James Halliday

A Special India

‘India, as the country they were serving, became their exclusive concern. True, it was not the India of the Indians, but a special India of their own conception. To that India they developed a sense of loyalty.’

— G. M. Panikkar

‘I shall be upon my guard to mention nothing that can do harm. Truth shall ever be observed, and those things that require the gloss of falsehood shall be passed in silence. At the same time I may relate things under borrowed names with safety that would do much harm if particularly known.’

— James Boswell

‘I never know, when I’m telling a story, whether to cut the thing down to plain facts or whether to drool on and shove in a lot of atmosphere and all that.’

— Bertie Wooster

Acknowledgements

Some of the characters portrayed in this book have made a first appearance in the pages of Blackwood’s Magazine.

The picture of the Pir Pagaro on page 69 is from a photograph kindly lent by M. Maurice LaBouchadiere, Indian Police (retired).

The excerpt from Back to Methuselah on page 175 is printed with permission from the Public Trustee and the Society of Authors.

The quotation on page 196 from the Second World War, Volume IV, The Hinge of Fate by Winston S. Churchill is printed by permission of Cassell & Co. Ltd, and Houghton Mifflin Company.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

‘Trailing Clouds’

A dim greyness tinged the east, and the ship’s engines slowed.

A hail, a long wait, a clang of the telegraph, a ripple at the bows: we were gathering way again. Grey became pink, a low hill etched itself afar against the skyline, the air grew steamy and warm.

A young man leaned on the rail gazing ahead at the approaches to Bombay in an exaltation of sentiment and excitement. This was my janmabhumi, land of my birth, land of my future, the harvestfield of a career of service-privileged, of course, but (I was resolved) devoted-stretching into a limitless infinity of years to come and reaching up to limitless heights of ambition.

I was ten years old when I decided that I must, if I could, go into the Indian Civil Service. In my earlier and less mature years I had thought of going to India as a sapper, or even a gunner. But in any event, to India; that was implicit in my family and its history. We were not of the great aristocracy of Anglo-India like the Trevors and the Rivett-Carnacs and the other families mentioned by Kipling, but we had a tradition going back more than a century. We possess a pair of portraits of two beautiful young brothers in equally beautiful uniforms, the uniforms of the Bombay Light Cavalry and the Bombay Artillery of the Honourable Company’s Army. My great-uncle died on his first furlough in 1844 at the age of 23. His younger brother, my mother’s father, William David Aitken, lived till 75 and became a full general and Colonel Commandant of the Royal Artillery. Their father was Captain John Aitken, a surgeon in the Honourable Company’s Service. And William David’s son was the General A. E. Aitken, Indian Army, who commanded the ill-starred expedition against Tanga in East Africa in the First World War.

I will not burden the record with the other members of my family who lived and worked in India, beyond mentioning that my father, too, was a Bombay man. He was Eastern Manager of the Adas Insurance Company and a keen man—too keen—to hounds. For a time he was M.F.H. in Bombay, and it was hunting that killed him. He insisted on going out when not fully recovered from an attack of dysentery, and this brought on a fatal heart attack. For half a century he has been but a shadowy figure in my memory: a tall man, long-awaited in a frenzy of excitement, visiting the night-nursery in our home in Malvern Link, stooping over our cots to kiss us on the night of his arrival on leave. My next memory relates to the following year, when his lethal rashness brought that succession of cables to Malvern Link, which ended in our mother’s tears.

There is, of course, nothing distinguished, or even unusual, in this kind of family connection with India. There must be literally thousands of families with similar links. In the aggregate those links over the years have knit themselves into a spiritual bond which man may loosen but cannot, I hope, ever put asunder. The cynic’s lips may curl, and hot-minded nationalists (if any such remain) may make loud noises in disclaimer, but those who know will aver that for two hundred years it was a marriage in which tenderness was a major ingredient. The parties now live separate, but it will be a sad day for us if any estrangement of spirit were to come about.

In some sort we still belong to India and India to us and to our fathers, and the oceans and airs that part us are yet alive with the alternating waves of unrelenting affection.

Needless to say such distant images were no part of my thoughts as I hung on the rail and watched the features of the beautiful harbour materialise and grow firm in the light of dawn-Middle Ground, Kanheri, Elephanta, the long finger of Kolaba Point, and behind all the distant green hills of the escarpment. I had arrived. That was the thing!

At long last the years of expectation and unconscious preparation were finished. In a couple of hours I was actually going to step ashore in the country where, whether they wanted it or not, I was going to do the inhabitants such a lot of good. . . .

