Before concluding this introductory part of my study of the Nationalist Movement in India, I desire to tender my heartfelt thanks to Professor A. U. Pope, of the University of California, for the encouragement and advice he has given me in the preparation of this book, and to Dr. J. T. Sunderland, of New York, for having read my manuscript and written a Foreword for me. The reader will, I hope, excuse me for certain repetitions. They are unavoidable in a book of this kind, where it is desirable to show that the different communities and classes of the Indian population think on the same lines in national affairs. Lastly, I have to beg the pardon of the reader for certain personal references which may seem to be self-laudatory. I have indulged in this weakness only when it was absolutely necessary for the continuance of the thread of the narrative. In one chapter I have retained the third person singular so as to avoid being understood that I was speaking of myself. I am also conscious of the meagreness of certain chapters. The book is too short to be called a History of the National Movement. It is written more with the object of drawing the attention of the civilised world to what is happening in India, than to prepare a complete record of the movement. The foreign reader can not be expected to be interested in details. Moreover, he may never read a long and expensive book. Hence the studied brevity kept in view all through. Nor do I propose to discuss the fitness of Indians for immediate self-government as that would largely add to the bulk of the book, but for a brief and able discussion of the matter I may refer the reader to an article by the Editor in the _Modern Review_ of Calcutta for February, 1916. Then again it is to be regretted that the illustrations are so few. I would have liked to add many more. Many prominent Nationalists find no place for the simple reason that at the time of sending the book to the press I have not been able to get their pictures. Originally there was no idea of having any illustrations. It is too late now to delay the publication of the book pending the receipt of pictures from India. Indeed the mail facilities, just now, are so dubious that one can not be certain of getting them at all so long as the war lasts. LAJPAT RAI. Berkeley, California, U. S. A., 1st of March, 1916. YOUNG INDIA AN INTERPRETATION AND A HISTORY OF THE NATIONALIST MOVEMENT FROM WITHIN CHAPTER I THE GENERAL VIEWPOINT OF THE INDIAN NATIONALIST Indian History rolls back to thousands of years before the Christian Era. Much of it is still enveloped in mystery. What little is known has been discovered and put in shape within the last hundred years. The materials, from which the early History of India has been prepared, have long been in existence, but little of them were known to the Western people.