Indian people

In India I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth, but not adhering to it. Inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything but possessed by nothing. ~ Apollonius of Tyana

The inhabitants of this land are religious, affectionate, hospitable, genial and frank. They are fond of scientific pursuits, inclined to austerity of life, seekers after justice, contented, industrious, capable in affairs, loyal, truthful and constant… ~ Abul Fazl

The Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no king like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs. ~ al-Biruni

The ordinary people … are upright and honourable... They are faithful to their oaths and promises... In their behavior there is much gentleness and sweetness. ~ Xuanzang

Indian people or Indians are the citizens and nationals of the Republic of India. In 2022, the population of India stood at 1.4 billion people. According to UN forecasts, India overtook China as the world's most populous country by the end of April 2023, containing 17.50 percent of the global population.

See also India

Quotes

A

• The Indians, as known to all nations for many centuries, are the metal [essence] of wisdom, the source of fairness and objectivity. They are peoples of sublime pensiveness, universal apologues, and useful and rare inventions. In spite of the fact that their color is in the first stage of blackness, which puts them in the same category as the blacks, Allah, in His glory, did not give them the low characters, the poor manners, or the inferior principles associated with this group and ranked them above a large number of white and brown peoples.
  • Said ibn Ahmad Andalusi, Science in the medieval world (1068). (1068:11) Science in the medieval world: aBook of the categories of nations" (Tabaqàt al-'umam). Trans. Semacan I. Salem and Alok Kumar. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1991. quoted from Trautmann, Thomas R. (2008). Aryans and British India.

• In India I found a race of mortals living upon the Earth, but not adhering to it. Inhabiting cities, but not being fixed to them, possessing everything but possessed by nothing.
  • Apollonius of Tyana, quoted in The Transition to a Global Society (1991) by Kishor Gandhi, p. 17, and in The Age of Elephants (2006) by Peter Moss, p. v

• This also is remarkable in India, that all Indians are free, and no Indian at all is a slave. In this the Indians agree with the Lacedaemonians. Yet the Lacedaemonians have Helots for slaves, who perform the duties of slaves; but the Indians have no slaves at all, much less is any Indian a slave.
  • Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri, Book VII : Indica, as translated by Edgar Iliff Robson (1929), p. 335

• No Indian ever went outside his own country on a warlike expedition, so righteous were they.
  • Arrian, Anabasis Alexandri, Book VII : Indica, as translated by Edgar Iliff Robson (1929), p. 18

B

• The Hindus believe that there is no country but theirs, no nation like theirs, no king like theirs, no religion like theirs, no science like theirs.
  • Al-Biruni, Alberuni's India, quoted from K.S. Lal, Indian Muslims who are they, 1990

• The ancient civilisation of India differs from those of Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece, in that its traditions have been preserved without a break down to the present day. Until the advent of the archaeologist, the peasant of Egypt or Iraq had no knowledge of the culture of his forefathers, and it is doubtful whether his Greek counterpart had any but the vaguest ideas about the glory of Periclean Athens. In each case there had been an almost complete break with the past. On the other hand…to this day legends known to the humblest Indian recall the names of shadowy chieftains who lived nearly a thousand years before Christ, and the orthodox Brahman in his daily worship repeats hymns composed even earlier. India and China have, in fact, the oldest continuous cultural traditions in the world.
  • A. L. Basham in his “The Wonder That Was India” [1] quoted in [2] [This article is a major extract from the article "Sita Ram Goel, memories and ideas" by S. Talageri, written for the Sita Ram Goel Commemoration Volume, entitled "India's Only Communalist", edited by Koenraad Elst, published in 2005.

• This multitude of men does not consist of an abject and barbarous people...but a people for ages civilized and cultivated; cultivated by all the arts of polished life, whilst we were yet in the woods... There is to be found an ancient and venerable priesthood, the depository of their laws, learning, and history, the guides of the people whilst living, and their consolation in death; a nobility of great antiquity and renown; a multitude of cities, not exceeded in population and trade by those of the first class in Europe; merchants and bankers, individual houses of whom have once vied in capital with the Bank of England; whose credit had often supported a tottering State, and preserved their governments in the midst of war and desolation; millions of ingenious manufacturers and mechanics; millions of the most diligent, and not the least intelligent, tillers of the earth.
  • Edmund Burke, speech in the House of Commons on India (1 December 1783), quoted in The Parliamentary Register: Or, History of the Proceedings and Debates of the House of Commons, Volume XII (1782), p. 216

• All the Grecian historians represent the Indians as people of greater size, and much more robust than those of other nations. Though this is not true in general, it is certain that the purity of the air, wholesome nourishment, temperance and education contribute, in an uncommon degree, to the bodily conformation, and to the increase of these people. Their new-born children lie always on the ground, as if they were thrown away or neglected; and they are never wrapped up with bandages, or confined in any other manner, as is done in Europe. Their limbs, therefore, can expand themselves without the least restraint; their nerves and bones become more solid; and when these children attain to the period of youth, they acquire not only a beautiful figure, but a sound, well turned, and robust bodily conformation. The frequent use of the cold bath, repeated rubbing the body with coconut oil and the juice of the Ingia plant, as well as their exercises, which have a great resemblance to the Juvenilia, and which I have often seen in Malabar, all contribute to increase their strength and agility. These advantages also are seldom lost, unless some of these young people abandon themselves to debauchery, or weaken their bodies by too great labour or excessive perspiration.
  • Fra Paolino Da Bartolomeo who was in India from 1776 to 1785, quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

