The sons are tyrannized over
through youth by their mothers, who endeavour to subdue their spirit
to the yoke, which they wish to bind heavy upon their necks for life;
and they remain through manhood timid, ignorant, and altogether
unfitted for the conduct of public affairs, and for the government of
men under a despotic rule, whose essential principle is a _salutary
fear_ of the prince in all his public officers. Every unlettered
native of India is as sensible of this principle [as] Montesquieu
was; and will tell us that, in countries like India, a chief, to
govern well, must have a _smack of the devil_ ('shaitan') in him;
for, if he has not, his public servants will prey upon his innocent
and industrious subjects.[5] In India there are no universities or
public schools, in which young men might escape, as they do in
Europe, from the enervating and stultifying influence of the
zanana.[6] The state of mental imbecility to which a youth of
naturally average powers of mind, born to territorial dominion, is in
India often reduced by a haughty and ambitious mother, would be
absolutely incredible to a man bred up in such schools.
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