CRUSADE AGAINST THE BRAHMINS.
AT a late meeting in aid of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts, Dr. Wilson, the Bishop of Calcutta, suggested a way of redeeming Hindustan from its Pagan thraldom- . The Hindoo idolatry, about which I would now speak, seems es ally to pro- claim, as it were, Satan, the god of this world and the murderer frompea; the begin- ning, as its author. The system itself is of the most insidious, prying, and cor- rupting character. Nothing escapes its crafty influence. Every action is regu- lated—all social and domestic intercourse limited by it. The Hindoo is entangled body and soul, and bound round as by an iron chem. Caste is his curse. And the ministers of this religion—the Brahmins—are the most unprincipled, crafty, and sensual of men. I see clearly enough this one thing: I cannot tell how it can be done, and still less whether it ought to be done; but I say this if you would have the greatest obstacle removed out of the way of Christianity in India, you must pension the Brahmins." Such is the proposal of Dr. Wilson, a Prelate of the Established Church. The notion of pensioning a priesthood has excited alarmed reprobation from some in this country who are not unmindful of similar propositions with respect to the Irish Roman Catholic priesthood : if you may pension the Pagan Brahmins, a fortiori you may pension the Roman Catholic sect of Christians. Dr. Wilson is no mean authority in favour of such a plan : he is an earnest Christian, with a strong Protestant esprit de corps. On the other hand, he is one of a priesthood, and may be sup- posed to have a peculiar insight into the best way of disposing of such professions when they are to be laid on the shelf. There is no doubt that if the money would advance the pacification and civilization of India, it would be well laid out. But there are some peculiarities in this priesthood : it is not merely a priesthood, but a tribe or caste ; and there is something repugnant to received notions in pensioning off a whole race. Have we yet sufficiently tried other means in India to justify our resort to that costly method? We doubt it. The policy of the British Government has too exclusively tended to foster native prejudices rather than to wean the Hindoos from them ; and in that respect far less advance has been made in Hindustan than in any of our alien dependencies. Partly this passiveness has arisen from a laudable spirit of tolerance, partly from less pure motives. The tolerance which yields a revenue is not very praiseworthy ; and the abolition of the pilgrim-tax is too recent to admit of our making any boast of a liberality thus vitiated. In fact, the chief motive to our tolerance was the desire of safety: our sway in India is said to be one of "opinion," and it has been thought most politic not to " shock the prejudices of the Natives." So far as that scruple simply regards their feelings, it is com- mendable; though still it should be subject to our better know- ledge of what may practicably be attempted to improve their con- dition. So far as it regards our own safety, it is a mere question of expediency. Lord William Bentinck was warned that the at- tempt to suppress the custom of suttee would endanger British authority : he did suppress it, and British authority is by no means diminished. To undermine the institution of caste would be a greater and possibly a more hazardous task ; but have we exhausted discreet experiments for the purpose? There are other modes of attacking national bigotries, besides corruption, which is what Dr. Wilson proposes : for observe, his proposal is not to endow the Brahmins with a salary while in the active exercise of their functions, but he would offer them the in of a retiring pension to abandon what in their dogma must be accounted "sacred duties." There are, we say, many o her mail; for examire a- of grave exposure and ridicule. Ridicule has been called "the tea of-tratb..,and___ grave exposure is more evidently so. These means are powerful to their end: we have seen both plans succeed in a country not very far distant from us. Denounced by all priesthoods, the delicate irony of Voltaire succeeded in breaking the spell of ecclesiasticaly—a sort of tyranny which always depends mainly on thetandafaith and willing submission of the whole people. Enthusiasts have warred vi at armis, not altogether fruitlessly, against spiritual despotism; but if you make it ridiculous, you break its very framework. No- where is opinion freer than in Paris. Some may say that it is too free: but that is beside the present question as to the efficacy of the means employed to free it, of which we are considering one. All tools may be abused; and the history of the Roman armies teaches some startling lessons on the dangers of donatives. That same France illustrates by a living instance the effect of a graver kind of exposure. An ultra-secular priesthood was regaining a dangerous footing, and was turning the bigotry of many to its own aggrandizement, while causing no small do- mestic misery. A popular writer,. whom the severe critic may reproach with much of the turgid in style and extravagant , in matter, but possessing remarkable powers of description and invention, turned the engine of fiction against the Jesuits : his work was denounced in churches, for it endangered not Jesuits alone but all who rest temporal power on dogmatic faith : the denunciation was a capital advertisement for the Juif Errant,—a tale in itself of what would be called " absorbing interest "; it was read by all France ; opinion, already approaching maturity, became loud-voiced : the establishments of the Jesuits have been broken up. Other means have been used to free opinion in France, and honour due be rendered to the barricades and fusilades of July : but all the stones and muskets in the world could not have set France free to think and speak, without her literature.* But, it may be said, neither Zadig nor the Juif Errant, nor any Anglican shape of satire or eloquence, will penetrate to the illite- rate un-Europeanized Hindoos. Prince Djahna has not many re- presentatives among them. These instances, however may serve to remind us that money is not the only tool ; and ridicule or grave exposure may take practical shapes. Knowledge is one antidote • The recent service has been recognized in this country, not only in the for- mal invitation to the soiree at the Manchester Athenieum, but in the popularity of the book, despite some John-Bullish feeling against the French literature of the day. The invitation with which the managers of the soiree honoured them- selves has been reprehended in unexpected quarters, on the score of M. Sue's opinions. But we are not bound to agree with all that a writer says because we admire his power and acknowledge his intrepid assertion of freedom for thought: if we vindicate free opinion, we must vindicate equally for opinions in which we do not agree. And especially are liberal constructions due to one who writes for a foreign nation; with thoughts, habits, feelings, alien to our own. Surely, opi- nions are not so unstable m this country as to be unsettled by the vivid dreams of Eugene Sue, or the sight of his bearded countenance; however much liberty of thought may owe to his wild defiance of restraint for it. to the disease of India, and Sir Henry Hardinge's educational measures are a good step in the right direction. Everything that exposes the futility as well as the mischievousness of caste helps to shake it. Honours, worldly station, employment and emoluments, might be made to counteract the institution ; which has, on the contrary-, been too much humoured in our plans of Indian administration. The distinctions should not be privative, but augmentative ; that is to say, the object should be not to de- prive the "higher" castes of advantages, but to elevate the lower castes by additional advantages, or to reward the abandonment of caste, not by direct payment, but by making that step the pre- liminary to official patronage of all kinds, high and low. The knighting of Sir Jamsetjee Jejeebhoy is an isolated instance that
i might be infinitely multiplied and varied. A caste alienated from all worldly power and advantage among the dominant race would soon lose its respect in the eyes of the people. Its members would be as slightly respected as the Bonzes or local priests described in Basil Hall's book on Loo Choo. If the means em- ployed in this process of counteraction were always in themselves benevolent, and self-evidently beneficial according to instinctive natural sense, they would need little justification beyond their own success.
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