भारतीय इतिहास के ६ स्वर्णिम पृष्ठ (वीर सावरकर - विदेशी आक्रान्ताओं पर विजय गाथा)

themselves acquainted with our thoughts on this subject may profitably read the book, “Janmajat Jatyutchhedak Nibandha” (The Eradication of the Parentage-dominated Caste-system). Here, while describing the religious aggression of our foreign enemies, we shall discuss it only so far as it is absolutely necessary to do so. 386. First of all, it should not be forgotten that this caste-system must have facilitated the stupendous consolidation and remarkable stability of the Hindu Society under certain peculiar circumstances and in particular contexts. In evaluating it, it would be ungrateful only to point to the eventual harm that it has caused in its later stages. 387. It must also be admitted that the Hindus of those times created, or voluntarily allowed to be created, this caste-system with the sole object of protecting their racial seed and blood, preserving their caste-life and tradition, and keeping them absolutely pure from any contamination. 388. The structure of the caste-system was based on the principles of heredity, of the economy based on the division of labour, of social co- existence and of social ethics, so far as these principles were comprehended by the writers of different ‘Smritis’. Thousands of years have rolled by, the Hindu nation has faced innumerable calamities and catastrophes, yet the hold of the caste-system and the influence that it has wielded upon billions and billions of Hindus throughout these tens of centuries, could never have been possible, if the roots of this birth-dominated caste-system had not gone deeper into the very foundation of this colossal edifice of the Hindu society. The Hindu faith—that the religious duties prescribed for the particular castes and sub-castes like Pariyas, Bhangis, Kolis, Bhils were the pious ways of attaining their earthly welfare, and heavenly bliss and Godly grace for them—would never have otherwise remained so steadfast through all these perilous centuries, if the lifeblood, which ran through the veins of the Hindu Society, apparently most heterogenous and miserably disorganised, had not animated its diversified elements with some undying and unifying force with a certain conciousness of its true self. 388A. This powerful unifying national sentiment which so unmistakably held together these different and apparently autonomous elements of the Hindu society and fused them together was HINDUTWA! AND HINDU DHARMA. 389. What we should like to call today the seven native shackles, viz. Untouchability (स्पर्शबंदी) ban on dining together of the people belonging