The Political Institutions and Theories of the Hindus: A Study in Comparative Politics c7.14

c7.14

The principles of the American and French revolutions were advertised and sown broadcast through the long wars of the Napoleonic era (1793—1815). The years 1830 and 1848 were the years of revolutions and risings against absolutism and privilegism all over Europe. But in spite of the steady progress in constitutional ideas, checks on royalty, and the assertion of popular rights, a formal republic did not make its appearance in any European country until yesterday (March 16, 1917).² The third republic of Europe has been born in Russia, the quarter where it was least expected. On the whole, however, Europe seems still to be chary of losing her crowned heads. Although the expulsion of Hohen- Shah Jahan and Aurangzib¹ (sixteenth and seventeenth centuries). The Moghul period of Indian history is one of the most important epochs of civilization. For the people of India, it was an era of prosperity, material and intellectual. The epoch, known generally as the age of Indo-Saracenic renaissance, looms therefore as large in the consciousness of the Young India of today as does the age of the Vikramâdityan *sârva-bhaumas*. The policy of the Moslem states was always secular, and the personal bigotry and intolerance of some of the rulers were not more frequent than were the fanaticism and inquisitionism of Christian monarchs of contemporary Europe.² From Prithvî-râja and Mohammed Ghori of the twelfth century to Baji Rao and Haidar Ali of the eighteenth, Hindu and Mohammedan India can exhibit therefore as many Charles Vs, Gustavus Adolfuses, Louis XIVs, Fredericks and Peters as can the western half of Eur-Asia.