Eighteen months earlier my eagerness to get to India had made me gamble slightly with fate. Having got a First in Classical Honour Mods at Oriel in the spring of 1925, I was in the normal course of things due to go on to Greats, collect an Honours Degree and then go up for the I.C.S. examination. This programme, however, was called in question by my chancing to read attentively the rules and regulations for entering the Service.

I first noticed that among the qualifications required there was no mention at all of any university degree. Intrigued at the discovery that, so far as formal evidence of being educated was concerned, I was already qualified, I next turned to the rules for the examination itself. Candidates could take as many or as few subjects as they chose, provided only that a prescribed maximum of total marks obtainable were not exceeded. There was no corresponding minimum. The examination was open and competitive, and the candidates were at the end of it placed in the order of marks they had managed to amass.

I perceived, with growing pleasure and excitement, that if an entrant could succeed in getting good enough marks in the Greek and Latin languages and literatures, he might just stand a chance of getting in without superfluously straining himself with the acquisition of the history, philosophy etcetera of Literae Humaniores.

My College was not madly keen on this scheme, when I propounded it to them. The Phelper,¹ our Provost, told me with that characteristic diction which was then a part of Oxford, that scholars were at least expected to take a degree, I mean, at least a degree, even if that was all they did take, tcha, even if that was all they did take. But on that point I was ready for him. I pointed out that, if I did get into the I.C.S., I would spend a probationary year at Oxford under the auspices of the India Office, studying Indian history, law and an Indian language. During that year, which would be my third at Oxford, I undertook to take the examinations necessary for a Pass Degree.

A further argument I used was to remind him that, if I carried on with Greats in the normal way, I might easily do very badly in them. Oxford was not a serious-minded place in those days. It was not long since the place had been full of ex-service undergraduates from the First World War doing their best to tear it apart. Our generation was not quite so rough, but we still lived a life of golden insouciance in a world from which war had been banished and where economic recession was not yet imagined. In this sunlit and vinous ambience my resolution to pursue a course of study with reasonable application, and not to disgrace myself meanwhile with unseemly escapades, had grown frail, and was growing visibly frailer.

The Phelper knew me well enough to recognise the force at any rate of my second argument. He gave me his blessing, and the upshot of all this was that I passed into the I.C.S. in 1925, and so got out to India two years sooner than I would have done otherwise.

I succeeded in keeping my part of the bargain by passing ‘Groups’ and thus getting my Pass Degree. This is not a distinguished thing to do. But in one examination I did achieve distinction, if not a record.

I utterly took aback and routed the examiners by presenting myself on the appointed day at the Examination Schools to write the paper on Hindu and Mahomedan Law, only to find that no such paper existed! It was a real pleasure to sit demurely at my desk, while the minutes ticked by and the invigilators took it in turns to telephone. At last I was told that the Reader in Indian Law had consummated his shameful neglect of his only candidate by disappearing to Italy on holiday. Perhaps it was his conscience that made him so genial and accommodating on his return a fortnight later.

My chief memories of that rose-tinted year are connected with my last appearance in my college Eight and with the lectures in the Indian Institute laid on for us I.C.S. probationers. Having been earmarked for Bombay, I was taught Marathi by C. N. Seddon, I.C.S. (retired), a Persian scholar and oriental linguist. Although it was many years since he had left India, he still spoke Marathi, so I was assured by an Indian colleague, like ‘a dear old Brahmin pandit in Poona’. Another lecturer was Vemey Lovett. His lectures on Indian history, heavily prepared and carefully read aloud, were highly soporific. One of our number, however, earned notice if not admiration by scribbling down the magic verbiage almost word for word. The rest of us were inclined to think such industry implied a want of spirit, until one day this energetic scribe surprised us.

The lecturer was discoursing about the Devolution of Power, or some equally elfin topic, when in the process of starting a new paragraph he said: ‘Much water, however, was to flow under the bridge, before the devolution of power from the Court of Directors . . . Yes, have you a question?’

Our friend had raised a hand.

‘Excuse me, sir,’ he asked, ‘but could you tell us to which bridge you are referring?’

Naturally our political ideas at Oxford and earlier were way ahead of the gradualism of the British and Indian Governments.

While still a stripling at Cheltenham I had sent in a Resolution to the House Debating Society that ‘India is now ripe for Autonomy’. The president of the society, the senior house prefect, sent for me to ask what the devil ‘autonomy’ was. When I said it meant ‘independence’, he inquired why I had not said so in the first place and reprimanded me most unkindly for putting on side. However, he put the item on the agenda, and my motion was later carried in a rather thin and puzzled House.

