experienced this phenomenon of deliberate destruction. Other
areas of the world, especially the Americas and Africa, seem to
have experienced such destruction to an even greater extent. The
nearly total annihilation of the native people of the Americas—
after their subjugation by Europe from 1500 A.D. onwards—is
an occurrence of equally great import. A native population
estimated by modern scholars to have been in the range of 90 to
112 million around 1500 A.D.,^66 —far more numerous than the
estimated total population of Europe then—had dwindled to
merely a few million by the end of the 19th century. It is
probable that while differing in extent and numbers, similar
destruction and annihilation had occurred in different parts of
the world through conquest and subjugation at various times
during human history. Further, quite possibly, no people or
culture in the world can altogether claim innocence for itself
from any participation at one time or another in such
occurrences. Nonetheless, whatever may be the case regarding
the world before 1500 A.D., the point is that after this date,
ancient, functioning, established cultures in most areas of the
world, if not wholly eliminated, had become largely depressed
due to the expansion of European dominance. This requires little
proof. It is obvious.
During the latter part of the 19th century, impressions of
decay, decline and deprivation began to agitate the mind of the
Indian people. Such impressions no doubt resulted from
concrete personal, parental and social experience of what had
gone before. They were, perhaps, somewhat exaggerated at
times. By 1900, it had become general Indian belief that the
country had been decimated by British rule in all possible ways;
that not only had it become impoverished,^67 but it had been
degraded to the furthest possible extent; that the people of India
had been cheated of most of what they had; that their customs
and manners were ridiculed, and that the infrastructure of their
society mostly