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India House

Krishna Varma admired Swami Dayananda Saraswati's cultural nationalism and believed in Herbert Spencer's dictum that "Resistance to aggression is not simply justified, but imperative". A graduate of Balliol College, he returned to India in the 1880s and served as administrator (divan) of a number of princely states, including Ratlam and Junagadh. He preferred this position to working under what he considered service to the alien rule of Britain. However, a supposed conspiracy of local British officials at Junagadh, compounded by differences between Crown authority and British Political Residents regarding the states, led to Varma's dismissal, He returned to England, where he found freedom of expression more favourable. Varma's views were staunchly anti-colonial, even supporting the Boers during the Second Boer War in 1899.