C

• The Hindoos are naturally cheerful, and are fond of conversation, of play, and of sports. They will spend almost the whole night in seeing dancing, and hearing music; yet none dance but the women, whose profession it is, and who devote themselves to the pleasure and amusement of the public.
  They are nevertheless extremely sober; they eat only twice a day, in the morning and evening.…
  The Hindoos are great observers of decorum; their manners are unaffected; they possess much natural politeness, and have an extraordinary degree of caution in not saying or doing any thing which they imagine may offend. The Brahmans in general shew the least civility, which is owing to the precedence they assume over the other casts, and the deference that is continually shewn them.
  • Quintin Craufurd, quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

E

• Scant justice is done to her position in the world by those histories which recount the exploits of her invaders and leave the impression that her own people were a feeble, dreamy folk, sundered from the rest of mankind by their sea and mountain frontiers. Such a picture takes no account of the intellectual conquests of the Hindus. Even their political conquests were not contemptible and were remarkable for the distance if not for the extent of the territory occupied. ... But such military or commercial invasions are insignificant compared with the spread of Indian thought.
  • Sir Charles Elliot, HINDUISM AND BUDDHISM, [3] quoted in A Look at India From the Views of Other Scholars, by Stephen Knapp [4]

• The Hindoos, apparently not having Gods enough of their own, worship those of other sects whenever they come in their way.
  They also appear to observe not only their own festivals, but those of the Christians and Mahometans, and indeed the whole year round was nothing but a succession of different mysteries and mummery, in honour of some Saint, or of some holiday.…
  The Hindoos must certainly have the organ of veneration very strongly developed, for not only do they perform poojah to their own deities, but they are very ready also to join in the religious rites of other nations; they will follow the Mussulman’s taboot, and at our Christmas, they will bring an offering of cakes, flowers, and sugar-candy to the Christian Sahib…
  • Anne Elwood, quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

• The Indian is docile, harmless, and industrious; and, when he has the opportunity, saving… under the guidance and protection of a European, whom he reveres, he will do almost anything; and even in the lowest castes, there is a degree of refinement about them which is surprising. They are gregarious in their habits, and, unlike the Negro, do not evince that love for a savage state of life which the latter is so fond of indulging, when not under restraint. They are quick, apt, and intelligent workmen, and make capital servants: the great secret in the management of them is kindness and fair dealing, with a tolerance of their harmless prejudices.
  • H. B. Evans, writing in 1855, Saturday Review, 20 March 1869, quoted in Christine Bolt - Victorian Attitudes to Race-Routledge (2006)

F

• The inhabitants of this land are religious, affectionate, hospitable, genial and frank. They are fond of scientific pursuits, inclined to austerity of life, seekers after justice, contented, industrious, capable in affairs, loyal, truthful and constant… They one and all believe in the unity of God, and as to the reverence they pay to the images of stone and wood and the like, which simpletons regard as idolatry, it is not so.
  • Ain-i-Akbari by Abul Fazl. Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 2

• When this empire, its polished people, and the progress which science had made amongst them, are attentively considered; when, at the same period, a retrospective view is thrown on the states of the European world, then immersed in, or emerging from, ignorance and barbarity, we must behold Hindostan with wonder and respect; and we may assert without forfeiting the claims of truth and moderation, that, however far the European world now out-strips the nations of the East, the followers of Brimha in the early period of life, were possessed of a fund amply stored with valuable materials of philosophy and useful knowledge. The humane mind will naturally feel a sense of sorrow and pity for a people, who have fallen from so conspicuous a height of glory and fortune, and who probably have contributed to polish and exalt the nations, who now hold them in subjection.
  Hindostan was overthrown by a fierce race of men, who in their rapid course of conquest, exerted the most furious efforts in leveling every monument of worship and taste. They massacred the priests and plundered the temples, with a keenness and ferocity, in which their first chiefs might have gloried. A people thus crushed, groaning under the load of oppression, and dismayed at the sight of incessant cruelties, must soon have lost the spirit of science, and the exertion of genius; especially as the fine arts, were so blended with their system of religion, that the persecution of the one, must have shed a baneful influence on the existence of the other. To decide on, or affix, the character of the Hindoo, from the point of view in which he is now beheld, would, in a large degree, be similar to the attempt of conveying an exact idea of ancient Greece, from the materials now presented by the wretched country.…
  The capacious space which Hindostan occupies on the face of the globe, the advantages it derives from soil and climate, and from its numerous rivers, some of them of the first class of magnitude, may be adduced as reasonable arguments of its having been peopled at a more early period of time than Egypt, which does not possess the like local benefits. If the degree of perfection which manufactures have attained, be received as a criterion to judge of the progress of civilization, and if it be also admitted as a test of deciding on the antiquity of a people, who adopt no foreign improvements, little hesitation would occur, in bestowing the palm of precedence on Hindostan, whose fabrics of the most delicate and beautiful contexture, have been long held in admiration, and have hitherto stood unrivalled. Let me conclude this comparative view, with observing, and I trust dispassionately, that when we see a people possessed of an ample stock of science of well digested ordinances, for the protection and improvement of society – and of a religion whose tenets consist of the utmost refinement, and variety of ceremony – and, at the same time, observe amongst other Asiatic nations, and the Egyptians of former times, but partial distributions of knowledge, law, and religion – we must be led to entertain a supposition, that the proprietors of the lesser, have been supplied from the sources of the greater fund…
  • George Forster, quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

