Page:Young India.pdf/115

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VIEWPOINT OF THE NATIONALIST
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morial, that they have never been free, that they have never cared who ruled over them, that they have never been patriotic, or that patriotism and a feeling of nationality are new growths due to contact with the West, and that the Indian people do not sympathise with the aspirations of the nationalists. Of course, there are some people in India, as elsewhere, who, through rolling in wealth, living in purple, inheriting long pedigrees, carrying high titles, bearing proud names, seem to be happy and contented under the existing conditions. For them, the security from molestation they have, the freedom of enjoyment they possess, the comforts and luxuries which they command, the pleasure which is born of inactive, lazy, parasitic, debauched lives, is all in all. Any change may bring all this edifice down; it may spell ruin to them and their children. The immunity from work, which they at present enjoy, may all disappear by a change of political conditions. The British Government has guaranteed them not only their possessions, but also their right to live and thrive on the ignorance, the superstitions, and the mental and moral slavery of their followers and subjects.

Such are some of the Nabobs and Maharajas of India. Many of them might have to cut stones and make roads to earn their living, if they were not protected by British bayonets. Their harems consisting of numerous innocent women doomed to life-long imprisonment, to lives of barrenness and shame and emptiness, their big cellars full of the choicest and the oldest of whiskies, brandies, and