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The Maharajah realizes that Brahman ascendency cannot be broken down permanently unless the non-Brahman castes are adequately equipped to compete with them in the public services.
It had certainly not remained confined to the spiritual domain, and it became absolutely savage when, in 1902, his Highness declared that he would reserve at least half the posts in the State for qualified men of the non-Brahman communities.
In Madras, to quote only one instance, there is to-day a high school for girls almost unthinkable two decades ago and only opened ten years ago in which high-caste Brahman girls live under the same roof and are taught in the same class-rooms as not only Hindu girls of the non-Brahman castes, but Mahomedan and native Christian and Eurasian girls from all parts of the Presidency, and the only real difficulty now experienced is in the traditional matter of food, and it is circumvented, if not overcome, by providing seven different kitchens and seven different messes.
Hence the relatively slight ascendency enjoyed by the Brahmans in the Punjab amongst the Hindus themselves, even the Brahmans having split up into so many sub-castes and sub-sub-castes that many a non-Brahman Hindu will hardly accept food cooked by the lower order of Brahmans and, next to inter-marriage, food is the great test of caste.
Lord Willingdon, as a constitutional Governor, chose from the non-Brahman majority in the Council all the three Indian Ministers who form part of the new Provincial Government and preside over the "transferred" departments. This is the most startling transformation scene which any of the Provincial elections has produced. The non-Brahmans have got the chance which they have long claimed.
One of the most interesting institutions in Kolhapur is a hostel specially endowed for non-Brahman, Mahratta, Mahomedan, and Jain youths who are following the courses of the Rajaram College.
As confirmation, it is noteworthy how many of the religious leaders of modern times, like Buddha of old, are other than brahman by caste. In a previous chapter the names of a number of these non-brahman leaders were given. Even the Hindu ascetics of these latter days are more numerously non-brahman than of old, for in theory only brahmans have reached the ascetical stage of religious development.
The battle was first engaged over the control of the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha and the Education Society, two progressive associations which, though mainly composed of Brahmans, included a sprinkling of Mahomedans and of non-Brahman Hindus.
They flung themselves eagerly into the fray, and had the audacity even to start a mock "Parliament." But the Maharajah was determined to be master in his own State, and in Mr. Sabnis he had found a Prime Minister who loyally and courageously carried out his policy for the improvement of the administration and the spread of education amongst the non-Brahman castes.
In large towns, at least, the convert to Christianity is not so rigidly or so instantaneously excluded from society as he used to be, and the Indian Christian community, although small, is now in many places one of the recognised sections of the community. This certainly may be asserted, that the modern Hindus are being familiarised as never before with non-brahman leaders, religious and social.
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