G

• If there are, as some tenets imply, a distinction of heavenly situations, will not this good-minded people occupy the first in rank; for nearest to the divine attributes of any thing you can have a conception of, is their kind-heartedness and probity.
  In a word, their manners are highly interesting, from their simplicity and liberal-mindedness; and I blush to feel how superior to all that Christianity can boast, of peace and goodwill towards men... I felt myself in danger of becoming a Braminate, though all the wealth of Indostan could not bribe me to become a Mahometan.
  • Phebe Gibbes,Hartly House, Calcutta (1789) Marshall, P.J. The British Discovery of Hinduism in the Eighteenth Century, Cambridge University Press, 1970. quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books. Volume IV Chapter2

• I doubt that there is another place on earth where one can be more relaxed than in India, where the country offers you so much attraction and charm and where, at the same time, people are so gentle.
  • Guillaume le Gentil was on a scientific mission in the Indian seas to observe the celebrated transit of Venus predicted on 6 June, 1761. He observed the charm of the people, quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

• …perhaps I should be ashamed to own that I had so far strayed from good-nature and good-sense, as to forget, that whatever reproaches may be deserved by some of the Hindus for their moral practices the fundamental principles of morality itself are so firmly implanted in the soul of man that no vicious practice and no mistaken code can change their nature...
  Our missionaries are very apt to split upon this rock, and in order to place our religion in the brightest light, as if it wanted their feeble aid, they lay claim exclusively to all the sublime maxims of morality and tell those they wish to convert, that their own books contain nothing but abominations, the belief of which they must abandon in order to receive the purer doctrine of Christianity. Mistaken men! Mistaken men! Could they desire a better opening to their hopes than to find already established that morality which says, it is enjoined to man even at the moment of destruction to wish to benefit his foes, ‘as the sandal tree in the instant of its overthrow sheds perfume on the axe that fells it.’…
  In short, I consider morality like the sciences and arts, to be only slumbering not forgotten in India; and that to awaken the Hindus to a knowledge of the treasures in their own hands is the only thing wanting to set them fairly in the course of improvement with other nations.
  Everywhere in the ancient Hindu books we find the maxims of that pure and sound morality which is founded on the nature of man as a rational and social being….
  The Hindus claim the honour of having invented the method of teaching by apologues…
  A stranger in India will not fail to be struck with the indiscriminate respect which the lower classes of Hindus pay to the objects worshipped by all other sects. I have seen them making their little offerings, and joining the processions at the Mussulman feasts of Hassan and Hossein, and as frequently appearing at the doors of the Romish Portuguese chapels, with presents of candles to burn before the saints, and flowers to adorn the shrines; in short, whatever is regarded as holy by others, they approach with reverence, so much are uncultivated men the creatures of imitation and habit.
  • Maria Graham, quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

H

• Their honesty is proverbial. They borrow and lend on word of mouth, and the repudiation of a debt is almost unknown.
  • Keir Hardie about Indians. Quoted from Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage.

• When we read in the valuable production of those great Oriental scholars ... those of a Jones, a Wilkings, a Colebrooke, or a Halhed, - we uniformly discover in the Hindus a nation, whose polished manners are the result of a mild disposition and an extensive benevolence.
  • Alexander Hamilton, quoted in Danino, Michel and Nahar, Sujata The inl'asioll that never was / Song of humanity .1st ed. Delhi: Mother's Institute of Research & Mira Aditi, Mysore, India, 1996.p. 17 quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication.