Such was the spirit which filled most of us on our first outward voyage. If the expression ‘One Man One Vote’ had been invented, we would probably have subscribed enthusiastically to the idea that in this catchword lay the cure for many of the ills of mankind. We might indeed have added ‘One Woman’ as well. And surely such an engaging simplicity should be forgiven to the young; for the very same notion, in despite of all experience, is still being propounded to this day by more and more grown men.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

Now I could see buildings and smoke. It was time to go below and dress, if I was not to be caught in pyjamas when we went alongside Ballard Pier. I picked my way along decks awash with sea-water from the hoses of the Indian crew, boldly said ‘salaam aleikum’ to the sarang in charge, and went down the companion-way. Below no one was yet stirring. The cabin steward had firmly turned down my request to be called as soon as we sighted land.

‘Can’t do that, sir. We don’t come on till six-thirty. Tell you what though,’ he had added when he saw I was serious. ‘I’ll ask one of the quartermasters to knock you up—if he remembers.’

The quartermaster had duly knocked me up loud and clear; and Cecil James in the bottom bunk had murmured loudly in outrage.

When I suggested that he ought to come on deck with me—for he too was a recruit to the Service and should have felt no less excited and romantic than me—he had become abusive. I pitied him for his lack of proper feeling. True, he had been lost till the early hours with the prettiest girl on the boat; but that, apart from making me jealous, was no excuse.

‘Cecil, you lazy hound,’ I now urged him. ‘Getup! We’ve arrived!’

‘Oh God!’ he groaned, and turned over.

There were four of us new boys on the Rajputana, two Indians and two Britishers, thus conforming to the prescribed composition of the Service. Motiram Lalvani was the cleverest of us. He was the only one for whom the outcome of last year’s competitive examination had been a foregone conclusion. And his attitude to the I.C.S. was condescending. He would quickly have made a fortune at the Bar, he told us (probably quite rightly), but had been persuaded by his community in Hyderabad, Sind, to sacrifice the prospect of affluence and give the I.C.S. a go, on the principle that there could not be too many Amils in the seats of power. Moti was not a reticent type. On the second day out he showed me the photograph of a French mistress he said he had had in Paris.

‘She really loved me, that girl,’ he assured me. ‘She wasn’t a tart, you know.’

I inspected the snapshot with interest, not to say envy—for I had never myself had anyone that by any stretch of imagination could be called a mistress. I could see nothing to disprove Moti’s claims; but I must say the girl did not look very aristocratic, or very young. Not wishing to let him have things too much his own way, I remarked nastily that at least she looked quite experienced.

‘Oh, she was, he had replied with profound satisfaction.

If Moti was the cleverest of us, Cecil was the best looking and most fashionable. Slight, dark and athletic, his conversation embraced such subjects as West End restaurants, point-to-points and grouse shooting, areas of experience of which the rest of us had little or no first-hand knowledge.

‘And don’t imagine,’ he would say, ‘that I’m going to spend my time hanging round the districts in the dust. I want to live comfortably. I’ll either go into the Political or be a judge.’

Moti was equally opposed to the thought of district life, but his escape route from it was to be different. He had friends in Bengal, to which province he had been assigned, who would quickly bale him out from the countryside as soon as his training was over, and get him into the Secretariat. Once there he would firmly stay in Calcutta (Darjeeling in the hot weather) until he could get into the Government of India (Delhi, with Simla in the hot weather). The fourth member of our quartet was Nityananda Raddi, a cheerful round-faced, spectacled lad from Madras. He was frankly looking forward to turning his back on the barbarities of the rest of the world and going back to the cultured life of the deep South. There, he rather thought, he might find a satisfying career in local self-government.

For my part, I had no idea which branch of the Service I favoured, but there were two things I did not want. I did not want to become a judge, which seemed a very tame kind of existence; and I did not want to go to Sind. Sind, although now in a different country, was in those days a part of the Bombay Presidency. And I already knew that Bombayites regarded it as a sort of incandescent limbo, to which the delinquent and the uncouth were relegated in order to be either punished or out of sight or both.

I had been warned of this while spending my last long vacation in Hampshire with the Chrystals, old Bombay friends of my family. ‘If they don’t like you, they’ll send you to Sind,’ Mrs Chrystal had told me with a look of solemn admonition. Sir Purshotamdas Thakurdas, a fellow guest, had endorsed the summing-up gravely; but had added with a reassuring smile: ‘But I do not think they will send you there.’ I was pleased at the implied compliment, and became greatly attached to Sir Purshotamdas from then on. When his visit ended, he shook my hand and said: ‘We will meet again—in India!’

