Lajpat Rai

There's something about history that is interesting, inviting and invigorating. It tells us, in my opinion, that things are the same, the people are the same, the things around are the same, life is the same, our thinking is the same. There is always a delta change that every generation considers itself to have incorporated in its way of life, and its that delta that also remains constant. The contents of the delta change over time, but the fact remains that it is a delta and not a step change.

The only things that do change are the gadgets around us - horses, then trains, then cars, then planes - mail, then phone and then e-mail - but life remains the same. There's some poor some rich, some smart some slow, some lucky some unlucky, some pretty some ugly, some tall some short - our perceptions dont change, we dont change, life remains the same.

If there's one thing history has taught me it is that life, or rather our perception of life, is constant.

On this note, lets see what Lala Lajpat Rai, the great Punjabi, thinks of 'Young India' in 1916.

Young India Lajpat Rai 1916 - Upload a Document to Scribd

Read this document on Scribd: Young India Lajpat Rai 1916

Did they really say that?

There are times when we get it wrong. This applies to everyone, and with respect to everyone. Although sometimes, we mean it. I'm sure Churchill did. Here's some examples.

"It is alarming and also nauseating to see Mr. Gandhi, a seditious middle temple lawyer, now posing as a fakir of a type well known in the east, striding half-naked up the steps of the viceregal palace, while he is still organizing and conducting a defiant campaign of civil disobedience, to parley on equal terms with the representative of the king-emperor."

- Winston Churchill, 1930

"I do not consider Hitler to be as bad as he is depicted. He is showing an ability that is amazing and seems to be gaining his victories without much bloodshed."

- Mohandas Gandhi in May 1940,

“Brahmins who mouth and patter principles of Western Liberalism."

- Churchill on Indian Congress leaders

"God forbid that India should ever take to industrialism after the manner of the west... keeping the world in chains. If our nation took to similar economic exploitation, it would strip the world bare like locusts."

- Gandhi on Economy

"If we had the atom bomb, we would have used it against the British."

- Speech (16 June 1947) as the official date for Indian independence approached (15 August 1947) , as quoted in Mahatma Gandhi : The Last Phase (1958) by Pyarelal, p. 326

"India is a geographical term. It is no more a united nation than the equator."

- Churchill, Speech at Royal Albert Hall, London (18 March 1931)

"Power will go to the hands of rascals, rogues and freebooters. All Indian leaders will be of low calibre and men of straw."

- Churchill, on the eve of Indian Independence in 1947

A very good read...

I came across this book in my quest to learn more about the history of India. Published in 1903 by author Romesh Dutt, who was one of the few Indians to enter the revered Indian Civil Service, this book is very succinctly written for an economic history text and is referenced with facts from sources that must have been very hard to track down in the times of 1890-1900 in British India. He truly did a great job in this book, and I was just lucky to find the book online here (22 Mb PDF). I definitely learnt a lot of new things about the Economic relationship between Britain and India back in the day.


One thing I (and many others I know) always credited the British was with introducing Railways in India, amongst other industries. What I learnt after reading the book was that India had to pay the railway companies a guaranteed profit of 5% on their investments in Railways! The railways were always a loss-making enterprise, far more so in a poor country like India where no one could afford to travel anyhow, but the Indian taxpayer made sure that the British companies always made a profit. Moreover, there was rapid expansion of the railways to aid manufacturing and transportation of goods for the industries (owned by England). Here's some real numbers from the book.



Call that fair? The railways were paid back in addition to other expenses in the guile of Home Charges, the description of which is below. The image can be clicked to make it bigger and easy to read.



There's so much to talk and say, but my point is made. Here's how Dutt ends his preface to the book - a statement of exasperation, desperation, anguish and hope - all rolled into one.

The Indian Empire will be judged by History as the
most superb of human institutions in modern times.
But it would be a sad story for future historians to tell
that the Empire gave the people of India peace but not
prosperity ; that the manufacturers lost their industries ;
that the cultivators were ground down by a heavy and
variable taxation which precluded any saving ; that the
revenues of the country were to a large extent diverted
to England ; and that recurring and desolating famines
swept away millions of the population. On the other
hand, it would be a grateful story for Englishmen to tell
that England in the twentieth century undid her past
mistakes in India as in Ireland ; that she lightened land
taxes, revived industries, introduced representation, and
ruled India for the good of her people; and that the
people of India felt in their hearts that they were citizens
of a great and United Empire.

Word.