• [The Hindus are] a people, who from the earliest times have been an ornament to the creation – if so much can with propriety be said of any known people upon earth.
  • John Zephaniah Holwel . quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

• The natives first seen in India by a European voyager are Hindoos, the original inhabitants of the Peninsula. In this part of India they are delicately framed, their hands in particular are more like those of tender females; and do not appear to be, what is considered a proper proportion to the rest of the person, which is usually above the middle size. Correspondent to this delicacy of appearance are their manners, mild, tranquil, and sedulously attentive; in this last respect they are indeed remarkable, as they never interrupt any person who is speaking, but wait patiently till he has concluded; and then answer with the most perfect respect and composure.
  • William Hodges. quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

• A surprising spirit of cleanliness is to be observed among the Hindoos: the streets of their villages are commonly swept and watered, and sand is frequently strewed before the doors of the houses. The simplicity, and perfectly modest character, of the Hindoo women, cannot but arrest the attention of a stranger. With downcast eye, and equal step, they proceed along, and scarcely turn to the right or to the left to observe a foreigner as he passes, however new or singular his appearance. The men are no less remarkable for their hospitality, and are constantly attentive to accommodate the traveller in his wants. During the whole of the journey in my pallankeen, whatever I wanted, as boiling water for my tea, milk, eggs, &c. &c. I never met with imposition or delay, but always experienced an uncommon readiness to oblige, and that accompanied with manners the most simple and accommodating. In perfect opposition is the Mussulman character; –haughty, not to say insolent; irritable, and ferocious. I beg, however, to be understood of the lower classes; for a Moorish gentleman may be considered as a perfect model of a well-bred man. The Hindoos are chiefly husbandmen, manufacturers, and merchants, except two tribes – the Rajapoots, who are military, and the Brahmins, who are ecclesiastics. The Mussulmans may be classed as entirely military, as few of them exercise any other employment, except collecting the revenues, which under the Moorish governments have been always done by military force.
  • William Hodges. quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

• ...was, indeed, prepared to expect a much greater simplicity and homeliness of manners in the Rajpoots and tribes of central India, than in those who had been subjects of Mogul empire, and, even at the court of Jyepoor, I was struck with the absence of that sort of polish which had been apparent at Lucknow and Delhi. The Hindoos seem every where, when left to themselves and under their own sovereigns, a people of simple tastes and tempers, inclined to frugality, and indifferent to show and form. The subjects of even the greatest Maharatta prince sit down without scruple in his presence, and no trace is to be found in their conversation of those adulatory terms which the Mussulmans introduced into the northern and eastern provinces.
  • Bishop Hebe, quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

I

• The Indians are naturally inclined to justice, and never depart from it in their actions. Their good faith, honesty and fidelity to their engagements are well known, and they are so famous for these qualities that people flock to their country from every side; hence the country is flourishing and their condition prosperous. Among other characteristic marks of their love of truth and horror of vice, the following is related: -When a man has a right to demand anything of another, and he happens to meet him, he has only to draw a circular line upon the ground and to make his debtor enter it, which the latter never fails to do, and the debtor cannot leave this circle without satisfying his creditor, or obtaining the remission of the debt.
  • Nuzhatu-l Mushtak of Al-Idrisi (b. in Ceuta, Morocco at the end of the 11th century) In The History of India as Told by its own Historians. The Posthumous Papers of the Late Sir H. M. Elliot. John Dowson, ed. 1st ed. 1867. 2nd ed., Calcutta: Susil Gupta, 1956, vol. 10, pp.104-129. also in [5] [6] [7] . Al-Idrisi, middle of 12th century CE. Elliot and Dowson, I.88. Quoted in Misra, R. G. (2005). Indian resistance to early Muslim invaders up to 1206 A.D. p.15

J

• The Hindus are said to have boasted of three inventions, all of which, indeed, are admirable, the method of instructing of apologues, the decimal scale adopted now by all civilised nations, and the game of chess, on which they have some curious treatises; but, if their numerous works on grammar, logick, rhetorick, musick, all which are extant and accessible, were explained in some language generally known, it would be found, that they had yet higher pretentions to the praise of a fertile and inventive genius. Their lighter poems are lively and elegant; their epick, magnificent and sublime in the highest degree; their Puranas comprise a series of mythological histories in blank verse from the Creation to the supposed incarnation of Buddha; and their Vedas, as far as we can judge from that compendium of them, which is called Upanishat, abound with noble speculations in metaphysicks, and fine discourses on the being and attributes of God. Their most ancient medical book, entitled Chereca [Charak], is believed to be the work of Siva; for each of the divinities in their Triad has at least one sacred composition ascribed to him; but, as to mere human works on history and geography, though they are said to be extant in Cashmir, it has not been yet in my power to procure them. What their astronomical and mathematical writings contain, will not, I trust, remain long a secret: they are easily procured, and their importance cannot be doubted. The philosopher, whose works are said to include a system of the universe founded on the principle of attraction and the central position of the sun, is named Yavan Acharya, because he had travelled, we are told, into Ionia: if this be true, he might have been one of those, who conversed with Pythagoras; this at least is undeniable, that a book on astronomy in Sanscrit bears the title of Yavana Jatica, which may signify the Ionick Sect; nor is it improbable, that the names of the planets and Zodiacal stars, which the Arabs borrowed from the Greeks, but which we find in the oldest Indian records, were originally devised of the same ingenious and enter-prizing race, from whom both Greece and India were peopled…
  • Sir William Jones, quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

K

• When you write `native, 'who do you mean? The Mahommedan who hates the Hindu; the Hindu who hates the Mahommedan; the Sikh who loathes both; or the semi-anglicised product of our Indian colleges who is hated and despised by Sikh, Hindu and Mahommedan.
  • R. Kipling on Indians, quoted from Ibn Warraq (2009). Defending the West: A critique of Edward Said's Orientalism. Amherst, N.Y: Prometheus Books.

