Octavio Paz Quotes

The idea of the nation [India] itself is incompatible with the institution of caste.

In India, cast not class … is what counts most in popular life.

Ideas are fatal to caste.

Caste is a state of mind. It is a disease of mind. The teachings of the Hindu religion are the root cause of this disease. We practice casteism and we observe Untouchability because we are enjoined to do so by the Hindu religion. A bitter thing cannot be made sweet. The taste of anything can be changed. But poison cannot be changed into nectar.

I think there's really strong social stratification in South Asia.

A once-born man (a Sudra), who insults a twice-born man with gross invective, shall have his tongue cut out; for he is of low origin. If he arrogantly teaches Brahmanas their duty, the king shall cause hot oil to be poured into his mouth and into his ears

In a superior civilization, as, for example, that of the Indo-Aryans, the being who is without a characteristic form or caste... would emerge as a pariah. In this respect America is a society of pariahs. There is a role for pariahs. It is to be subjected to beings whose form and internal laws are precisely defined. Instead the modern pariahs seek to become dominant themselves and to exercise their dominion over all the world.

I was also pained to notice an institution which I certainly did not expect to find in this country – I mean caste. Your rich people are really Brahmins, and your poor people are Sudras.

We can't deny the existence of caste in India. We have to live with it.

What I see happening to this country is a neo-caste system.

Indian leaders are saying, "You don't understand our caste system. It's really a lovely thing. People are very happy about it and so on." I don't think that's quite fair.

I actually did a quick survey of how caste plays out in contemporary India. The idea that democracy and development have in some ways eroded caste turned out not to be the case, that it has in fact been entrenched and modernised.

You have to be taught to be second class; you're not born that way.

I think the presence of caste in India, how the villages are geographically structured on caste lines, is very different from China. The presence of an egalitarian culture is striking in a Chinese village.

I cannot believe there is caste system in society; I cannot believe people are judged on the basis of their prosperity.

The class distinctions proper to a democratic society are not those of rank or money, still less, as is apt to happen when these are abandoned, of race, but of age.

I don't believe in social equality, and they know it.

I don't like a class system. I don't like the idea of being in a different class than other people.

There is no caste in blood.

We are different beings. There is nothing in life which links us together. Our names, our clothes, our foods–they are all different; our economic life, our educational ideas, our treatment of women, our attitude towards animals .... We challenge each other at every point of the compass.

India’s great curse is caste; but English education has already proved a tremendous power in leveled the injurious distinctions of caste

Brahmins do not have the right to call themselves Indians … If India has to become a modern nation, … It has to establish an egalitarian relationship between Brahmins and the lower castes.

A Sudra [lowest caste untouchable], though emancipated by his master, is not released from servitude; since that is innate in him, who can set him free from it?

A Brahmana shall be compelled to pay a fine of one thousand panas if he has intercourse with … females of those two lower castes; for offending with a … Sudra female a fine of one thousand.

Untouchables are treated as if less than beasts …. Untouchability for me is more insufferable than British rule. If Hinduism hugs Untouchability, then Hinduism is dead and gone.