"Considered merely in a literary capacity, the description of the Hindus in the History of British India, is open to censure for its obvious unfairness and injustice; but in the effects which it is likely to exercise upon the connexion between the people of England and the people of India, it is chargeable with more than literary demerit: its tendency is evil; it is calculated to destroy all sympathy between the rulers and the ruled; to preoccupy the minds of those who issue annually from Great Britain, to monopolize the posts of honour and power in Hindustan, with an unfounded aversion toward those over whom they exercise that power. . . . There is reason to fear that these consequences are not imaginary, and that a harsh and illiberal spirit has of late years prevailed in the conduct and councils of the rising service in India, which owes its origin to impressions imbibed in early life from the History of Mr. Mill."
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Philosophers from ScotlandHistorians from ScotlandPolitical authorsEditors from ScotlandEconomists from Scotland
Original Language: English
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H. H. Wilson, Preface by H.H. Wilson in the reedition of James Mill's History of British India. Wilson was "scathing about Mill's ignorance of India", quoted from Dirks, Nicholas B. (2001), Castes of Mind: Colonialism and the Making of New India, ISBN 978-0-691-08895-2, page 37-38
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James Mill
James Mill (April 6, 1773 – June 23, 1836) was a Scottish utilitarian philosopher of the school of Jeremy Bentham; also an economist, historian and political theorist. He was the father of the political philosopher John Stuart Mill.
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