I replied with suitable warmth. For in my heart I had already given this cultured millionaire a place of honour among the vast population that was to benefit from my dedicated efforts.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

It was about half-past nine when my horse-drawn cab, a smelly Victoria, wheeled awkwardly into the secretariat gates, the horse as usual skidding and recovering itself dangerously at the change of direction. I had aged considerably in the last two hours. . . .

I was alone, aggrieved, and not a little worried. After saying good-bye to my ship-board friends and service colleagues, I found that no one had come to the ship to meet me, or even sent word as to what I was to do or where I was to put up. I was not looking for a red carpet, quite; but I did think there would be some sign of awareness of my arrival. So little indeed did this neglect accord with my expectations that a horrid fear assailed me: had I come by the wrong steamer? Or even to the wrong port? My anxieties had begun.

I left my luggage and keys in charge of a Cook’s man, the only person who seemed to want to help me, and feeling distinctly at a loss walked out of the customs shed into the hot glare of a Bombay cold-weather morning. I now luckily remembered that at some time or another I had had a printed letter, which said that newly-joined officers would receive orders about their posting at the secretariat and should proceed there ‘forthwith on arrival’. So I let myself be scooped up by the first cab-driver who brought his horse sliding alongside me, and told him to go there.

Clearly my Marathi, unlike C. N. Seddon’s, did not resemble that of a dear old Brahmin pandit. It took several minutes and the help of a few bystanders to convince the driver that I did not want to go either to the railway terminus or to the Taj Mahal Hotel. Only after that stage was over could we get on to the next item on the agenda, i.e. where I did want to go.

The horse clip-clopped along the long roads so gently, that after much time had elapsed my thoughts were wrenched away from the fascinating scenes around me and found food for quite a new sort of anxiety. Could this snail-like progress, I asked myself, possibly pass muster as ‘proceeding forthwith’? Should I not have found a taxi, or at least a bus? The day was already well advanced, and I wondered if I would be reprimanded on arrival for wasting time before reporting. After all, it was ages now since I had reached Bombay, and a host of urgent tasks might be waiting for me, perhaps a famine, or a plague epidemic---who could tell?

When at long last I went up the steps and passed through the Venetian Gothic doorways, this particular anxiety imperceptibly faded out. There was no sign of life within. . . .

Some time later I found a man with a duster, and engaged him in a difficult conversation. From this it transpired that no one would arrive in office for at least half an hour, and even then it would only be the clerks. The sahibs would be much later still. The man wandered away. Then a pattewallah in a long blue coat with a red shoulder-band and huge corporal’s stripes arrived and took me in charge. He was a man obviously accustomed to bewilderment and sensibly averse from useless talk. In silence he walked ahead of me up several flights of wide stone stairs, every now and then turning round to make sure he hadn’t lost me, and led me finally to an open veranda and a chair. There he left me. Soon an impudent crow flew on to the parapet and eyed me in a hostile manner. An hour passed, and I advanced whole years in maturity and cynicism.

When my friend in the corporal’s stripes came back, he was beaming. The sahib had arrived, he said, and was willing to receive me.

The sahib received me, when he did, with a look of undisguised curiosity, and vaguely asked me to sit.

‘Halliday? Halliday?’ he was saying a few minutes later. ‘But, as far as I know, we’re not expecting you.’

Grim, numbing hopelessness settled on me. All my earlier fears had come true, and worse than true. It was not just a question of the wrong steamer or the wrong port, but of the wrong country. Perhaps I ought to be in Ceylon or Malaya? Or perhaps I hadn’t really passed into anything at all?

I mumbled something about a printed order, and he held out his hand for it. I had to tell him that I hadn’t got it now.

He looked again at his papers, and asked:

‘You’re sure you’ve been allocated to the Bombay Public Works Department?’

At this I opened my eyes wide and said that I did not think I was in the P.W.D. at all. I was in the I.C.S.

‘Then why,’ he asked, ‘have you come to the P.W.D. secretariat?’ The relief brought on by those words was only matched by the thankfulness with which I found, on arriving at my proper destination, that there my name was on someone’s list. By the time I was admitted eventually into the presence of the Revenue Secretary, I was almost restored to the thrilling mood of the early morning.

The Revenue Secretary in those days was J. W. Smyth. I still meet him [Since writing this I have learned of my old friend’s death] quite often in London and in Italy, but I have never let him into the secret of the rude shock which his first words gave me.