• India is like a bride which has got two beautiful and lustrous eyes—Hindus and Mussulmans. If they quarrel against each other that beautiful bride will become ugly and if one destroys the other, she will lose one eye.
  • Syed Ahmed Khan, in a speech at Patna on January 1883, Writings and Speeches of Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, Nachiketa Publications (1972), p. 160.
  • Variant: "India is a beautiful bride and Hindus and Muslims are her two eyes. If one of them is lost, this beautiful bride will become ugly." Quoted in Shirali, Aresh (10 August 2017). "The Enigma of Aligarh". Open Magazine.

M

• Indians tend to be more relaxed in unpredictable situations than westerners. Indians indeed find it natural to engage in non-linear thinking, juxtaposing opposites and tackling complexities that cannot be reduced to simple concepts or terms. They may be said even to thrive on ambiguity, doubt, uncertainty, multitasking, and in the absence of centralized authority and normative codes. Westerners, by contrast, tend by and large to be fearful of unpredictable or decentralized situations. They regard these situations as 'problems' to be 'fixed'.
  • Malhotra, Rajiv (2018). Being different: An Indian challenge to western universalism.

• The Hindu, at any rate, from his tradition and his religion, regards India not only as a political unit naturally the subject of one sovereignty — but as the outward embodiment, as the temple-nay, even as the god- dess mother—of his spiritual culture. India and Hinduism are organically related as body and soul. Nationality is at best a difficult thing to define, to test and establish...But the Aryan settled it decisively so far as India and himself are concerned. He made India the symbol of his culture, he filled it with his soul. In his consciousness it was his greater self.
  • J. Ramsay Macdonald Introduction in: R.K. Mukherjee, Fundamental Unity of India, viii. [8] quoted from The Tragic Story of Partition (1982) H.V. Sheshadri 10.

• If a good system of agriculture, unrivalled manufacturing skill, a capacity to produce whatever can contribute to convenience or luxury; schools established in every village for teaching reading, writing, and arithmetic; the general practice of hospitality and charity among each other: and above all, a treatment of the female sex full of confidence, respect, and delicacy, [if all these] are among the signs which denote a civilised people, then the Hindus are not inferior to the nations of Europe; and if civilisation is to become an article of trade between England and India. I am convinced that England will gain by the import cargo.
  • Thomas Munro, quoted in Danino, M., & Nahar, S. (1996). The invasion that never was (1st ed). Mother’s Institute of Research & Mira Aditi, Mysore, India.

• It was the celebrated Friedrich Max Muller who gave the last two testimonies in a 1882 lecture in defence of the “Character of the Hindus,” and he observed: It is surely extremely strange that whenever, either in Greek, or in Chinese, or in Persian, or in Arab writings, we meet with any attempts at describing the distinguishing features in the national character of the Indians, regard for truth and justice should always be mentioned first.
  • quoted in Danino, M., & Nahar, S. (1996). The invasion that never was (1st ed). Mother’s Institute of Research & Mira Aditi, Mysore, India.

• All history points to India as the mother of science and art. This country was anciently so renowned for knowledge and wisdom that the philosophers of Greece did not disdain to travel thither for their improvement…
  The tranquility of their minds, even in the most trying circumstances, is expressed by a constant smile that sits gracefully on their placid countenances…the Hindoos are naturally the most inoffensive of all mortals…In Asia, particularly in India, both on this side and beyond the Ganges, there is a scrupulous tenacity of ancient customs and manners…
  In refinement and ease [the Hindus] are superior to any people to the westward of them. In politeness and address, in gracefulness of deportment, and speech, an Indian is as much superior to a Frenchman of fashion, as a French courtier is to a Dutch burgo-master of Dort... The Hindoos, especially those of the higher Castes, are in their demeanor easy and unconstrained…but their ease and freedom is reserved, modest, and respectful... An Indian [is polite] because he respects you.
  Their persons are straight and elegant, their limbs finely proportioned, their fingers long and tapering, their countenances open and pleasant, and their features exhibit the most delicate lines of beauty in the females, and in the males a kind of manly softness. Their walk and gait, as well as their whole deportment, is in the highest degree graceful.
  • William Macintosh, quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

• Only do not let people think that by Reform you mean Europeanization. On many points your native customs are excellent, and far better adapted to your country than English customs. I do not know much about great towns, like Calcutta or Bombay, but in your villages and smaller towns the tone of morality seems to me much higher than in Europe, your family life much happier, your criminal statistics much lower.
  • Max Muller, quoted in Subrata Chattopadhyay Banerjee - The Development of Aryan Invasion Theory in India, A Critique of Nineteenth-Century Social Constructionism-Springer (2020)

N

• I don't like the Indians. [...] Let the Indians squeal. Let the liberals squeal. I want a public relations program developed to piss on the Indians. I want to piss on them for their responsibility. I want the Indians blamed for this, you know what I mean? We can’t let these goddamn, sanctimonious Indians get away with this. They’ve pissed on us on Vietnam for 5 years, Henry.
  • Richard Nixon to H. Kissinger during Bangladesh Liberation War, quoted in Bass, G. J. (2014). The Blood telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a forgotten genocide.

