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Bankim Chandra agrees in this essay with the view of the European sociologists that other-worldliness taught and encouraged by Hinduism and Buddhism has produced ennui among Indians. The decline of the influence of Christanity which also embodies other-worldly outlook and the spread of the positivist and world-affirming spirit found in the ancient Greak literature and philosophy, which was reintroduced in Europe during the renaissance quickened largely the economic, industrial and cultural resurgence in that continent. The common people forced the ruling classes to bring about equitable and egalitarian conditions. The Indian proletariate remained asleep, because the belief that happiness lies elsewhere had become their second nature while in Europe loyalty to Christianity was only skin-deep.

The Shudras constituting the lowest stratum of the hierarchy of four classes multiplied without corresponding increase in production. The trading class could do little as there was no marketable surplus. Trading existed in India, but the actual Indian trade bears no comparison with the possibilities of creating wealth through trade in these vast fertile lands.

Inequity heaped upon inequity resulting from the hierarchical social structure combined with hostile spiritual and social ethics inhibited the trading community.

The king and the nobles constituting the second stratum were similarly enfeebled by the slavery of the toiling masses. By keeping the producers poor they themselves were improverished and they became wayward having encountered no-resistance from this docile subjects.

Social inequality degraded the intellectuals also. Losing their creative powers they became weak and out of fear bom of weakness the intellectual elite produced an ersatz religion as substitute for religion and morality. Cycles and epicycles of useless rituals and rites and trivia of social customs overwhelmed the society, and the minutest details of life were sought be brought under rigid social control. The intellectuals cheated other classes but ultimately cheated themselves. By binding others they bound themselves. Creativity thrives by breaking through regulations laid down on the basis of outmoded experience and excessive regulations stifled creative energy and individual initiative and spontaneity. Bankim Chandra contends, "Of all the causes of the decline of the Hindu Society that I have mentioned, this [the stifling of creativity and spontaneity] seems to be principal one and it is still starkly visible and operative." [Equality, Chapter iv.] Bankim Chandra had no doubt at all that poisonous inequities born of the social hierarchy are at the root of the destitution of Indian masses.

After discussing in detail the reasons for economic inequalities in India Bankim goes on to discuss the questions concerning gender inequality in the Indian context. Considering that he was writing in the seventies of the nineteenth century India Bankim displays a genuinely revolutionary outlook in the fifth chapter of his book, Equality.

In defence of the principle of the equality of sexes Bankim Chandra, rejects the argument that physical and dispositional differences can justify discriminatory admission of rights and liberties. He clearly says that treating women as inferior to men is as unfair as treating Indians as inferior to the British. Following Mill, whose book, The Subjection of Women, Bankim recommends to his readers, Bankim argues that the seemingly natural differences which we find between the sexes are due to artificial social differences which can be remedied through social ction. He openly advocated that the women should engage in professions, carry on trade are business and act as members of legislatures. Bankim is certainly not against conjugal love and fidelity and argues powerfully that equality does not militate against family ties and values. But duties within a family like bringing up children must be shared by men and women equality.

Bankim Chandra concedes that the people in India are gradually waking up to the rights of women with regard to four things, (1) education (2) widow remarriage (3) freedom of movement and (4} polygamy. Bankim Chandra wants his readers to fight for ensuring much greater rights of women on these subjects.

Bankim Chandra reserves his choicest invectives against those who would confine women within home and prevent them from enjoying life to the hilt out of doors.

Bankim has little sympathy for those who believe that free mixing would lead to moral degeneration. He does not believe that the nature of our women is so brittle.

Bankim Chandra strongly advocates women's right to inherit property. The argument that women are incapable of understanding the subtleties of business transaction and thus incapable of defending their properties docs not hold water because if we allow women they would be as capable as men in preserving and augmenting their property. Bankim clearly opines that Hindu Law is superior to the European Law in matters of inheritance and the Islamic Law Shariat has greater justice for the weak of both sexes than Hindu Law.

One of the most heinous crimes of society against women is to keep women away from the mainstream of economic activity and depriving them from earning their own living.

By keeping women indoors and not educating them to become economically independent the men in India have reduced women to a status worse than that of animals. Nothing is done to ameliorate their conditions for no social advancement is achievable without working to better their lot.

Bankim concludes his pamphlet by saying that differences in intelligence, mental and physical strength, education would inevitably lead to difference in the. social and economic standing of human beings. But what he demands is equality of rights and opportunities. "The path of development should be open for all."

Scholars differ as to how Bankim had retreated in his later life from the doctrines expounded in Equality. I should argue in conclusion that he held firm to his early egalitarian doctrines to the end of his life. He toned down his criticism of the Hindu ideals but he remained second to none in his defence of the rights of the exploited and the downtrodden. He remained a humanist and his values are as modern as we may wish.

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