"Till then, I had never prioritised my career because of my choices but now I took the hard decision of juggling two worlds. Jayant and my in-laws were always supportive so there at least I didn’t have to battle. I knew it would be tough, but I decided to work and do my PhD"

"In his recent book, "Modern India: Its Problems and their Solution" (p. 161 and 77), Dr. V. H. Rutherford, M. P. examines the character and results of British efficiency, and pronounces it "one of the chief causes of India's poverty." He declares that the British Government in India is efficient only on behalf of British interests, only in carrying on the government and managing the affairs of the country for the benefit of Great Britain. He cites the Government's neglect of education of masses; neglect of sanitation and medical services in the villages; neglect to keep order; neglect of housing of the poor; neglect to provide agricultural banks; comparative neglect to improve and develop agriculture; neglect to foster Indian industries; neglect to protect British profiteers from capturing the tramways, electric lighting and other public services; and neglect to prevent the manipulation of Indian currency in the interests of London." "British rule as it is carried on in India is the lowest and most immoral system of government in the world - the exploitation of one nation by another.""

"Very soon after Plassey, the Bengal plunder began to arrive in London, and the effect appears to have been instantaneous, for all authorities agree that the ‘Industrial Revolution’ began with the year 1770 . . . Plassey was fought in 1757, and probably nothing has ever equaled the rapidity of the change that followed. In 1760 the ‘flying shuttle’ for textile manufacturing appeared, and coal began to replace wood in smelting. In 1764, Hargreaves invented the Spinning Jenny and, in 1768, Watt matured the steam engine. Before the influx of the Indian treasure, and the expansion of credit, which followed, no force sufficient for this purpose existed. Possibly since the world began, no investment has ever yielded the profit reaped from the Indian plunder, because for nearly 50 years Great Britain stood without a competitor."

"The English Governor-General of India, Lord Bentinck, reported in 1834 that "the misery hardly finds a parallel in the history of commerce.The bones of the cotton weavers are bleaching the plains of India.""

"Let no one cite India as an argument in defense of colonialism. On the Ganges and the Indus the Briton, in spite of his many notable qualities and his large contribution to the world's advancement, has demonstrated, as many have before, man's inability to exercise, with wisdom and justice, irresponsible power over the helpless people. He has conferred some benefits upon India, but he has extorted a tremendous price for them. While he has boasted of bringing peace to the living, he has led millions to the peace of the grave; while he has dwelt upon order...he has impoverished the country by legalized pillage."

"Tipu Sultan sponsored the construction of the Ala Mosque in Seringapatam fort, in which pillars of Hindu origin were clearly visible. According to the Mysore Archaeological Survey, at least three temples in his realm were destroyed on Tipu’s orders. The Hariharesvara temple at Harihar was looted and a section of it converted into a mosque, while the Varahasvami temple in Seringapatam and the Odakaraya temple in Hospet were both destroyed. Colonel Mark Wilks (1759-1831), soldier and historian of the East India Company and acting Resident at the Wodeyar court, observed, “.. in 1799, the two temples within the fort of Seringapatam, alone remained open throughout the extent of his dominions” ."

"This is nearly the form of the jebbum [Japam] which is always performed during a drought in Mysoor, for procuring rain. That Hyder, himself, half a Hindoo, should sanction these ceremonies, is in the ordinary course of human action; but that Tippoo, the most bigoted of Mahommedans, professing an open abhorrence and contempt for the Hindoo religion, and the bramins its teachers, destroying their temples, and polluting their sanctuaries, should never fail to enjoin the performance of the jebbum when alarmed by imminent danger, is, indeed, an extraordinary combination of arrogant bigotry and trembling superstition; of general intolerance mingled with occasional respect for the object of persecution."

"He also boasted about ‘the destruction in the course of this holy war of eight thousand idol temples, many of them roofed with gold, silver, or copper, and all containing treasures buried at the feet of the idol, the whole of which was royal plunder.’"

"Thus terminated a dynasty composed only of two Sovereigns, the first of whom had risen from obscurity to imperial power, and the last, educated as a prince had fallen in the defence of a hereditary crown; resembling in some of the circumstances of its close, the fate of the Roman capital of the Eastern empire; substituting like that catastrophe, in place of the fallen dynasty, not only the power of a new Sovereign, but the influence of a new race; yet exhibiting the marked contrast, of kindling, not quenching in its fall, the lights of science and civilization."

"They finally offered to surrender and were given an option of either a ‘voluntary profession of the Mahommedan faith, or a forcible conversion, with deportation from their native land. The unhappy captives gave a forced assent, and on the next day, the rite of circumcision was performed on all the males, every individual of both sexes being compelled to close the ceremony by eating beef.’"

"In person, he [Tipu] was neither so tall nor so robust as his father, and had a short pursy neck; the large limbs, small eyes, aquiline nose, and fair complexion of Hyder, marked the Arabic character derived from his mother. Tippoo’s singularly small and delicate hands and feet, his large and full eyes, a nose, less prominent, and a much darker complexion were all national characteristics of the Indian form. There was in the first view of his countenance, an appearance of dignity which wore off on farther observation; and his subjects did not feel that it inspired the terror or respect, which in common with his father, he desired to command. Hyder’s lapse from dignity into low and vulgar scolding, was among the few points of imitation or resemblance, but in one it inspired fear, in the other ridicule. In most instances exhibiting a contrast to the character and manners of his father, he spoke in a loud and unharmonious tone of voice; he was extremely garrulous, and on superficial subjects, delivered his sentiments with plausibility. In exterior appearance, he affected the soldier; in his toilet, the distinctive habits of the Mussulman; he thought hardiness to be indicated by a plain unincumbered attire, which he equally exacted from those around him, and the long robe and trailing drawers were banished from his court . . . of the vernacular languages, he spoke no other than Hindostanee and Canarese; but from a smattering in Persian literature, he considered himself as the first philosopher of the age. He spoke that language with fluency; but although the pen was forever in his hand, he never attained either elegance or accuracy of style. The leading features of his character were vanity and arrogance; no human being was ever so handsome, so wise, so learned, or so brave as himself. Resting on the shallow instructions of his scanty reading, he neglected the practical study of mankind. No man had ever less penetration into character; and accordingly, no prince was ever so ill served; the army alone remained faithful, in spite of all his efforts for the subversion of discipline and allegiance. Hyder delegated to his instruments a large portion of his own power, as the best means of its preservation. Tippoo seemed to feel every exercise of delegated authority as an [sic] usurpation of his own . . . from constitutional or incidental causes, he was less addicted than his father to the pleasures of the harem, which, however, contained at his death about one hundred persons . . . he could neither be truly characterized as liberal or parsimonious; as tyrannical or benevolent; as a man of talents, or as destitute of parts. By turns, he assumed the character of each. In one object alone he appeared to be consistent, having perpetually on his tongue the projects of jehad—holy war. The most intelligent and sincere well-wishers of the house concurred in the opinion of his father, that his heart and head were both defective, however covered by a plausible and imposing flow of words; and they were not always without suspicions of mental aberration . . . Tippoo was intoxicated with success, and desponding in adversity. His mental energy failed with the decline of fortune; but it were unjust to question his physical courage. He fell in the defence of his capital; but he fell, performing the duties of a common soldier, not of a general."

"Mark Wilks, who participated in the third Anglo-Mysore war, wrote that Tipu would resort to anything to ward off defeat, “The religion which he revered, as well as that which he had cruelly persecuted, were equally invoked; the moola and the bramin were equally bribed to interpose their prayers for his deliverance, his own attendance at the mosque was frequent, and his devotion impressive...” ."

"The country of Calicut is situated on the coast of the ocean, and is named Malabar: its breadth does not exceed twenty-three coss [one coss= 2¼ miles] and its length is nearly two hundred. The Mahommedan inhabitants are called Pilla [Mapilla] and the infidels Naimars; and the rainy season lasts six months, and mud continues throughout the year, the roads are excessively difficult, and the inhabitants prone to resistance, dividing their time between agriculture and arms. Such is the excess of infidelity, that if a Mussulman touch the exterior wall of a house, the dwelling can only be purified by setting it on fire. From the origin of Islam in Hind, to the present day, no person had interfered with these practices, except the revered [Haidar Ali] who is in paradise, after the conquest of the country . . . and during the twenty-five years that the country of Calicut had belonged to this dynasty, in as much as twenty thousand troops were maintained for its occupation, and the revenues never equaled their monthly pay; the balance, to a large amount, was uniformly discharged from the general treasury. Notwithstanding all this, the actual circumstances of the country were never properly investigated, until his Majesty, the shadow of God, directed his propitious steps and remained three months in that country. He observed that the cultivators (instead of being collected in villages as in other parts of India) have each his separate dwelling and garden adjoining his field; these solitary dwellings he classed into groups of forty houses, with a local chief and an accountant to each an establishment which was to watch over the morals and realize the revenue; and a Sheikh-ul-Islam to each district for religious purposes alone; and addressed to the principal inhabitants a proclamation to the following effect: ‘From the period of the conquest until this day, during twenty-four years, you have been a turbulent and refractory people, and in the wars waged during your rainy season, you have caused numbers of our warriors to taste the draught of martyrdom. Be it so. What is past is past. Hereafter, you must proceed in an opposite manner; dwell quietly, and pay your dues like good subjects; and since it is a practice with you, for one woman to associate with ten men, and you leave your mothers and sisters unconstrained in their obscene practices, and are thence born in adultery, and are more shameless in your connections than the beasts of the field; I hereby require you to forsake these sinful practices and live like the rest of mankind. And if you are disobedient to these commands, I have made repeated vows, to honour the whole of you with Islam, and to march all the chief persons to the seat of empire. Other moral inferences and religious instruction, applicable to spiritual and temporal concerns, were also written with his own hand and graciously bestowed upon them."

"No very strict line can be drawn between Animists and low-class Hindus."

"At one corner of a vast mound known as Ramkot, or the fort of Rama, is the holy spot where the hero was born. Most of the enclosure is occupied by a mosque built by Babar from the remains of an old temple, and in the outer portion a small platform and shrine mark the birth place."

"‘In the year A.D. 1000 it [the Sutlej] was a tributary of the Hakra, and flowed in the Eastern Nara . . . Thus the Sutlej or the Hakra—for both streams flowed in the same bed—is probably the lost river of the Indian desert, whose waters made the sands of Bikaner and Sind a smiling garden.’"

"‘In ancient times the lower portion of the river seems to have borne the name of its confluent the Saraswati or Sarsuti, which joins the main stream in Patiala territory. It then possessed the dimensions of an important channel . . . At present, however, every village through which the stream passes has diverted a portion of its waters for irrigation, no less than 10,000 acres being supplied from this source in Ambala District alone . . . During the lower portion of its course, in Sirsa District, the bed of the Ghaggar is dry from November to June, affording a cultivable surface for rich crops of rice and wheat.’"

"Firoz Tughlak, foiled in his attempt to seize' Khargu, who fled to Kumaun, appointed an Afghan governor at Sambhal with orders to invade the country of Katehar every year, to commit every kind of ravage and devastation, and not to allow it to be inhabited until tire murderer was given up."

"... the entry ‘Saraswati (Sarsuti)’, defined as a ‘sacred river of the Punjab, famous in the early Brahmanical annals’. We learn that the river rises ‘in the low hills of Sirmur State, emerges upon the plain at Zadh Budri [Ad Badri], a place esteemed sacred by all Hindus’, and, before joining the Ghaggar, ‘passes by the holy town of Thanesar and the numerous shrines of the Kuruksetra, a tract celebrated as a centre of pilgrimages, and as the scene of the battle-fields of the Mahabharatha’. The Gazetteer repeats, ‘In ancient times, the united stream below the point of junction appears to have borne the name of Sarsuti, and, undiminished by irrigation near the hills, to have flowed across the Rajputana plains . . .’ ‘Some of the earliest Aryan settlements in India were on the banks of the Saraswati, and the surrounding country has from almost Vedic times been held in high veneration. The Hindus identify the river with Saraswati, the Sanskrit Goddess of Speech and Learning.’"

"'It would be a mistake to suppose that Buddhism and Jainism were directed from the outset consciously in opposition to the caste system. Caste, in fact, at the time of the rise of Buddhism was only beginning to develop; and in later days, when Buddhism commenced its missionary careers, it took caste with it into regions where upto that time the institution had not penetrated.'"

"If Ajodhya was then little other than a wilderness, it must at least have possessed a fine temple in the Janamasthan; for many of its columns are still in existence and in good preservation, having been used by the Musalmans in the construction of the Babari Mosque. These are of strong, close- grained, darkcolored or black stone called by the natives kasauti and carved with different devices"

"...the wild jungle tribes in Central India, though the persons who profess the latter stoutly advance a claim to be considered Hindus."

"I cannot understand why the Ali Brothers are going to be arrested as the rumours go, and why I am to remain free. They have done nothing which I would not do. If they had sent a message to the Amir, I also would send one to inform the Amir that if he came, no Indian so long as I can help it, would help the Government to drive him back."

"I would, in a sense, certainly assist the Amir of Afghanistan if he waged war against the British Government. That is to say, I would openly tell my countrymen that it would be a crime to help a government which had lost the confidence of the nation to remain in power."

"They did exactly what was feared they might—invite the Amir of Afghanistan to invade India for the pan-Islamic cause. In his misguided enthusiasm, Gandhi went to the extent of even supporting such a move: ‘I would, in a sense, certainly assist the Amir of Afghanistan, if he waged a war against the British Government. That is to say, I would openly tell my countrymen that it would be a crime to help a government which had lost the confidence of the nation to remain in power.’ Even his most ardent supporters were shocked by such statements that had no roots in pragmatism or practicality. .... The government had intercepted a telegram—a wire sent to the Amir of Afghanistan inviting him to invade India and urging him to not make peace with the British—written in Persian, allegedly by Muhammad Ali. Swami Shraddhanand mentions this incident in his memoir. Muhammad Ali had feigned complete ignorance in the matter as he knew neither Persian nor Arabic and he was made a maulana only by virtue of the duties of tabligh (conversion) that he had conducted. On reaching Anand Bhawan, Pandit Motilal Nehru’s Allahabad residence, Muhammad Ali took Shraddhanand aside and taking out a paper from his handbag, gave him a draft of a telegram to read. ‘What was my astonishment,’ noted Shraddhanand, ‘when I saw the draft of the selfsame telegram in the peculiar handwriting of the Father of the non-violent cooperation movement!’ Gandhi reached Anand Bhawan the next day and when asked by Sharaddhanand about this matter, did not remember to have sent any such telegram."

"But since the Government is apparently uninformed about the manner in which our Faith colours and is meant to colour all our actions, including those which, for the sake of convenience, are generally characterised as mundane, one thing must be made clear, and it is this: Islam does not permit the believer to pronounce an adverse judgement against another believer without more convincing proof; and we could not, of course, fight against our Muslim brothers without making sure that they were guilty of wanton aggression, and did not take up arms in defence of their faith." (This was in relation to the war that was going on between the British and the Afghans in 1919.) "Now our position is this. Without better proof of the Amir's malice or madness we certainly do not want Indian soldiers, including the Musalmans, and particularly with our own encouragement and assistance, to attack Afghanistan and effectively occupy if first, and then be a prey to more perplexity and perturbation afterwards. "But if on the contrary His Majesty the Amir has no quarrel with India and her people and if his motive must be attributed, as the Secretary of State has publicly said, to the unrest which exists throughout the Mahomedan world, an unrest with which he openly professed to be in cordial sympathy, that is to say, if impelled by the same religious motive that has forced Muslims to contemplate Hijrat, the alternative of the weak, which is all that is within our restricted means. His Majesty has been forced to contemplate Jihad, the alternative of those comparatively stronger which he may have found within his means; if he has taken up the challenge of those who believed in force and yet more force, and he intends to try conclusions with those who require Musalmans to wage war against the Khilafat and those engaged in Jihad; who are in wrongful occupation of the Jazirut-ul-Arab and the holy places; who aim at the weakening of Islam; discriminate against it, and deny to us full freedom to advocate its cause; then the clear law of Islam requires that in the first place, in no case whatever should a Musalman render anyone any assistance against him; and in the next place if the Jihad approaches my region every Musalman in that region must join the Mujahidin and assist them to the best of his or her power. "Such is the clear and undisputed law of Islam; and we had explained this to the Committee investigating our case when it had put to us a question about the religious duty of a Muslim subject of a non-Muslim power when Jihad had been declared against it, long before there was any notion of trouble on the Frontiers, and when the late Amir was still alive."

"Our General Had to restore "Law-and-Order" At Amritsar; For he knew That if he failed To shoot Two thousand natives They would have laughed at him. To laugh at a General, Is, of course, very rude."

". Unaware of the law being imposed, approximately 6000–10,000 unarmed people had gathered on 13 April 1919 for a public meeting at Jallianwala Bagh in Amritsar. Soon after the meeting began, Dyer reached the spot without any warning to the attendees. He passed, with his infantry, through a narrow lane into Jallianwalla Bagh and at once deployed them to the right and left of the entrance in the Bagh’s square. The armoured cars remained outside the square and never came into action as the lane was too narrow for them to enter. The gates of the Bagh were shut and his troops stationed themselves on a raised ground. Without any warning, Dyer ordered indiscriminate firing on the mass of humanity that had gathered there. More than 1500 rounds were shot. Men, women, children and old people were caught in this firing and martyred. As per government records, nearly 379 were killed and more than 1200 wounded (the actual numbers were much more)."

"Viceroy Lord Chelmsford’s response to this genocide was indicative of the government’s attitude: I have heard that Dyer administered Martial Law in Amritsar very reasonably and in no sense tyrannously. In these circumstances you will understand why it is that both the Commander-in-Chief and I feel very strongly that an error of judgment, transitory in its consequences, should not bring down upon him a penalty which would be out of all proportion to the offence and which must be balanced against the very notable services which he rendered at an extremely critical time."

"Dyer was anything but remorseful of this savagery and in fact boasted of his achievements and what he termed as a merciful act. He admitted that he could have dispersed them without firing but that would have been derogatory to his dignity as a defender of law and order. It was to maintain his self-respect, he claimed, that he decided to fire, leaving behind a trail of corpses. This brutality sent shock waves across India, more so at a time when the government was discussing administrative reforms and limited self-government. Ironically, Dyer was feted as a hero by the British. A fund created in his support by the Morning Post in London and another in Mussoorie in India collected a purse of £20,000."

"Though, by the logic of this tribe, the best promoters of India’s unity were the British. They did far more and succeeded to a much greater extent in imposing a unity on India. By that logic, General Dyer of the Jallianwala Bagh fame comes out with flying colours as the foremost builder of an Indian nation. He was also very ruthless in gunning down unarmed people who were not impressed by the “benefits of the British Raj”."

"It is no secret that there have been some difficult episodes in our past – Jallianwala Bagh, which I shall visit tomorrow, is a distressing example. But history cannot be rewritten, however much we might sometimes wish otherwise. It has its moments of sadness, as well as gladness. We must learn from the sadness and build on the gladness."

"As long as we rule India, we are the greatest power in the world. If we lose it, we shall drop straight away to a third-rate Power."

"The British Government in India has not only deprived the Indian people of their freedom, but has debased it economically, politically, culturally, and spiritually. We believe that India must sever the British connection and attain purna swarajya, or complete independence...We hold it to be a crime against man and God to submit any longer to the rule that has caused this disaster to our country. We recognize, however, that the most effective way of gaining our freedom is not through violence."

"Thus the British constructed their own illogical dilemma and locked themselves up in it: India was a liability; therefore we could not abandon it. Or, to put it in another way, even if we had no need of India, India had need of us, and we ought to fulfil that need even at our own cost. For in the last resort the place of India in the British mind was founded not upon calculation but upon love... For the clue to all the agonising of the British over India between the world wars was that, whatever their political differences of opinion, they were thinking primarily not of British interests, but of Indian interests, as they conceived them."

"The world never yet beheld such a compound of jobbing, swindling, hypocrisy, and slaughter, as goes to make up the gigantic scheme of villainy called the “British rule in India”. I have a presentment...that God's chastisement upon us as a nation will come from Hindostan. ... Your energies could not be more worthily employed than in trying to avert from us this judgement, by endeavouring to do justice to the Indian population."

"During the 1935 Parliament debates on the Government of India Act, Sir Winston Churchill opposed any policy tending towards decolonization on the following ground: 'We have as much right to be in India as anyone there, except perhaps for the Depressed Classes [= the SC/ STs], who are the native stock.'"

"India was like colossal mansion standing in the middle of a vast but ill-cultivated estate; it conferred prestige, it made the owners feel grand, and, by the cost of its upkeep, threatened them with ruin. For how could a nation of only 45,000,000 people, an industrial power not only out-matched in size but in performance by great rivals, find the diplomatic and strategic strength to carry India without dangerously weakening itself? ... Even had the British governing classes thought in terms of a colossal economic transformation of India, their powers of bringing it about were limited. The Indian Mutiny had shown the dangers that a small occupying force ran in trying to interfere with deeply entrenched prejudices, customs and patterns of life... "Five Year Plans" for India were simply not in the British mind. The corset of good and honest government and the benefit of public works were as much as the British could hope to achieve, and as much as their imagination compassed. Only the Labour Party thought of Indian problems primarily in economic terms, and then not from the point of view of British advantage... India was indeed "a mischievous encumbrance", to be rid of with all convenient speed... Yet during and after the Great War the British governing classes failed to perceive that self-interest demanded the handing over of India to some Indian régime as quickly as it could be arranged."

"Was it necessary for the rumours of your riches to penetrate through to the climate where artificial needs have no limits? Soon new foreigners approached your frontiers; inconvenient guests, everything that they touched belonged to them: your squabbles maintained, and aggravated, by Agents who are powerful, and what is more, motivated by self-interest, so that your disputes become eternal: it is no matter that they have invaded your market, have tripled the price of basic foodstuffs, and as to merchandise, have altered its quality; manufacturing industry almost annihilated, the workers fleeing to the mountains, the dying son asking his father what he had done to these foreigners who take away rice from his mouth: nothing touches them, or softens their hearts: your gold, one said to the Peruvians, to the Mexicans: here, the revenue of Hindustan, that is what we demand, even at the cost of rivers of blood."

"Why is it that the principles of Government and lessons of history which we have learnt in our experience with the great self-governing dominions, which we have learnt in Canada, in South Africa and in Ireland, apply only in a limited degree to India? It is because the problem of Indian government is primarily a technical one. In India far more than in any other community in the world moral, political and economic considerations are outweighed by the importance of technical and administrative apparatus. Here you have nearly three hundred and fifty millions of people, lifted to a civilisation and to a level of peace, order, sanitation and progress far above anything they could possibly have achieved themselves or could maintain. This wonderful fact is due to the guidance and authority of a few thousands of British officials responsible to Parliament who have for generations presided over the development of India. If that authority is injured or destroyed, the whole efficiency of the services, defensive, administrative, medical, hygienic, judicial; railway, irrigation, public works and famine prevention, upon which the Indian masses depend for their culture and progress, will perish with it. India will fall back quite rapidly through the centuries into the barbarism and privations of the Middle Ages. The question at stake is not therefore the gratification of the political aspirations towards self-government of a small number of intellectuals. It is, on the contrary, the practical, technical task of maintaining the peace and life of India by artificial means upon a much higher standard than would otherwise be possible. To let the Indian people fall, as they would, to the level of China, would be a desertion of duty on the part of Great Britain."

"The rescue of India from ages of barbarism, tyranny, and internecine war and its slow but ceaseless forward march to civilisation constitute upon the whole the finest achievement of our history."

