Hindu aspirations. Whilst Unionist Governments were in office, with only
one short break during a period of nearly 20 years, and especially
whilst Lord Curzon was Viceroy, the alliance between the Hindu leaders
and Radical politicians at home became more and more intimate. The Hindu
National Congress, which the Mahomedans had come to regard as little
more than a Hindu political organization, was not only generally
acclaimed by English newspapers of an advanced complexion as the
exponent of a new-born Indian democracy, but it had founded[12] in
London an organ of its own, _India_, subsidized out of its funds, and
edited and managed by Englishmen, which may not have a very large
circulation at home, but is the chief purveyor of Indian news to a large
part of the Liberal Press. When Radical members of Parliament visited
India the views they chiefly cared to make themselves acquainted with or
reproduced when they went home were the views of Hindu politicians, and
when the latter visited England they could always depend upon the
demonstrative hospitality not only of Radical clubs and associations but
also of the Radical Press for their political propaganda.

When the Liberal Party returned to power at the end of 1905 the majority
in the new House of Commons included a very active group that identified
itself wholeheartedly with a campaign which, in Bengal, soon assumed a
character of scarcely less hostility to the Mahomedans than to the
British Administration, and the new Government announced their intention
of preparing a scheme of reforms which, whatever its merits, was greeted
in India as a concession to Hindu rather than to Mahomedan sentiment.
For the Mahomedan has always been a believer in personal rule, and one
of the objects of the reforms scheme was to diminish to some extent that
element in the Indian Administration. Moreover, when it was first
outlined by the Secretary of State, the scheme contained provisions
which seemed to the Mahomedans to be at variance both with principles of