Young India

Young India - An interpretation and a history of the nationalist movement from within

DURING my travels in the world, the one point that has struck me most forcibly and most painfully, is the lack of true knowledge about the affairs of India among the civilised nations of the globe. Even the best educated among them know very little about India and what little they know is not always right. The sources from which the ordinary stay-at-home Westerner derives his knowledge about India are the following: (a) missionaries who have been to India, (b) English writers of the class of Rudyard Kipling and Sir Valentine Chirol, (c) British officials, (d) serious students of Indian history or Indian literature like the late Professor Max Mller, the late Miss Noble, and the late Professor Goldstucker. Now unfortunately for India most of these people, except those coming under the last heading, have generally an axe to grind and can not be accepted as disinterested, well-informed, impartial authorities. Their reading of Indian history is often perverted and their observations of Indian life partial and distorted. They go to India with definite aims, look at persons and things from their own particular angle, and pose as authorities on matters far beyond the scope of their observations and{2} studies. With rare exceptions most of the Westerners who go to India go with the presumption that the people of India belong to an inferior level of society; that they are heathens, worshippers of stocks and stones; that they are hopelessly divided into castes and classes; that these castes and classes are always at each others throats; that they have never had a settled or civilised form of government; that the British have for the first time in their history given them a settled government; and that India would go to pieces if British government were to withdraw. Writers about India may again be broadly subdivided into two classes: (a) those of British origin, (b) those of non-British origin. Those of British origin are in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred tainted with the imperial bias. They can only look at things from the imperial or British point of view. Even the best and the most fair-minded of them do not altogether succeed in freeing themselves from this bias. The bias acts even against their will. The second class of writers are affected by the racial and the colour bias. Moreover, nine out of ten amongst them are made to look at things from the British point of view. As soon as they land at an Indian port, they are taken in hand by the British residents, officials and non-officials, and practically the whole of their trip is arranged for them by the latter. They only see things which the ruling community want them to see and they only hear and know what these allow them to hear or know. The few who resolutely refuse to be thus programmed{3} do sometimes see things in their true light, as the late Mr. Keir Hardie, M.P., and Mr. H. W. Nevinson did. ......Buy Now (To Read More)

Product details

Ebook Number: 49329
Author: Lajpat Rai, Lala
Release Date: Jun 29, 2015
Format: eBook
Language: English