How India Lost Her Freedom

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How the British came to India, slowly penetrated the sub-continent and established an empire is a story recorded by many historians but not fully told.

The early British historians tried to play down the role of their countrymen in subjugating the native kingdoms in India by all means. It was left to a few diligent historians to carry out painstaking research and unravel the facts. Pandit Sunderlal, who wrote this sensational book originally in Hindi in 1929, vigorously exposed the British plan to enlarge their sphere of influence in India slowly and steadily through a number of dubious methods. Apart from revealing the state of affairs between the Indian native kingdoms and the East India Company, How India Lost Her Freedom provides a fine account of what India was prior to the advent of the British. The book focuses on the crucial facts and events that led to the establishment of British rule over India.

consider it a great privilege and an over- whelming honour to write a foreword for this book by late Pandit Sunderlal. Pandit ji was the rarest of the rare combination of spiritual, intellectual and human qualities. He was a multifaceted person. Perhaps his most unique aspect was his unconditional and complete belief in humanism in its most complete sense, which he practised like a true Karamyogi.

My connection with Pandit ji goes back three generations. My late grandfather, Mr Abdul Majid Khwaja (1885-1962), and Pandit ji were close friends; they participated in the Freedom Movement and made enormous personal sacrifices in winning independence for our country from the British rule. My first memories of Pandit ji are his coming to our house in Aligarh during the 1960s when I was just entering my teenage years. My father, Professor Jamal Khwaja, former Lok Sabha MP from Aligarh (1957-62) and an eminent philosopher who taught at the Aligarh Muslim University (AMU), treated Pandit ji like his uncle. Pandit ji treated me and my siblings like his grandchildren. Indeed, I con- sider myself utterly blessed to have met towering personalities like Pandit Sunderlal, Raja Mahendra Pratap and Dr B. N. Pande, three eminent nationalist freedom fighters and statesmen. I can say in all humility that my interaction with these personalities in my formative years played a great role in the evolution of my philosophical, intellectual and spiritual growth. One cannot overstate the great inspirational impact of meeting noble human beings, who by their mere presence and their actions, silently but irrevocably, transform for the better all who come in contact with them.

The Art of Writing History

he present-day art of writing history is very much a product of modern European civilization. The art existed more or less in ancient China, India, Iran and Egypt also. In each one of these countries, we have got some written records of that country's ancient civilization. This art further developed in ancient Greece and in ancient Rome. Some of the works of history written by Greek and Roman writers of that period are still regarded as authoritative. Then came the period of Arab supremacy. Probably no ancient people laboured so much on giving a scientific form to the art of writing history as the Arabs. The Arabs made special efforts to preserve historical truth in their historical writings. In the 11th century A.D., the famous Arab historian Al-Berouni wrote a very beautiful scientific treatise on the art of writing history. He warns all students of history that it is very difficult for any writer of history to avoid mis- statements born of his own natural prejudices and proclivities. The Arabs also produced a number of other critical writers on the art of history-writing, men whose scientific analysis of the subject is still regarded as valuable. Still we must admit that no historical events were recorded in such detail in ancient times as is the case today. In ancient times, and specially in ancient India, the task of writing a history of one's own country or of one's people was not given so much importance as it is given now.