Effect of Democracy on Castes

MR. M. de P. Webb, President of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce, while speaking at a recent meeting on the Reform proposals, made an interesting remark on the influence of democratic institutions on caste distinctions in India. He said that democratic ideals and conservative adherence to race and caste prejudices were mutually destructive and said that India’s forward move towards liberty, fraternity and equality would lead to the abandonment of caste barriers. “Indeed,” he observed, “we may safely say that the pace at which India will move towards the goal of responsible government will in practice be measured, not in fixed intervals of five or ten or twenty years, but by the pace at which the hindrance and cruelties of race and caste prejudice are overcome by the Indian peoples.”