Priests and Parasites
Perverted Charities (By B. G.)
Ignorance and disease are the main causes of human poverty. Attempts to eradicate ignorance and diseases are the best charities. Such humanitarian gifts as the building of educational institutions and hospitals are the real needs of the people but not the temples. The proverbial Dharidra Narayana wants bread and not stories. What do the half-starving and half-naked care whether Siva had a consort or Rama’s wife was abducted or Vivekananda excelled others in Chicago on Laws of Karma?
Statistics show millions of cases of infant mortality and it is attributed to ignorance. Epidemics have come to stay and grow in the fertile soil of India. It is said, India produces any amount of raw materials but the means to develop them into finished products are shrouded in ignorance not to speak of wastage in men and money under the cloak of religion. India is known for its hospitality but its charities are perverted. Building temples fall under charities but hungry ‘sudras’ are not allowed in the vicinity. Opening a well is charity but a ‘pariah’ is prohibited from tasting its water. Opening a school is indeed a charity, but admission is denied to the most illiterate communities of the land. A mutt is endowed only for the princely life of a single individual. He is taken in procession on ornamental chariots and palanquins with footmen and elephants around. It is a charity to throw gold coins at his feet, when in the adjoining Cheri copper coins are scarce. Then again, there are innumerable chatrams and mutts where wandering ‘devotees of god’ are fed sumptuously. These ‘devotees’ wander about bag and baggage with their ’women devotees’ and ‘children devotees’. They stay in these chatrams at their pleasure, eating, intoxicating and even enjoying. There are again less fortunate ‘devotees’ whose Kavi (saffron robes – editors) clothes and other appurtenances fetch them their daily food. It is this sort of proverbial charity of the Hindus which is responsible for the ills of Hindu society. Feedings are held and millions are fed. But on no one considers how many of the guests have wasted their day’s labour. Who is responsible for this loss of one day’s labour to the nation and for his encouragement of idleness in the able bodied people?
Professional beggary ought not to be encouraged. Disabled poor people ought to be protected and able bodied beggars should have no room in this busy world. Sooner they quit the world, better for the nation. It is an urgent reform for our leaders to take up, to sweep the land of these undesirable elements, who live on others’ wealth, and to pool all sources of charities towards well-directed channels to clean humanity of its ignorance and poverty.
Revolt, 27 March 1929
Our Robber Chieftain
“Forget not the great assays,
– The cruel wrong, the scornful ways,
The painful patience to delays,
Forget, not yet!”
It sometimes happens that those things of which we talk much become less important than those which actually require our greater attention and energy. When man begins to think much, he is very often carried along the current of thought, so that he is tempted to forget his starting point. Similar is the case of the social and religious reformers of the world. This starting point is often missed by them, and they soar high in the heavens, swim among the clouds, talk of divinities and renunciation, write about Oneness and Harmony, and end their lives without any practical achievement of their mission.
India has had great reformers, and has lost such reformers. That is one of the causes of the failure of reform in our country. The advent of the western civilization and the consequent growth of education and culture have endowed us with security of property and person. Though in the name of religious neutrality, the masses of the land are pitifully sent to grope in the dark and are preyed upon by the Christian missionaries, there is no denying the fact that the people enjoy security of life and property under the much-abused administration of the alien government. Robbers, bandits, dacoits and highwaymen have been put down with an iron hand. Public as well as individual property are safeguarded from depredatory tribes and there is guarantee of a peaceful life of the people. But there is in India today a band of opium eaters, (for religion is recognized to be the opium of life) who are roaming about the land with their paraphernalia of palanquins, cavalry and infantry, banners and drums. The Sankaracharis, Jeeyars, Madathipathis, Mahants and the rest of this notorious category have replaced the Thugs and Pindaris of old. These are the religious heads who are supposed to lead the people on the path of morality and righteousness. All their property in kinds of lands, buildings, jewels and cash money may approximately come to an amount which, when equally distributed in a country like England, can make everyone of the citizens a millionaire. This illimitable amount is supposed to be intended for the propagation of religion, which in turn has to safeguard the position of the Almighty. Indeed, the existence of 7 crores of Mussalmans and half a crore of Christians shows how far the religious heads have successfully safeguarded their religion. This rate of conversion continuing, we will not be surprised, not even sorry, if Hinduism, a religion intended for the welfare of the few, will in spite of its antiquity and philosophy, reach the final stage of decay. We said we won’t be sorry, because, a religion which brooks millions of widows and millions of untouchables, a religion which discourages freethinking, is better to be buried five fathoms deep, than vainly glorified simply because for its antiquity. In fact, all religions which come under the above label, are bound to perish and will perish. There are freethinkers and rationalists to take care of Christianity, just as there are Kemal Pashas and Amanullahs to take care of Islam.
But what we require at this stage is a more neighbourly attention of our degrading situation. The economic degeneration of our country is, in our opinion, more due to our own shortsightedness to our doings than to the foreign domination. Wealth whether unused or misused, is an economic waste. Wealth whether carried away by others, or buried by ourselves, is not useful to us. A major part of our public wealth is both misused and unused.
Millions of our people live upon one coarse meal per day. Thousands are dying of starvation. Many hundreds are almost half-naked. Thousands of our children die for want of sufficient food and clothing. But the Sankaracharis and Madathipathis are rolling upon luxury and are wasting wealth on their overfed retinue. In addition to their huge property, they march from town to town, pitch their tents and exact large sums of charity from the people. Those who agitate for the enhancement of three pies in taxes and fight for greater services from the government, pay off unmurmuring hundreds of rupees to the robber chieftains and rest satisfied with their benedictions. These chieftains who are supposed to be Sanyasins discarding all pleasures of the mundane world are leading a life not in any way less than that which is described by that facile novelist, in his Mysteries of the Court of London. All the pleasures that are even denied to princes on account of decency and decorum are enjoyed in full by these ‘religious heads’. They play the real role of Sri Krishna who is metaphorically said to have indulged in sexual pleasure. Perhaps their acts are also metaphorical, we suppose! In that case, we fear the sufferings of the poor millions will also be treated as metaphorical! And there are the Brahmins who are also calling them Brahmins metaphorically!
When a portion of the cultured world is in favour of an equal distribution of wealth among the people, when the younger generations clamour for greater liberty and equality in all spheres of man’s life, it is a harrowing spectacle to see that Government are allowing, in the name of that much advertised ‘religious neutrality’ a band of religious robber-chieftains to waste the public funds in the most unscrupulous ways. If the Government could only take some pains to recollect some of their past deeds, they will see that ‘religious neutrality’ did not forbid them from changing the criminal laws of that ‘Inevitable Code of Manu’. Had they not changed those laws, we know how their administration would be looked upon by the advanced nations of the modern world. If the Government really feel any sympathy for the sufferings of the masses and if they are desirous of showing themselves off as humane administrators, (as they very often do) one of their foremost duties is simply to lend a helping hand to the exasperated masses and we will have done with these vultures of humanity.
Revolt, 18 August 1929
