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The Political Future of India
OTHER BOOKS BY LAJPAT RAI
YOUNG INDIA
An Interpretation and a History of the
Nationalist Movement from Within
Price $1.50 net
ENGLAND’S DEBT TO INDIA
A Historical Narrative of Britain’s
Fiscal Policy in India
Price $2.00 net
AN OPEN LETTER TO LLOYD GEORGE
Price 25 cents net
THE ARYA SAMAJ
An Account of its Origins, Doctrines
and Activities
Price $1.75 net
OBTAINABLE FROM ALL BOOKSELLERS
The
Political Future of India
by
Lajpat Rai
NEW YORK
B. W. HUEBSCH
MCMXIX
COPYRIGHT, 1919, BY B. W. HUEBSCH
PRINTED IN U.S.A.
TO MY FRIEND
COLONEL JOSIAH WEDGWOOD, M. P., D. S. O.
PREFACE
My book, Young India, was written during thefirst year of the war and was finally revised and sentto the press before the war was two years old. Itconcluded with the following observation:
“The Indians are a chivalrous people; they willnot disturb England as long as she is engaged withGermany. The struggle after the war might, however,be even more bitter and sustained.”
The events that have happened since have amplyjustified the above conclusion. India not only refrainedfrom disturbing England while she was engagedin war with Germany, but actively helped in defeatingGermany and winning the war. She raised an armyof over a million combatants and supplied a largenumber of war workers, and made huge contributionsin money and materials. She denied herself the necessitiesof life in order to feed and equip the armies inthe field though within the last months of the war,when scarcity and epidemic overtook her, she lostsix millions of her sons and daughters from one diseasealone—influenza. This was more than chivalry.This was self-effacement in the interests of an Empirewhich, in the past, had treated her children as helots.How much of this effort was voluntary and howmuch of it was forced it is difficult to a