Review on Hunter's Indian Musalmans - Are They Bound in Conscience to Rebel Against the Queen? #248054

The attention of the public has been lately, turned to the state of Mahomedan feeling in India, owing to three causes, viz, the Wahabi trials, Dr. Hunter's book on the "Indian Musalmans," and the murder of the late lamented Chief Justice Norman. Dr. Hunter's work has made a great sensation in India, and has been read with avidity by all classes of the community. I commenced its perusal hoping that a light would be shed upon what, to the general public, has been hitherto an obscure subject; and as I had heard that the author was a warm friend of Mahomedans, my interest in the work was great. No man, and especially no Mahomedan, can have perused this, the accomplished author's last celebrated work, without being impressed with his extreme literary skill, his Macaulay-like talent of vivifying everything that his pen treats of. Literary skill is not, however, everything, and an author writing for the India as well as for the English public should be careful not to so color the subject, which he treats of, as to make it mischievous and of small value as an historical work. I am aware that many of the ruling race in India are under the impression that English literature, both books and newspapers, seldom, if ever, permeates the strata of native society. As regards general literature, this impression is correct as far as the millions are concerned; but on particular subjects, such as the state of feeling of the English to the natives, religious questions, or matters affecting taxation, it is a mistaken one.<br><br>Natives anxiously con all articles bearing upon the feelings with which their rulers regard them.