• I cannot help remarking the extreme mildness of the native character. Every one seems to walk slowly and lightly; all speak low, even in the market; there is a sort of gentleness in their voice and manner – those who were not employed sat squatting at their doors, smoking their hookahs. The games of the children seem to partake of the native character; they, too, squat, in little parties, about the doors, and, though they look lively, you scarcely ever hear their little voices, and none of their amusements appear at all of a riotous nature.
  • Lady Nugent, quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

O

• Besides the particular denominations which they receive from the casts and countries in which they are born, there is one more general, which is applied indiscriminately, to distinguish the original natives from all who have intruded themselves amongst them. Hindoo, from whence Indian, and throughout the millions of Indians which inhabit Indostan, although situated at such distances as would suffice to form them into several distinct nations, are visible the strongest marks of one general character, in their dispositions, in their observances, and in their form.
  • Robert Orme, quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

• A people believing in metempsychosis, who are forbid by their religion to destroy the smallest insect; a people continually assembling to celebrate the festivals of their gods, who believe that acts of charity to the poor can atone for all their sins, who are fond to excess of the enjoyment of a domestic life, and extremely solicitous in the cares of it – such a people must acquire humane and gentle manners. The Gentoos are very affectionate parents, and treat their domestics with great mildness. They are charitable, even to relieving the necessities of strangers: and the politeness of their behaviour is refined by the natural effeminacy of their disposition, to exceed even that of the Moors. The sway of a despotic government has taught them the necessity of patience; and the coolness of their imagination enables them to practise it better than any people in the world. They conceive a contemptible opinion of a man’s capacity, who betrays any impetuosity in temper. Slavery has sharpened the natural finess of all the spirits of Asia. From the difficulty of obtaining, and the greater difficulty of preserving it, the Gentoos are indefatigable in business, and masters of the most exquisite dissimulation in all affairs of interest. They are the acutest buyers and sellers in the world, and preserve through all their bargains a degree of calmness, which baffles all the arts that can be opposed against it. The children are capable of assisting them in their business at an age when ours scarce begin to learn. It is common to see a boy of eleven years into an assembly of considerable men, make his obeisance, deliver his message, and then retire with all the propriety and grace of a very well-bred man.
  • Robert Orme, quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

• The colour of the Indians is generally either that of copper or of the olive, but both with various shades. It is not absolutely the proximity of the inhabitant to the equator, that determines his complexion in India; other physical causes, from differences which arise as by starts in regions equally distant from the sun, and it is in their complexion that less national generality is found, than in any other of the properties of their figure: some are almost black; but these are either inhabitants of the woods, or people inured to labour and fatigues uncommon to the rest of their countrymen.
  The hair of the Indians is without exception long, fine, and of a jet black. The nose, if not always aquiline, is never buried in the face, nor with large distorted nostrils, as in the Coffrees of Africa, and in the Malay nations. Their lips, though in general larger than in Europeans, have nothing of that disagreeable protuberancy projecting beyond the nose, which characterizes the two people just mentioned. The eyebrows are full in the men, slender in the women, well-placed in both. The eyelid is of the finest form, – long, neither opening circularly, as in many of the inhabitants of France, nor scarce opening at all, as in the Chinese. The iris is always black, but rarely with lustre, excepting in their children, and in some of their women: nor is the white of the eye perfectly clear from a tinge of yellow; their countenance therefore receives little animation, but rather a certain air of languor, from this feature. From the nostrils to the middle of the upper lip they have an indenture, strongly marked by two ridges, seldom observable in the northern Europeans, but often in the Spaniard and Portuguese; and from the middle of the under lip there is another such indenture, which loses itself a little above the chin: these lines, chiefly remarked in persons of their habits, give an air of sagacity to the men, and of delicacy to the physiognomy of the women. The outline of the face is various, oftener oval than of any other form, particularly in the women; and this variety of outline is another of the principal characters which distinguisheth the Indian from the Tartar as well as Malay; whose faces are universally of the same shape; that is, as broad as they are long.
  • Robert Orme, quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

P

• The Hindoo character is highly deserving minute study; for I know no other people who resemble them, or any known principles to which their peculiarities can be referred. The Hindoo has a most perfect and enviable command of countenance: whether in joy or sorrow, he never betrays feelings he may desire to conceal; and the calm and serene appearance of his features, would induce an observer to believe him an apathetic being, whom the ordinary passions of our nature could not assail. Yet, how superficial is this judgment! See him in his temples, joining in some of the wild and startling ceremonies of his idol worship, his eye kindling with enthusiasm, and his form writhing with excitement before the altars of his gods; see him at his festivals, garlanded with flowers, covered with unguents and perfumes, half mad with mirth, shouting and feasting in these joyous saturnalia: and then wonder, as we must, at the calm eye, and quiet aspect of the Hindoo, in his usual and public bearing.
  The absence of that fear of death, which is so powerful in the hearts of civilised men, is the most remarkable trait in the Hindu character; as a subject of contemplation and enquiry, this has great interest. Probably the inhabitants of civilised nations set an undue value on life…
  • Marianne Postan, quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

R

• 'American selves, operating largely within the categories of sexuality, race, and illness, projected onto Indian Others traits that seemed loathsome or illicit: Indians were, among other things, unsanitary, disorderly, promiscuous, and primitive.'
  • Andrew Rotter, Comrades at Odds: The United States and India , 1947-1964, 2000: 35) in Malhotra, R., & Infinity Foundation (Princeton, N.J.). (2018). Being different: An Indian challenge to western universalism.

