C HAPTER 15
CIVILIZATION OR FELONY
I. Another cross section view of India’s population. II. Sunken classes seen through it : (a) Primitive Tribes, (b) Criminal Tribes and (c) Untouchables. III. Effect of Hindu Civilization on the condition of these classes. IV. Difference in the problems of these classes.
The population of India is generally classified on a linguistic or on religious basis. These are the only two ways of classifying the people of India which have been persistently in vogue for a long time. The effect is that outsiders get the impression that, what is of interest and importance to know about the peoples of India is the religions they profess or the languages they speak. Limited by this interest, they remain content with a knowledge they get about the religions and languages that are prevalent in India. All that the outsider cares to hold in his head is that, in India there are people who are either Hindus or Mahomedans, if he is interested in religion or that there are people in India some of whom speak Marathi, some speak Gujarathi, some Bengali and some Tamil, etc.
Of the two ways of classifying people of India the religious classification is the one which is more impressive and arresting for the foreigner. He is more interested in the religions than in the languages. But even he is not aware of all the religious communities in India. He knows only of Hindus and Mahomedans. He sometimes hears of the Sikhs, very seldom of Christians although they are a growing community and never of the Buddhists who are of course non-existent so far as India of today is concerned [1] .
The impression of the foreigner is that there are only Hindus and Musalmans in India and that there are none others worth bothering about. That this should be his impression is quite natural. The air is filled with the din and noise of the Hindu-Moslem conflict. How grave
1 There is a very feeble attempt at revival carried on by the Maha Bodhi Society of Calcutta. (This and other information is taken from Census of India, 1931, Vol. 1 Part. 3)