‘You’re Halliday, are you? Let me see—Halliday. Sind I think. Yes—you’re for Sind.

After my morning of alternating hopes and fears, this was the last straw. It took an effort to choke down the bitter despair that rose in my heart.

I was a failure even before I had begun!

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

By the time I went to bed that night, however, these boyish fantasies of hope and fear, of conceit and failure, of rose-coloured aspiration and black disillusionment, had been happily dissipated by a little contact with reality.

Hospitably entertained to dinner by the same J. W. Smyth who had unwittingly given me such a shock in the morning, and by a personage even more august-the Revenue Member of Council himself²—! imperceptibly became aware of many things. I became aware for example that the machinery of government was not only vast and intricate, but efficient. It ran strongly and pervasively over all the face of the land, smoothly lubricated by administrative traditions that had accumulated over the years on foundations dating back to the Mogul Empire and even earlier. Disasters such as famine and plague were things it coped with in its stride; lone crusaders, still less martyrs, were not required.

In this machine, it was gently made clear to me, I would one day become an unimportant cog-after I had gone through a year's training followed by a stiff examination, and after I had learned to speak, read and write Sindhi. This knowledge, acquired between the soup and dessert, was not only salutary to my youthful self- esteem, but quite a relief. I knew where I was. Practical and well- defined tasks lay ahead of me; and the heroics could be kept in reserve for some misty future.

Another thing I learned with relief was that a posting to Sind was not a black mark-if anything, rather the opposite. Both Rieu and

Smyth were old Sindhis. And it now transpired that, while the Bombay Presidency proper and its peoples might just get by on various counts, they came well below Sind and the Sindhis in general worthwhileness. I decided then and there to support the heat and the sand-storms gallantly and to strain every nerve to acquire the mystical qualities requisite in a good Sindhi.

Lastly I discovered, with warmth and gratitude, that although my fellow cadets and I were among the lowest of God's creatures, we were nevertheless being received as members of a fraternity. Our ways would be made smooth with brotherly advice, paternal solicitude, and practical help. The following months bore out these expectations to the full. Everyone was kind and hospitable to the newcomer. And in later years I did my best to repay my obligations by behaving in the same way to my own juniors.

The weeks before Christmas were spent by me in surroundings so unexpected as to seem more like a dream than reality.

I found myself aboard a paddle-steamer on the Indus, the guest of the kindest people in the world, W. F. Hudson, Commissioner in Sind, and Mrs Hudson.

The s.s.Jhelum, now alas long defunct, was a large flat-bottomed vessel that had once belonged to the old Indus Commission. An equally large flat-bottomed lighter was attached to the port side, and carried servants, stables, and vast piles of firewood for the engine. The overall appearance of the twin vessels was perhaps something less than shipshape and Bristol fashion, and progress was often held up when we stuck on sand-banks in the bed of the river; but life on board was distinctly comfortable. There was a foredeck with easy chairs and an awning, and a saloon to which we retreated when the cold-weather evening grew chill. There were private cabins for all; and although mine was naturally the smallest, it was provided with a bathroom containing a w.c. and a wooden bath-tub of sympathetic texture, which was filled and emptied by unseen hands.

The Jhelum was the means by which the Commissioner in Sind made his progress up country in the touring season. Wherever she tied up, a crowd of visitors was waiting along with a guard of honour from the local police-force and a fresh pile of fuel. Hudson would spend the day interviewing the officers of the district and landowners,

the latter-some of them men of vast estates-magnificent in huge turbans, snow-white shirts and embroidered coats, and enormous billowing trousers. While each man waited his turn, he chatted to the Assistant Commissioner, Boyd Irwin³; and some of the extra punctilious ones, hearing that a new sahib was on board, even paid courtesy calls on me. Since they spoke nothing but Sindhi, and since my Marathi (even if it had been more pandit-like than it was) would have been about as useful as Spanish in talking to a Finn, these rather embarrassing meetings could only consist of smiles, bows, gestured invitations to be seated, and silent leave-takings.

The rest of my working hours were spent in studying the district gazetteers of Sind, and in learning the Sindhi alphabet and the elements of Urdu. Urdu was needed, in general because I would soon have to pass an examination in it, and more particularly and immediately because it was indispensable in order to talk to servants. These were rarely Sindhi. My own bearer, for instance, Rahim Bakhsh, was a highly respectable and richly bearded old boy from Agra, who had been found for me by Mrs Hudson. He spoke a pure Urdu, which was the only language he understood. So I worked away at a primer in Roman script, and was soon rewarded by the opening up of communication with him.

