ABSTRACT
Early Indian nationalists took British rule for granted as if, so to speak, it was the order of nature. They, however, desired that it should transform itself into a national government by identifying itself completely with the interests of the Indian people. They gloried in their membership of the Empire, but demanded that the rights and privileges of British citizenship be gradually extended to them and such modifications be made in the character of the British administration that in the fullness of time India might become self-governing like the Dominions.
