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WHY MEN ARE HANGED
Indian prisons. And the jail population being a cross-section of society outside, the sight presented by it transcends the prison walls, and provides food for serious thought to those who have the courage to distinguish facts from fictions, to look into the frowning face of rude reality.
A study of the psychology of the Indian criminals throws a flood of light on the doctrine of karma ; it enables one to appreciate how spiritually corrupting and morally degrading the religious view of life is. Religion is based on ignorance. The future of India is seriously prejudiced by her cultural traditions which keep the masses in ignorance, so that superstition can remain alive as the foundation of thc religious view of life. In so far as the masses are concerned, our religious or spiritual culture stands for ignorance, superstition and fatalism. There is no future for a nation, the vast bulk of which remain in such a deplorable state of spiritual and moral backwardness. How can it be free when its cultural tradition teaches people to make a virtue of submission ? And the most curious thing is that even some of the prophets of national freedom are fanatical, though not always sincere, protagonists of that very tradition which precludes the will to freedom. Thanks to this curiosity, the movement for national freedom has been caught up in a vicious circlc. Revolt and submission are mutually exclusive. The first condition for national freedom is to break away from
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