Page:The Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol. 1.djvu/330

 India of a period previous to that date? History says that the Aryans’ home was not India but they came from Central Asia, and one family migrated to India and colonized it, the others to Europe. The government of that day was, so history says, a civilized government in the truest sense of the term. The whole Aryan literature grew up then. The India of Alexander’s time was India on the decline. When other nations were hardly formed, India was at its zenith, and the Indians of this age are descendants of that race. To say, therefore, that the Indians have been ever under servitude is hardly correct. India certainly has not proved unconquerable. If that be reason for disfranchisement, I have nothing to say except this, that every nation will, unfortunately, be found wanting in this respect. It is true England “wafts her sceptre” over India. The Indians are not ashamed of that fact. They are proud to be under the British Crown, because they think that England will prove India’s deliverer. The wonder of all wonders seems to be that the Indians, like the favoured nation of the Bible, are irrepressible in spite of centuries of oppression and bondage. And many British writers think that India is under England with her consent.

Professor Seeley says:


 * The nation of India have been conquered by an army, of which, on the average, a fifth part was English. In the early battles of the Company, by which its power was decisively established, at the siege of Arcot, at Plassey, at Buxar, there seems always to have been more Sepoys than Europeans on the side of the Company. And, let us observe further, that we do not hear of the Sepoys fighting ill, of the English as bearing the whole brunt of the conflict.
 * . . . But if once it is admitted that the Sepoys always outnumbered the English, and that they kept pace with the English in efficiency as soldiers, the whole theory, which attributes our success to an immeasurable natural superiority in valour, falls to the ground. —Digby’s India for the Indians and for England

The honourable gentleman is also reported to have said:


 * We (the Colonists) were entrusted with responsible Government in Natal under certain circumstances. These have now become absolutely changed, brought about by your refusal to sanction our Bill. You have brought about a condition of things that is so fraught with danger that it is our clear duty to hand back to you the authority which you gave us.

How contrary to facts is all this! It assumes that the Home Government are now trying to thrust the Indian franchise on the