WHAT WAY EMANCIPATION ? 139
accept such a society in which the Caste System has no severity or wherein the castes can be abolished early and easily in a simple manner.
Some Hindus say, ‘What will happen by the conversion alone ? Try to improve your financial and educational status.’ Possibly some of our people will be confused and puzzled by such question. I therefore feel it necessary to discuss it here. Firstly, the question is, who is going to improve your financial and educational conditions ? You yourself or those who argue as above ? I do not think that those who advice you like this will be able to do anything except extending their lip sympathy. Nor do I find any efforts towards this direction from their side. On the contrary, every Hindu tries to improve the economic status of his own caste. His outlook is limited to his own caste alone. Brahmins are engaged in establishing maternity homes for Brahmin women, providing scholarships to Brahmin pupils, and for securing jobs for the unemployed Brahmins. Saraswats (one of the castes amongst the Brahmins) are also doing the same. Kayasthas and Marathas are doing the same. Everybody is for himself, and those who have no benefactor are at the mercy of God. You yourself have to rise, none else is to come to your aid, this is the present day condition of a society. If this is the situation, what is the purpose in listening to the advice of these people ? There is no other motive in such advice but to misguide you and kill your time. If you have to improve yourselves, then nobody need to pay any attention to that gossips of the Hindu people and they do not have any right to advice you. Although this may seem enough, I do not propose to leave this point here. I feel necessary to refute this argument.
I am simply surprised by the senseless question which some Hindus ask as to what will happen by the conversion alone ? Most of the present day Sikhs, Muslims and Christians in India were formerly Hindus, majority of them being from the Shudras and the Untouchables. Do these critics mean to say that those who renounced the Hindu fold and embraced Sikhism or Christianity, have made no progress at all ? And if this is not true, and if it is admitted that the conversion has brought a distinct improvement in their condition, then to say that the Untouchables will not be