Young India: An interpretation and a history of the nationalist movement from withinLajpat Rai, Lala
History
Young India: An interpretation and a history of the nationalist movement from within
Lajpat Rai, Lala
India -- Politics and government -- 1765-1947
In this respect he is much better treated by non-British countries. Till
recently he could come and go there quite freely. No European country
bars his visits. Of late the United States, it is said, at the instance
of the British Government, has been following a policy of exclusion. But
once in the country, all universities and institutions receive him,
provided he fulfils their conditions and complies with their
regulations. That much, however, cannot be said of Great Britain. It is
true that Great Britain imposes no restrictions on his coming and going,
as she imposes no restrictions on any one else’s coming and going, but
there are British institutions which would not admit him as a student,
however high his social position or status may be. Even those
institutions which admit him for study, discriminate against him in the
matter of military drill. They would not admit him into their volunteer
corps; nor would they take him as a boy scout. A great many of the
British clubs would have nothing to do with him. The only British club
of note, which has a fairly good number of Indians on its rolls and
which accords them a welcome, is the National Liberal Club. This club is
a noble exception.
Now the British must be an extremely unimaginative people, if they think
that all this does not make the Indian feel the inferiority of his
position. The latter, naturally, ascribes all this to the fact of his
country’s having no national government of her own to protect him and to
advance his interests. All this reminds him most forcibly of the fact
that he belongs to a subject race, that his country does not count in
the world because she is not free and has no embassies, that she has no
flag of her own, nor consular representatives to back her sons, and that
in the great mass of civilised humanity he is a mere cypher. All this
naturally tells on his nerves and he becomes an extremist. He feels that
anything would be preferable to this life of shame and dishonor.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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