Dear good old man! Besides being a careful and industrious servant, who solved~z~the problem set by my having socks of different colours by darning them all impartially with wool of a bright purple, Rahim Bakhsh was a religious teacher of reputation. Often in later years, on returning from a walk or ride, I would find him standing under a tree, with an audience squatting on their haunches round him, preaching gently with gracious gestures of the right hand.

In the evenings Boyd and I would go ashore for a ride. On my first day, as soon as we had got away from the river-bank and on to the plain, I got to know the characteristic evening smell of Sind. It is a smell that no one who has been there can forget. As the temperature drops, cool vapours rise from the earth, harsh with the odour of alluvial soil heavily impregnated with salt. These vapours mingle with the exhalations of the million tamarisk bushes which grow on die face of the plain in all directions, and the two scents are compounded together into a pungent, almost ammoniac aroma which seizes you by the throat. When I smell it now in imagination, it takes me back to carefree days in camp and to cheerful expeditions by camel or on foot armed with a gun and the eternal optimism of the bad shot.

The roads were half a foot deep in the finest of white, powdery dust, so that a donkey in transit raised a towering column like Jehovah accompanying the Israelites. On our ponies we could keep up-wind of the other road users, whom Boyd would greet with cheerful badinage. The drivers of bullock-carts, riders of camels and horses, and pedestrians were alike highly delighted at this, and furthermore exhibited every sign of respect. As we cantered away from them, across fields of rice stubble or the bare plain, I felt that nothing could have changed here for a hundred years.

I also felt that I had been lucky to be sent to Sind, and that I had come to the right country. These people were going to be the raw material for my endeavours, and it was nice to see that they liked us. That they treated us with profound respect as well seemed only right and proper.

A great happiness descended over me.

PECCAVERAM

'Six o'clock, huzur, six o'clock.'

I feel a gentle, persistent shaking of my camp-bed, and peep out of the blankets to see a square, wrinkled face, spectacled and benign, framed in a balaclava helmet and supported by a mass of red woollen scarf. It is Rahim Bakhsh, herald of another tented dawn.

The air is bitter chill, barely luminous with the false dawn. Fleetingly I think of limping hare and fluff-feathered owl; then sit hunched under the bedclothes, glad to be awake and eager for the events of the new day.

The first thing to be done is to assuage the boyish appetite engendered by a ten-hour fast. This is vitally important because breakfast, which is combined with luncheon, will not be for another six hours. Smiling more benignly than ever Rahim Bakhsh sets a tray down on the tin trunk which does duty as bedside table. It is furnished with a family-sized teapot, a jug of buffalo's milk, cup and saucer, a pile of toast, a slab of tinned butter, jam, three boiled eggs (but only little ones) and an appetising plateful of cold blancmange left over from dinner.

Having allowed me five minutes alone with the tray, Rahim Bakhsh reappeared with a steaming mug and passed into the bathroom compartment. With the announcement 'the shaving-water is ready' my active day had begun. A few minutes later I was outside, slapping myself to keep warm and breathing out steamy puffs of the aromatic air of a winter's dawn in Sind. I was grateful for the stout English cord of my breeches, the close-fitting elegance of my fieldboots, the thick tweed of a skirted riding-coat, the comfort of a pair of string gloves. In three hours, I knew, I was going to be uncomfortably warm; and in three months the very idea of tweed and Bedford cord would be enough to bring on a go of prickly-heat.

But now it was half-past six of a January morning, and the world was crisp and alive and beckoning.

I had been a week in camp with a senior officer, attached for training and instruction for the rest of his touring-season; and each day brought something new. Today we were going to pay a state call at the village of one of the biggest zamindars (landowners) in the District of which my mentor was Collector.⁴ He was an officer of vast experience and very popular; but inclined to be testy in the early morning. Since he was an old man of well over forty, I supposed him to be suffering from liver or some other complaint of advanced age. So I made allowances when he shouted at the syce for being slow with his pony, at his bearer for having incorrectly adjusted the chinstrap of his helmet, and at the sweeper for letting the dog bark. When my turn came in due course, and I was rudely upbraided because my pony was dancing about in the cold and I could not stop him, I made fewer allowances; but still had the sense to keep my mouth shut.

