Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 343

UNCHANGEABLE CUSTOMS
30.3
The signs of affection, friendship, and even respect which
they sometimes show them are only hypocritical, their
motive being entirely that of self-interest. If a European
were to come and tell me that he had found amongst the
Hindus a really disinterested friend, I should without
hesitation predict, while pitying his simplicity and excess
of confidence, that sooner or later his pretended friend
would deceive and betray him.
Being fully persuaded of the superlative merits of their
customs, the Hindus think those of other
people barbarous and detestable, and quite incompatible
with real civilization. This ridiculous pride and these
absurd prejudices have always been so deeply ingrained
in them, that not one of the great dynastic changes that
have taken place in India in modern times has been able
to effect the smallest change in their mode of thinking
and acting. Though they have had to submit to various
conquerors who have proved themselves to be their superiors
in courage and bravery, yet, in spite of this, they have
always considered themselves infinitely their superiors in
the matter of civilization.
The Mahomedans, who can tolerate no laws, no customs,
and no religion but their own, used every advantage which
conquest gave them in a vain attempt to force their religion
on the people who had succumbed to them almost without
resistance.
But these same Hindus, who did not dare to
complain when they saw their wives, their children, and
everything they held most dear carried off by these fierce
conquerors, their country devastated by fire and sword,
their temples destroyed, their idols demolished
these same
Hindus, I say, only displayed some sparks of energy when
it became a question of changing their customs for those
own manners and
;
of
their oppressors.
Ten
centuries of
Mahomedan
rule,
during which time the conquerors have tried alternately
cajolery and violence in order to establish their own faith
and their own customs amongst the conquered, have not
sufficed to shake the steadfast constancy of the native
inhabitants.
Bribes of dignities and honours, and the fear
of annoyance and loss of position, have had but a slight
effect on them, and that confined to a few Brahmins.
Indeed, the dominant race has had to yield, and has even