• At the foundation of all other American perceptions was the view that India was a land of mystery, exotic and inscrutable. ... A veil seemed to hang over the country, preventing observers from seeing its features clearly … Even those who understood East Asia, however, confessed themselves baffled by India.
  • Andrew Rotter, Comrades at Odds: The United States and India , 1947-1964, 2000) 8, in Malhotra, R., & Infinity Foundation (Princeton, N.J.). (2018). Being different: An Indian challenge to western universalism.

• 'Westerners found in Indians the very opposite of their rational self-images, exemplars of the undesirable and forbidden … If order is the desideratum of the post-Enlightenment Westerner, the dirt and disorder of India was for the Westerner an object of loathing.'
  • Andrew Rotter, Comrades at Odds: The United States and India , 1947-1964, 2000) quoted in Malhotra, R., & Infinity Foundation (Princeton, N.J.). (2018). Being different: An Indian challenge to western universalism.

• The Western representation of India as female conferred effeminacy on most Indian men. Caught in the enervating web of Hinduism, the majority of Indian men had been deprived of their manliness and their virility. In the context of gender, it is possible to discern three features that Westerners historically assigned to most Indian men. The first of these was passivity and its more exaggerated forms; the second was emotionalism; the third was a lack of heterosexual energy … Hindu men were passive, servile, and cowardly …They could endure anything, evidently without suffering from a sense of shame because of their inaction. They did not resist oppressors but rather regarded them with stupefying indifference … The exaggerated form of passivity was servility. This, Westerners declared, Hindu men had in abundance. Many implicitly subscribed to John Stuart Mill's observation that 'in truth, the Hindu, like the eunuch, excels in the qualities of the slave'.
  • Andrew Rotter, Comrades at Odds: The United States and India , 1947-1964, 2000). quoted from Malhotra, R., & Infinity Foundation (Princeton, N.J.). (2018). Being different: An Indian challenge to western universalism.

• Whoever…wishes to trace the commerce with India to its source must search for it, not so much in any peculiarity of the natural productions of that country, as in the superior improvement of its inhabitants. Many facts have been transmitted to us, which, if they are examined with proper attention, clearly demonstrate that the natives of India were not only more early civilised, but had made greater progress in civilization than any other people…
  By the ancient Heathen writers, the Indians were reckoned among those races of men which they denominated Autochthones or Aborigines, whom they considered as natives of the soil, whose origin could not be traced. By the inspired writers, the wisdom of the East (an expression which is to be understood as a description of their extraordinary progress in science and arts) was early celebrated…
  • William Robertson, quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

S

• “I have had before me,” says a British judge in India, “hundreds of cases in which a man’s property, liberty and life depended upon his telling a lie, and he has refused to tell it.
  • William Henry Sleeman, Colonel Sleeman, 1835-6. Quoted from Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage. (also quoted by Max Muller)

• There is perhaps no part of the world where the communities of which the society is composed have been left so much to self-government as in India.... The village communities were everywhere left almost entirely to self-government; and the virtues of truth and honesty, in all their relations with each other, were indispensably necessary to enable them to govern themselves. A common interest often united a good many village communities in a bond of union, and established a kind of brotherhood over extensive tracts of richly cultivated land. Self-interest required that they should unite to defend themselves against attacks with which they were threatened at every returning harvest in a country where every prince was a robber upon a scale more or less large according to his means, and took the field to rob while the lands were covered with the ripe crops upon which his troops might subsist…Though, in their relations with each other, all these village communities spoke as much truth as those of any other communities in the world; still, in their relation with the Government, they told as many lies; – for falsehood, in the one set of relations, would have incurred the odium of the whole of their circles of society – truth, in the other, would often have involved the same penalty. If a man had told a lie to cheat his neighbour, he would have become an object of hatred and contempt – if he told a lie to save his neighbour’s fields from an increase of rent or tax, he would have become an object of esteem and respect. If the Government officers were asked whether there was any truth to be found among such communities, they would say, No, that the truth was not in them; because they would not cut each other’s throats by telling them the real value of each other’s fields.
  If by the term public spirit be meant a disposition on the part of individuals to sacrifice their own enjoyments, or their own means of enjoyment, for the common good, there is perhaps no people in the world among whom it abounds so much as among the people of India. To live in the grateful recollections of their countrymen for benefits conferred upon them in great works of ornament and utility is the study of every Hindoo of rank and property. Such works tend, in his opinion, not only to spread and perpetuate his name in this world, but, through the good wishes and prayers of those who are benefited by them, to secure the favour of the Deity in the next.
  According to their notions, every drop of rain-water or dew that falls to the ground from the green leaf of a fruit-tree, planted by them for the common good, proves a refreshing draught for their souls in the next [world]. When no descendant remains to pour the funeral libations in their name, the water from the trees they have planted for the public good is destined to supply its place. Everything judiciously laid out to promote the happiness of their fellow-creatures will in the next world be repaid to them ten-fold by the Deity.
  In marching over the country in the hot season, we every morning find our tents pitched on the green sward amid beautiful groves of fruit-trees, with wells of ‘pakka’ (brick or stone) masonry, built at great expense, and containing the most delicious water; but how few of us ever dream of asking at whose cost the trees that afford us and our followers such agreeable shade were planted, or the wells that afford us such copious streams of fine water in the midst of dry, arid plains were formed! We go on enjoying all the advantages which arise from the noble public spirit that animates the people of India to benevolent exertions, without once calling in question the truth of the assertion of our metropolitan friends that ‘the people of India have no public spirit.’…
  • William Henry Sleeman, quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

