been so popular with my countrymen. In
fact, if we admit the truth of the facts and arguments hitherto adduced,
these causes are so apparent that the reader must have already anticipated
the solution I have to give. Caste, as we have seen, is a serious evil to
the peoples of the towns. Now, it is amongst towns and cantonments that
our principal experiences of this institution have been acquired, and the
educated natives of the Indian capitals, feeling all the evils and
experiencing none of the advantages of caste, are naturally loud in its
condemnation. Hence the cry arising from all Europeans and a trifling
section of the Indians, that caste should be abolished from one end of
India to the other. But how is it that no response comes from these
country populations amongst whom I have lived? How is it that these
shrewd-headed people[37] are so insensible to the evils of caste, and that
you never hear one word about it? The answer is extremely simple. They
have never felt these evils, because for them they do not exist. If they
felt the pressure of caste laws as do the people of the towns, the outcry
would be universal, and the institution speedily done away with. Need I
add that when the people of the country are as advanced as the people of
the towns, that then, and not till then, will the pressure, which is now
confined to the latter, be universally felt; that then, and not till then,
will this institution, being no longer suited to the requirements of the
age, be universally discarded.

Let us now say a few words as to the line of conduct that should be
adopted, as regards caste, by those who are desirous of freeing themselves
from the restrictions of that institution.

In the first place, the opponents of caste should not weaken their case by
talking nonsense; and, in the second place, they should remember, above
all things, that, to use a common saying, "if you want a pig to go to
Dublin, the best thing you can do is to start him off on the way to Cork."
I shall now enlarge a little on both of these recommendations.

To illustrate my first suggestion--and to this suggestion I shall again
have occasion to allude further on in this chapter--a few sentences may be
devoted to glancing at some of those remarkable conclusions which sound so
well in the observations one often hears when anything is said about
India. The tendency of caste, you will hear it gravely urged, is to
elevate the upper classes on the highest poss