Even when a low-caste Hindu believes he could better do the work or carry out the duties of a higher caste, he is theoretically forbidden to change to it. If he defies his exploiters and makes the change, he is told by some that he has committed a sin and is contributing to the ruin of God's planned social order. If a cobbler finds himself possessed of literary genius, he must go on repairing shoes! If he refuses and takes to writing, he is told that he endangers his own salvation and society's harmony! Such is the absurd and cruel consequence of blind acceptance of an arrangement which was certainly convenient in a simple primitive world but is no longer so in our modern complex one. And this, in its own turn, is the consequence of religious superstition inculcating a pseudo-resignation to events by misusing the name of God.
-- Notebooks Category 15: The Orient > Chapter 2 : India Part 1 > # 245