Out on the earth road we got going at a fast trot, pursued by Mr Motwani, a local subordinate official, and two or three other horsemen including a mounted police-constable. The last of these trotted his horse at its natural gait, but the others adopted the 'Sindhi pace', in which a horse is taught to run along with the legs on each side working in parallel with each other, like a speeded-up camel. This saves the rider the tedium and effort of rising to a trot, the local haute icole style of human adjustment being to lean well back with legs stuck out horizontally and hope for the best. I have heard various theories advanced as to how the rider could stay on top in this position; but they are both unnecessarily fanciful and anatomically unlikely. The truth, I think, is that the rider balances himself by leaning on the bit (usually a severe one). When he feels himselt toppling, he leans harder still. This brings the pony round and up, and enables him to start all over again, after a few well-chosen insults have warned tlie animal to be more careful in future.

Mr Motwani could not hear something the Collector was saying and urged his scampering grey mount alongside, churning up clouds of powdery dust and bending close his tightly-turbanned head to catch the great man's words. Unluckily his outstretched foot, clad in patent-leather, touched the other horse on the shoulder and caused it to turn with a squeal of rage and bite the grey in the neck. My own pony seized the opportunity to try and get rid of me, and I was busy riding for a while, though not too busy to hear the Collector's remarks. When poor Mr Motwani had remounted and had once more, in trepidation, drawn level with his superior, he was asked, bitingly: 'What are you trying to do? Kiss me?'

So the morning wore on. . . .

Our way lay over a grey plain empty save for scattered scrub and tamarisk-bushes. Far ahead a line of trees marked the banks of a canal, and in time we reached the land under its command. First came compartmented rice-fields having the stubble of last year's crop; then fields lucky enough to get a perennial flow, with standing crops of corn and vegetables and sugar-cane. The going, over the compact sympathetic surface of salt-impregnated earth, was perfect; there was no need to have your horses shod in those parts. Eventually we rode up on to the canal-bank for the last stretch of the journey. It was getting warm. I took off my gloves and began to think of handing over my coat to the orderly, then recollected that I was about to take part in a formal visit to Tando Mir Mahomed.

A mile before we reached the Tando (village) of Mir Mahomed Khan I deemed the morning far enough advanced to ask a question. Was there any special purpose for this visit to the zamindar, or was it a matter purely of ceremony?

'He's working up to ask me for some more gun licences for his people and a revolver licence for himself. He'll put on a big show for us, so look out.'

It was not until later that I learned how important gun licences were in the world of Sind.

A turn in the canal road brought us to an avenue leading to the zamindar's home. This particular avenue, however, was not an ordinary one made of trees, but a spectacular one made of men. Dressed in new shirts of assorted colours and baggy trousers the retainers of the estate stood ready to do us honour, many of them armed with old-fashioned hammer guns and a few with more modem weapons. At the far end of the avenue we could discern our host himself, magnificent in enormous white turban, embroidered waistcoat of gold velvet, and vast Sindhi pantaloons. Ranged on either side of him were rows of male relations.

'He has made very good arrangements to welcome your Honours,' Mr Motwani assured us.

At that moment a petitioner materialized in front of us from nowhere in the special way petitioners had, holding a paper rolled up and tied with a thread which he wished to deliver to the Collector. In order to make this delivery properly humble, and so more efficacious, he removed from his head the large red turban that surmounted it, unrolled it with a flick of the wrist, and threw it on to the ground before us.

This proceeding was exactly what my pony had been waiting for all morning. Pretending to be terrified, he shied violently to one side, bucked twice and danced about on his toes uncertain what to do to me next. His uncertainty was ended by Mir Mahomed Khan's retainers. Obviously executing a carefully contrived drill they raised their guns into the air and with one accord fired a volley of welcome. . . .

A second later the retainers began to flash past on either side of me. To my chagrin it dawned on me both that I was being run away with, and that the human avenue of honourable welcome was being put to an unexpected use. My mount had started up it because he couldn't see a better way to go; and, having started, there was no escape for him or for me. Both had to go to the bitter end.

On both sides I caught glimpses of faces either youthfully smooth or richly bearded, but all alike in their expression of pleased surprise. Abstractedly lowering their weapons, they clearly saw no connection between their own/eu dejoie and my rapid progress. Maybe this was a white man's way of showing respect to an honoured host? Or was I perhaps wishful of selling my horse to the Mir Sahib, and therefore showing off his paces at full gallop? And he galloped well by Allah!

