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Tuesday, September 8, 2009

"To what a ludicrous state we are brought!
If a Bhangi comes to anybody as a Bhangi, he would be shunned as the plague;
but no sooner does he get a cup full of water poured upon his head with some mutterings of prayer by a Padri, and get a coat on his back, no matter how thread-bare, and come into the room of the most orthodox Hindu-I dont see the Man who then dare refuse him a chair and a hearty shake of the hands!!
Irony can go no farther.
And come and see what they, the Padris, are doing here in the South. They are convering the lower classes by lakhs; and in Travancore, the most priest-ridden country in India-where every bit of land is owned by the Brahmins-Nearly one-fourth has become Christians!
And I cannot blame them; what part have they in David and what in Jesse?
When, when O'Lord, shall Man be brother to Man?"

-Swami Vivekananda,
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda