The Ancient and Medieval Architecture of India: A Study of Indo-Aryan Civilisation c2.2

c2.2

It will certainly be impossible for Great Britain to continue to refuse India privileges which our ally, Russia, is willing to grant to her Asiatic subjects; and the problem of reconciling Indian aspirations with the vital interests of the Empire can only be solved satisfactorily by avoiding the dangers into which we have drifted with regard to the government of Ireland. The root of the Irish difficulties has lain in ignorance of Irish sentiment and Irish history. Similar causes will sooner or later produce similar effects on a far larger scale in India. It is therefore that I believe myself to be fulfilling a patriotic duty in endeavouring to remove the misconceptions of Indian civilisation which have so largely governed Anglo-Indian policy. It is good to remind ourselves how history is repeating itself—that our Indian comrades-in-arms are of the same stock as those who fifteen hundred years ago were fighting on Indian soil the same battles for liberty and for Aryan civilisation against those who, like the modern Huns, knew no right but might, as we are fighting together in Europe to-day. It is good for us to know that Indian civilisation is a branch of the same tree which we are proud to call our own. And this very feeling of comradeship makes it imperative for us to try to understand the political and social ideals which India herself has cherished for so many centuries, rather than impose upon her those which we, from our Western experience, judge to be best for her.