Dawn in India (British Purpose and Indian Aspiration)

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India, during the final decades of the British Raj, was a country in turmoil. The Gandhian era was in full swing, the Muslim League was becoming a force to reckon with and the revolutionaries were doing their best to disrupt British rule. What, at that time, was the British attitude towards India?

Dawn in India is an account of the views, opinions and attitudes held by the British in India. A chronicle of the history of British emergence in the country, it goes on to justify British reluctance to grant Swaraj to India, casting a critical eye on Indian nationalism, Hindu- Muslim strife and British reforms in the country. Assessing the role of political leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi and Bal Gangadhar Tilak, societal norms and spiritual movements, Younghusband provides a portrait of India in the decades preceding Independence, through British eyes.

A classic from the early twentieth century Dawn in India is a remarkable account of the complex relationship between Britain and India.

Sir Francis Edward

Younghusband (1863-1942) was a British army colonel, explorer and officer of the Indian Political Service, He is recognized for discovering a previously uncharted course from Kashgar to India. He was known to be deeply spiritual and wrote several works on New Age mystic philosophies, including the Gaia hypothesis and Pantheism.

THIS book had its genesis in an informal "talk" on India at a dinner which the University Club at Montreal were kind enough to give me in February of this year. Here were seventy or eighty men in one part of the Empire anxious to hear the experiences of a man from another part. Particularly keen were they to hear about the present position in India. Sensational telegrams were appearing in the Press reporting that the Indian National Congress had declared for "complete independence." This body had an imposing name, and the reports sounded as if the whole of India in Congress assembled had issued a declaration of independence somewhat after the manner of the American. And the Canadians were disturbed. Naturally, they could not know much about India and Indian politics. They had problems in plenty of their own. And India is far from Canada. But in a general way they were proud of what we had done in India. And they did not like the thought of our "losing" India.

I did my best to allay their misgivings. I told them that this self-styled Indian National Congress did not represent either the seventy million people who were still ruled by their own rulers, or the seventy million Moslems, or, indeed, all the Hindus ; though it did represent a very natural desire on the part of the Indians to govern themselves—a desire which we on our part were doing our best to meet.

But so keen were these Canadians, both at Montreal and at other towns where I spoke, and so anxious were Americans also, to know about India that I thought that a book showing the nature, the history, and the probable future of our political connection with India, and showing also the deep spiritual connection, would be interesting not only to Canadians and Americans, but to Indians as well.