"In the Great War India raised 1,440,437 soldiers, all volunteers... The total number of men raised in India was no more than 0.3 per cent of her population, compared to 12.4 per cent in the British Isles, 11.6 per cent in New Zealand and about 8 per cent in Canada and Australia. Of the Indian total, only 877,068 were combatants, while India sent overseas no more than 621,224 officers and men; Canada, on the other hand, from a population of only 7,600,000 sent abroad 422,405 men... Of the troops India did send overseas, only 89,335 went to swell British strength on the decisive front in France and in the battles with England's principal enemy, Germany. Against these 89,335 troops sent to France must, however, be set the 15,000 British troops retained in India to secure internal order... Thus India's military contribution to the British struggle with Germany in the Great War was in fact both relatively and absolutely negligible. When therefore a final balance is struck of the value of India to Britain in the Great War, value both economically and militarily, there is only the item of a net gain of 74,000 soldiers to set against the colossal, expensive and vulnerable British involvement in territories stretching from Malta to Rangoon, from the Himalayas to East Africa. The whole British position in the Middle East and Southern Asia was in fact a classic, and gigantic, example of strategic over-extension. Far from being a source of strength to England, India served only immensely to weaken and distract her."

"[H]e would say that he doubted whether it was possible for anyone who had not visited India, even Members of Her Majesty's Government, to realize how incredibly strong, and, at the same time, how incredibly slender, our position in India was. It was strong far beyond ordinary human strength so long as we showed ourselves capable of ruling; but it was weaker than the weakest the moment we showed the faintest indications of relaxing our grasp."

"You can choose any single area, take for example India: England did not acquire India in a lawful and legitimate manner, but rather without regard to the natives’ wishes, views, or declarations of rights; and she maintained this rule, if necessary, with the most brutal ruthlessness. Just as Cortés or Pizarro demanded for themselves Central America and the northern states of South America not on the basis of any legal claim, but from the absolute, inborn feeling of superiority (Herrengefühl) of the white race. The settlement of the North American continent was similarly a consequence not of any higher claim in a democratic or international sense, but rather of a consciousness of what is right which had its sole roots in the conviction of the superiority and thus the right of the white race."

"The Portuguese, Dutch and English have for a long time, year after year, been shipping home the treasures of India in their big vessels. We Germans have been all along left to watch it. Germany would do likewise but hers would be treasures of spiritual knowledge."

"The best justification for the despotic system described is to be found in the administration of British India. That administration is no doubt in some respects imperfect. … But it is incomparably better than the administration of any subject territory by an alien and distant race of conquerors than has ever been before. It had in particular attained three great objects. It has established perfect internal peace and security through a vast area, much of which is still inhabited by wild tribes; it has secured a perfectly just administration of the law, civil as well as criminal, between all races and castes; and it has imbued the officials with a feeling that their first duty is to do their best for the welfare of the natives and to defend them against the rapacity of European adventurers. These things have been achieved by an efficiently organized Civil Service inspired by high traditions, kept apart from British party politics, and standing quite outside the prejudices, jealousies, and superstitions which sway the native mind. Only through despotic methods could that have been done for India which the English have done."

"Shoot Gandhi and if that does not suffice to reduce them to submission, shoot a dozen leading members of Congress; and if that does not suffice, shoot 200 and so on until order is established. You will see how quickly they will collapse as soon as you make it clear that you mean business."

"The English looked upon India as the keystone of the imperial arch, but did the arch only exist to support the keystone? What in terms of economic and strategic advantage did England get in return for this immense imperial structure spread-eagled from the Mediterranean to the Bay of Bengal? Wherein lay that value of India which alone could justify – and more than justify, if India were to be profitable – the burdens and risks that England had assumed in the Middle East and Asia? In the first place, India added nothing to the industrial capacity of the empire. Out of every hundred Indians, seventy-one worked on the land and only twelve in any kind of industry... Except for chromium, manganese and jute, India was also devoid of discovered or exploited sources of strategic raw materials. As a market for British products, India in 1913 was nearly equalled in value by France and Germany together (£70,273,221 as against £69,610,451), and outweighed by the "white" dominions. As a source of imports into Britain, India was worth less than half the "white" dominions. As a field for British investment, India rated as not much more important than Argentina, and half as important as the United States. Thus, when India's importance to England as a source of economic advantage or strategic raw materials is compared to other countries both inside and outside the empire, there was nothing remotely to justify the unique and immense diplomatic and strategic responsibilities that India entailed... For the British, having given themselves such vast trouble to conquer and to hold India, had neglected adequately to exploit it."