PHILOSOPHY OF HINDUISM 39
In the first place there should be social equality. “Privilege tilts the balance of social action in favour of its possessors. The more equal are the social rights of citizens, the more able they are to utilize their freedom……If liberty is to move to its appointed end it is important that there should be equality.”
In the second place there must be economic security. “A man may be free to enter any vocation he may choose…….Yet if he is deprived of security in employment he becomes a prey of mental and physical servitude incompatible with the very essence of liberty… The perpetual fear of the morrow, its haunting sense of impending disaster, its fitful search for happiness and beauty which perpetually eludes, shows that without economic security, liberty is not worth having. Men may well be free and yet remain unable to realize the purposes of freedom”.
In the third place there must be knowledge made available to all. In the complex world man lives at his peril and he must find his way in it without losing his freedom.
“There can, under these conditions, be no freedom that is worthwhile unless the mind is trained to use its freedom. (Given this fact) the right of man to education becomes fundamental to his freedom. Deprive a man of knowledge and you will make him inevitably the slave of those more fortunate than himself…… deprivation of knowledge is a denial of the power to use liberty for great ends. An ignorant man may be free.... (But) he cannot employ his freedom so as to give him assurance of happiness.”
Which of these conditions does Hinduism satisfy? How Hinduism is a denial of equality has already been made clear. It upholds privilege and inequality. Thus in Hinduism the very first condition for liberty is conspicuous by its absence.
Regarding economic security three things shine out in Hinduism. In the first place Hinduism denies freedom of a vocation. In the Scheme of Manu each man has his avocation preordained for him before he is born. Hinduism allows no choice. The occupation being preordained it has no relation to capacity nor to inclination.
In the second place Hinduism compels people to serve ends chosen by others. Manu tells the Shudra that he is born to serve the higher classes. He exhorts him to make that his ideal. Observe the following rules laid down by Manu.
X. 121. If a Shudra (unable to subsist by serving Brahmanas) seeks a livelihood, he may serve Kshatriyas, or he may also seek to maintain himself by attending on a wealthy Vaishya.
X. 122. But let a Shudra serve Brahmans…..