New Ideas in India During the Nineteenth Century - A Study of Social, Political, and Religious Developments by John Morrison
page 68 of 233 (29%)
page 68 of 233 (29%)
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Government takes any step, the minor fissures close, and the new
consciousness of nationality unites the Indians. European lines of cleavage like the division between capital and labour or between commerce and land have not yet risen above the Indian horizon. The Indian Christian community occupies the peculiar position of sharing in the new-born national consciousness as strongly as any, and yet of being identified with the British side in the eyes of the Hindu and Mahomedan communities. [Sidenote: Anti-British bias.] [Sidenote: India ruled by Indians.] Thus, almost inevitably, an anti-British bias has been generated, one of the noteworthy and regrettable changes in the Indian mind within the last half-century. Probably many would declare that the unifying national consciousness of which I have spoken is nothing more than a racial anti-British bias. At all events, hear an independent Indian witness regarding the bias.[41] "There is a strong and strange ferment working in certain ranks of Indian society.... Instead of looking upon the English rulers as their real benefactors, they are beginning to view their actions suspiciously, seizing every opportunity of criticising and censuring their rulers.... The race feeling between rulers and ruled, instead of diminishing, has increased with the increase, and spread with the spread, of literary education. That all this is more or less true at present cannot be denied by an impartial political observer." An up-to-date illustration of the bias appears in the address of the Chairman of the National Congress of 1906. "The educated classes," he says, "... now see clearly that the [British] bureaucracy is growing |
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