| Abstrakt: |
Every inquiry which can elucidate the history, the laws, the institutions, or the characteristics of the people of India, ought to have a very practical interest for the people of England, and especially for that small section of them which is entrusted with her government, either more directly as connected with the India Office, or less so as members of the British Parliament. Nor can it be said that information acquired by personal inquiry from people living on the spot is the most satisfactory for the purpose, or can be considered sufficient. Such is not the case. Englishmen in India, as a rule, never mix in social intercourse with the natives. They may receive friendly visits from a few; but, in ordinary, the relations between Englishmen and the higher classes of the natives of India are either purely official or purely of a business nature, and with the lower orders those of master and servant. Again, the few natives of India who have received an English education have been effectually isolated from the great body of their fellow-countrymen, with whom they have as little real sympathy as with their English rulers. In the former case, sometimes from fear, but more often from a desire to coincide with and to please or flatter his superiors, as the Hindu historians did in the reigns of Akbar and his successors,—and in the latter, sometimes from ignorance, but sometimes also from interested motives,—the opinions of natives with which Europeans are likely to be favoured are not always a safe guide. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER] |
