In the third part of this series, Dr. Francis offers a user manual of sorts on how Englishmen who wish to come to India must behave with the "natives" here. His observations on the abuses in Indian languages and the sacred bathing habits of Hindus make for highly interesting reading.
The pre-Independence Gujarati Poet Nanalal Dalpatram Kavi wrote a highly inspirational and moving tribute to Chhatrapati Shivaji on the occasion of his tricentennial celebrations.
In the second part of this series, Dr. Francis provides an eye-opening picture of the manner in which the officers of the British Raj took enormous loans from our Mahajans and Shroffs (moneylenders) for their sensual and other enjoyments.
The first part of a series carrying excerpts from Dr. Francis, a British surgeon who stayed in India at the turn of the twentieth century and recorded his observations of our society, culture, beliefs, customs, and physical conditions.
We dug into our archives and found a rather delightful and highly revealing picture of the status of women in the British Parliament at the turn of the 20th century.
In just half a century, the British education system not only destroyed this system of education but created several generations of Hindus who were aliens to their own culture.
A Sanatana education in its truest sense is primarily a course of training and discipline, and only secondarily a course of teaching. Western religious instruction has only tended to produce fanaticism, bigotry, contempt for other creeds.
At the height of British colonial rule in 1902, a fine Hindu thinker, Sri Sundararaman authored a brilliant essay advocating the introduction of Sanatana education in our schools to combat the Bible education that was fast spreading.
The concluding part of the series on the Hindu Response to Islamic Invasions shows that Hindus repeatedly lost out because they were unable to take a long-term view of national policy and wasted energy and resources which should have been reserved for a holy war against Islamic invasions.
A deliberately hidden fact of the history of alien Muslim invasions into India is how, on several occasions, Hindus across India displayed vigorous national unity against a common enemy. The poorer class worked feverishly at the spinning wheel or as hired labourers to be able to send something to th