Note 123 — Chapter IX · THE SPREAD OF ISLAM IN INDIA.

Some striking instances of conversions from the lower castes of Hindus are also found in the agricultural districts of Oudh. Although the Muhammadans of this province form only one-tenth of the whole population, still the small groups of Muhammadan cultivators form “scattered centres of revolt against the degrading oppression to which their religion hopelessly consigns these lower castes.”123 The advantages Islam holds out to such classes as the Korīs and Chamārs, who stand at the lowest level of Hindu society, and the deliverance which conversion to Islam brings them, may be best understood from the following passage descriptive of their social condition as Hindus.124 “The lowest depth of misery and degradation is reached by the Korīs and Chamārs, the weavers and leather-cutters to the rest. Many of these in the northern districts are actually bond-slaves, having hardly ever the spirit to avail themselves of the remedy offered by our courts, and descend with their children from generation to generation as the value of an old purchase. They hold the plough for the Brahman or Chhattri master, whose pride of caste forbids him to touch it, and live with the pigs, less unclean than themselves, in separate quarters apart from the rest of the village. Always on the verge of starvation, their lean, black, and ill-formed figures, their stupid faces, and their repulsively filthy habits reflect the wretched destiny which condemns them to be lower than the beast among their fellow-men, and yet that they are far from incapable of improvement is proved by the active and useful stable servants drawn from among them, who receive good pay and live well under European masters. A change of religion is the only means of escape open to them, and they have little reason to be faithful to their present creed.”