The Project Gutenberg EBook of India, Old and New, by Sir Valentine Chirol

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Title: India, Old and New

Author: Sir Valentine Chirol

Release Date: April 8, 2005 [EBook #15586]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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INDIA
OLD AND NEW

BY
SIR VALENTINE CHIROL

AUTHOR OF "INDIAN UNREST," "THE EGYPTIAN PROBLEM," ETC.

"We shall in time so far improve the character of our
Indian subjects as to enable them to govern and protect
themselves."--Minute by Sir Thomas Munro, Governor
of Madras, Dec. 31, 1824.

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON
1921

FOREWORD

It is little more than ten years since I wrote my _Indian Unrest_. But
they have been years that may well count for decades in the history of
the world, and not least in the history of India. Much has happened in
India to confirm many of the views which I then expressed. Much has
happened also to lead me to modify others, and to recognise more clearly
to-day the shortcomings of a system of government, in many ways
unrivalled, but subject to the inevitable limitations of alien rule.

At a very early stage of the Great War the Prime Minister warned the
British people that, after the splendid demonstration India was already
giving of her loyalty to the cause for which the whole Empire was then
in arms, our relations with her would have henceforth to be approached
from "a new angle of vision." The phrase he used acquired a deeper
meaning still as the war developed from year to year into a
life-and-death struggle not merely between nations but between ideals,
and India claimed for herself the benefit of the ideals for which she
too fought and helped the British Commonwealth to victory. When victory
was assured, could India's claim be denied after she had been called in,
with all the members of the British Commonwealth, to the War Councils of
the Empire in the hour of need, and aga