The Bengal Reversion, Another "Exceptional Case."

prophecy of indian independence

Scarce treatise criticising the governance of Bengal by the British following the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and succesfully predicting the Non Co-operation Movement and Indian Independence by nearly 50 years.

Thomas Evans Bell (1825-1887), having lost his position in Nagpur after voicing criticisms over the British treatment of the Nagpur Ranis, became a vocal opponent of British policy in India. He wrote several tracts including this, one of his most luminous, in which he astutely sees the shortcomings of British attitudes and the shifting political feelings in India. In one of his most prophetic paragraphs he says: 'What we now have to dread in India, is not so much armed rebellion, - the time may have gone by for that, - not so much constitutional opposition and agitation, - the time has not yet come - as the rapid and unseen spread of a spirit of discontent, disrespect, and disobedience, leading with sure and fatal steps to a period of passive resistance, with just enough chronic terrorism and occasional violence to make the country too hot for our administrators'.

Scarce, with no copy appearing at auction in the last 75 years, and just 6 UK institutional copies.

First edition; 8vo (22.5 x 15 cm); contemporary ownership inscription to front free endpaper, publisher's original green cloth, gilt lettering to upper board and spine, cloth a little frayed, otherwise a fine copy; xxxix, 83, [1] pp.