54 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
ought to compare the rulers of India with the contemporaries in England. Much of historical error will vanish if we closely follow this plan. It would no longer be a matter of contemptuous pity to read perhaps the abject condition of. the Hindoos under the conquest of the Mohommedans when we will remember the pitiful condition of the Anglo-Saxons under their Norman conquerors when “to be called an Englishman was considered as a reproach—when those who were appointed to administer justice were the fountains of all iniquity—when magistrates, whose duty it was to pronounce righteous judgements were the most cruel of all tyrants, and great plunderers than common thieves and robbers .... ; when the great men were inflamed with such a rage of money that they cared not by what means it was acquired ; when the licentiousness was so great that a Princess of Scotland found it necessary to wear a religious habit in order to preserve her person from violation.”
The much spoken of Mohomedan cruelty could hardly exceed that committed by the first Crusaders on their conquest of Jerusalem. The garrison of 40,000 men “was put to the sword without distinction ; arms protected not the brave, nor submission the timid; no age or sex received mercy ; infants perished by the same sword that pierced their mothers. The streets of Jerusalem were covered with heaps of slain, and the shrieks of agony and dispair resounded from every house.”
If we thus run down through the history of India and history of England and compare contemporary events we will find that for every Native Rowland we have an English Oliver. We must therefore repeat the warning of Sir Thomas Munro to English Historians of India, who said, “When we compare other countries with England, we usually speak of England as she now is, we scarcely ever think of going back beyond the Reformation and we are apt to regard every foreign country as ignorant and uncivilized, whose state of improvement does not in some degree approximate to our own, even though it should be higher than our own as at no distant period.”
Let us, therefore, turn to the “Despots and Brigands” who ruled India before the British and let us review their deeds and the condition of the people during their respective rulers