Young India by Lala Lajpat Rai
First Published in 1916

Pages - 284

During my travels in the world, the one point that
has struck me most forcibly and most painfully, is the
lack of true knowledge about the affairs of India among
the " civilised " nations of the globe. Even the best
educated among them know very little about India and
what little they know is not always right. The sources
from which the ordinary stay-at-home Westerner
derives his knowledge about India are the following: (a)
missionaries who have been to India, (b) English writers
of the class of Rudyard Kipling and Sir Valentine
Chirol, (c) British officials, (d) serious students of Indian
history or Indian literature like the late Professor
Max Miiller, the late Miss Noble, and the late Professor
Goldstucker.
Now unfortunately for India most of these people,
except those coming under the last heading, have
generally an axe to grind and can not be accepted as
disinterested, well-informed, impartial authorities.
Their reading of Indian history is often perverted and
their observations of Indian life partial and distorted.
They go to India with definite aims, look at persons
and things from their own particular angle, and pose
as authorities on matters far beyond the scope of their
observations and studies. With rare exceptions most of
the Westerners who go to India go with the presumption
that the people of India belong to an inferior level
of society; that they are heathens, worshippers of stocks
and stones; that they are hopelessly divided into castes
and classes; that these castes and classes are always at
each other's throats; that they have never had a settled
or civilised form of government; that the British have