Tuesday, September 23, 2014

To the memory of the British empire in India,
Which conferred subjecthood upon us,
But withheld citizenship.
To which yet every one of us threw out the challenge:
‘Civis Britannicus sum’
Because all that was good and living within us
Was made, shaped and quickened
By the same British rule.
 -Nirad C. Chaudhuri, dedication of his book "The Autobiography of an Unknown Indian" (1951).