While singing praises of the Hindu culture, it is often claimed
that it has always believed in equality, both social and
spiritual, and has never emulated the base customs of the
western culture, which reduced men and women to a deplorable
status of an object. It is also said that Hindu culture
condemned the sale and purchase of humans, holding man and his
existence in its full glory. Several modem thinkers and
philosophers have glorified Hindu culture for upholding the
cherished ideal of human equality, even in its primitive stages.
One among them was Vivekanand. Evil of slavery However, the
tendency to evade reality and live in a world of make-believe
has been a special heritage of India. The reality is that the
evil of slavery, in one shape or the other, has always cast its
evil shadows on the Indian society. Even in the days of its
utmost glory, when the Vedas and Upanishads were being composed,
the curse of slavery polluted the atmosphere. The Rigveda
reveals that the Aryans invaded India and defeated th