India, its administration & progress / Sir John Strachey.

  • John Strachey
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: India, its administration & progress / Sir John Strachey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    can appreciate these matters; but they cannot who have never held a country in their hands nor won a victory. 0 my brother Musalmans ! I again remind you that you have ruled nations, and have for centuries held different countries in your grasp. For seven hundred years in India you have had Imperial sway. You know what it is to rule. Be not unjust to that nation which is ruling over you. And think also on this, how upright is her rule. Of such benevolence as the English Government shows to the foreign nations under her there is no example in the history of the world.” These are illustrations of the opinions of a man more universally honoured by those who deserve honour in India, than perhaps any other man that could be named, and who was entitled to speak on behalf of all that is best and enlightened among Indian Mohammedans. Nor must it be supposed that these views were prompted by prejudices of race or religion. No man could have shown more conspicuously than Sir Syad Ahmad Khan his absolute freedom from such influences, or have given by the conduct of his life stronger practical proof of his respect and regard for his Hindu fellow-subjects. He merely stated what he and his Mohammedan brothers know to be the truth. “ It is better,” says a famous writer, “to follow the real truth of things than an imaginary view of them.” If intelligent men in England would make themselves acquainted with “the real truth of things,” they would understand how purely imaginary is that “ Indian nation” and that “People of India” of which we hear so much. I must now bring this work to a close. I have endeavoured to give some general idea of what India is and of the results which she has obtained from the establishment of our power. No reasonable man can doubt the answer that we must give to the question
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