V

• What Indians don’t specialize in is grievance. There is no Indian lobby pushing for increased “representation” in this or that economic or political sector, no pressure group ululating for ethnic enclaves, or for information to be provided in a language other than English. You won’t be told, when you call your bank, to “press 2 for Telugu.” You won’t have Indian parents at American public schools clamoring for special dispensations for their children.
  • J.D. Vance and the Indian-American Dream This immigrant group has prospered without quotas or grievances. By Tunku Varadarajan [9] [10]

• If the Indians had remained unknown to the Tartars and to us, they would have been the happiest people in the world.
  • Voltaire, in Dharampal, Indian science and technology in the eighteenth century; some contemporary European accounts. Delhi, Impex India [1971] quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication.

• Hindus are "a peaceful and innocent people, equally incapable of hurting others or of defending themselves."
  • Voltaire, in Woodroffe, John George, Sir, Is India civilized? Essays on Indican culture. Madras, Ganesh & co., 1922. p. 36 quoted in Londhe, S. (2008). A tribute to Hinduism: Thoughts and wisdom spanning continents and time about India and her culture. New Delhi: Pragun Publication.

• We are a great people who settled around the Indus and the Ganges several centuries before the Hebraic horde transported itself to the banks of the Jordan. The Egyptians, Persians and Arabs came to our country in search of wisdom and spices, when the Jews were unknown to the rest of mankind. We could not have taken our Adimo from their Adam.
  • Voltaire 1885: 17.55- quoted in Dorothy M. Figueira, Aryans, Jews, Brahmins: Theorizing Authority Through Myths of Identity, New Delhi, Navayana Publishing Pvt Ltd. (2002), Reprint 2017

W

• [Indians were, on the whole], a race whose intellectual qualities, whatever may be said by ignorant or designing men, are at least on a par with those of Europeans. (Not that they did not have a share of human depravity, but they were not) so debased, so immoral, or so vindictive, as they have been represented by many gentlemen, especially some divines who have lately returned from the East, and whose opinions breathe by no means the spirit of that sublime religion they would coerce the natives to adopt. Taking all points into consideration, and viewing the nature of the country conjointly with the nature of their laws, and of their former government, I think we have by far more to admire than to censure, in a race of people, who, notwithstanding some highly remarkable instances of depravity, may be classed a among the most innocent, and most industrious, of worldly inhabitants!!!
  • Captain Thomas Williamson, quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.

X

• The ordinary people … are upright and honourable... They are faithful to their oaths and promises... In their behavior there is much gentleness and sweetness.
  • Xuanzang (Yuan Chwang) in the 7th century commenting on the people of India. Quoted from Lal, K. S. (1999). Theory and practice of Muslim state in India. New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan. Chapter 2

• They do not practice deceit, and they keep their sworn obligations. ... They will not take anything wrongfully, and they yield more than fairness requires.”
  • Xuanzang (Yuan Chwang). Quoted from Will Durant, Our Oriental Heritage.

Z

• And when I saw not unfitting equations and life rules were therein contained, I considered it indicated to translate this from the Malabarian language into High German. Not that we Christians do not have sufficient rules of morality in the Holy Scriptures for us to learn them from mere heathens, but merely and solely to see to what extent a heathen, devoid of the Scriptures, and only by virtue of natural enlightenment, can attain cognition of the law of morality, and how those Malabarian heathens equal those former Latin and Greek heathens in this, nay even surpass them absolutely. He, who would be instructed in this in detail, might read the Biblothecam Malabaricam, composed by myself and now sent to Europe, likewise the other two little books of morals which I have translated from the Malabarian into the German and sent along at the same time.
  • Bartholomaus Ziegenbalg [in his foreword of August 30th, 1708 to the translation of the Malabarian Moral Philosophy, Nidi Wunpa . quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books.