untouchables.” The 8,003.000 Brahmans, being on top, lived on all the rest and they hud no scruples about taking anything they could get. even from “untouchables,'’ because washing would “purify” anything taken. GREETING TO PRINCE When tho Prince of Wales visited Delhi in 1921 a. total of 25,000 “untouchables” gathered to greet him. To the horror of high caste spectators the Prince ordered his motor car to stop and lie received from .the spokesman, of tile “untouchables'' * cxpl'dSsiVnW' of loyalty from tho 60,000.000 “unclean” of India. Although many indignities were suffered by the lower classes much had been done under British rule to imprbve their lot and it was-mr wonder the “untouchables” lifted their voice as one man in their appeal - to Britain not to withdraw her authority and hand them'over to the “tender mercies”'' of the Brahmans. Coming from New Zealand, a dairying country, Mr. Laidlaw said be was