Sri Aurobindo
Karmayogin
Political Writings and Speeches — 1909-1910 — No.33
Karmayogin: A Weekly Review
Saturday 19th February 1910 — No.33
Passing Thoughts
Samaj and Shastra
Every Samaj must have its Shastra, written or unwritten.
Where there is no Social Scripture, there is none the less a minute and rigid code of social laws binding men in their minutest actions.
The etiquette of the European is no less binding than the minute scrupulosities of Manu or Raghunandan, and it is even more minute and scrupulous.
It is a mistake to think that in Europe men can eat as they will, talk as they will, act as they will with impunity.
They cannot — or at least they could not, though one hears of strange revolutions, and in the days of the suffragette everything is possible.
Society everywhere is exacting, scrupulous, minute, pitiless in punishment of slight departures from its code, however absurd and unreasonable that code may be.
But while in India the sanction is religious, in Europe it is social.
In India a man dreaded spiritual impurity, in Europe he shrinks from the sneers and dislike of his class or his fellows.
Social excommunication is always the ultimate penalty.