[Indian Unrest by Valentine Chirol]@TWC D-Link book
Indian Unrest

CHAPTER VI
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Yet it is upon this community of language that the Bengalees mainly found their claim to recognition as a "nation"; or, to put it in another form, their claim rests upon education as they understand it--i.e., upon the high proportion of literacy that exists in Bengal as compared with most parts of India.

Education is unquestionably a power in Bengal.

It has not superseded caste, which in all essentials is still unbroken, but it has to some extent overshadowed it.
The Brahmans of Bengal have never within historical times been a politically dominant force.

They did not condescend to take office even in the remote days when there were Hindu Kings in Bengal, and still less under Mahomedan rule.

They were content to be learned in Sanscrit and in the Hindu Scriptures, and they left secular knowledge to the Kayasthas, or writer caste, with whom they preserved, notwithstanding certain rigid barriers, much more intimate relations than usually exist between different Hindu castes.


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