Then the Mir Sahib himself flashed past, his handsome face alive with a mixture of alarm and unholy glee. The unholy glee I could understand at once. As for the alarm, it was some minutes before I linked it up with the effect which my breaking my neck would have on his ambition to augment still further his arsenal of small arms.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

Three months later the touring season was at its end, and we were in our last camp. The afternoon temperature in my tent was a hundred and three and the Indian Evidence Act was losing its charm. But for all my drowsy numbness I felt happy and well and a little proud that the baking heat did not trouble me. I felt I had well earned the spell of civilisation which was coming for me, with electric fans and cubes of ice and girls in tennis frocks. Sam Ridley^1^ and I were under orders to spend the summer in Karachi, reading for our departmental examinations and submitting to other mystic rites of initiation.

Meanwhile I had learned much of a practical kind in the last months. I now knew something of the agricultural economy of Sind; of the landlords and their harts, share-cropping tenants, and their pastimes, particularly the pursuit of wild duck, snipe, partridge, quail and sandgrouse; of moneylenders and farmers' credit; of the functions of various sorts of officials; of crops, land revenue, water-rate and irrigation; and of crime.

The level of crime made me see the people I was to live among more clearly than before, if not less sympathetically. The student's picture of a righteous people battling its way from subordination to democratic independence, fighting meanwhile a cruel climate and a succession of natural disasters and devotedly assisted in both by the kindly ministrations of the I.C.S., began to fade. Instead a picture, itself not all that accurate or complete, began to emerge of a population of engaging buccaneers, whose interests were rigidly

^1^ Sir Sidney Ridley, Revenue Commissioner in Sind under the Government of Pakistan, now Fellow of St John's College, Oxford. An exact contemporary in the I.C.S.

A SPECIAL INDIA\ confined to doing first unto their neighbours that which their\ neighbours would otherwise do unto them.

The basic crime of the Sind of those days-and I expect of present-day Sind too-was cattle-stealing. In the words of the Gazetteer for Sind it was regarded not so much as a crime as 'an honourable enterprise for a man of spirit.' It was a highly organised affair with secret escape routes for rustlers and their spoils, holding centres concealed in forest or on islands in the Indus, and eventual marketing arrangements beyond the frontiers of the Province. The victim usually got a chance to redeem his stolen animals at an early stage in the process by payment of a cash sum to an intermediary, a procedure common to other parts of the world which have the same amusements and followed for example by the early Mafia in Sicily.

Unfortunately this relatively guileless rascality gave rise to horrid abuses. First, it afforded immense and well-exploited opportunities of corruption to the subordinate police, who were liable to become the salaried adherents of local magnates. Worse still perhaps, it gave scope for the same magnates to do down their enemies (i.e. neighbouring magnates). This was accomplished not only by organising the theft of cattle belonging to them and their men, but also by accusing their enemies' harts of being cattle thieves themselves. The accused men, under the preventive law peculiar to cattle theft, might spend up to two years in prison without a single specific offence being proved against them. So an operation of this kind, if skilfully conducted at the right time of the year, could result in satisfying areas of your enemy's land remaining uncultivated. This was good for nobody, least of all for the unlucky men in prison.

Other forms of crime were also above average. Robberies and gang robberies were frequent, quite apart from those committed by the Hurs (of whom I have more to say later) in the cause of religion. The murder rate was high. The three proverbial motives for murder, land, gold, and women fym, \^ar, %al) all played their part, but the last was the most common. Sexual jealousy roused a searing flame under the hot suns of Sind, and not only in respect of women. Deviations even more strangely wide of the mark than usual were not unknown. A brooding herdsman lost his head over a cow, and the owner got to know of it and was angry and reported the crime. The herdsman was found guilty, but not without the Indian magistrate having first carefully reviewed all the evidence in his written judgement. The magistrate found the evidence conclusive, and clinched it with an unanswerable argument. 'I have seen the cow,' he wrote. 'She is very beautiful.'

We were all mad on horses in those days. In Karachi Sam Ridley and I would get up early in the mornings to help train our team s entry for the Sind Point-to-Point. We would perhaps go for a long, slow hack along the sands, religiously paddling our mounts in die sea; once when doing this I suffered the mortification of having my horse lie down with me in the water; or alternatively we might take them to the Ordnance Lines to school them over jumps. Afterwards, we would return to the club for baths and breakfast. The next item on our day's programme would be the arrival of Mr

Anandram T. Shahani to give us our lesson in Sindhi. For some reason or other our attention to his exposition of the charms of pronominal suffixes and meaningless appositives was not always fully sustained. One day we both woke up, to find ourselves alone.

In the late afternoon four or five sets of tennis, or perhaps a few games of squash, loosened us up nicely and equipped us with a thirst and a capacity that were the envy of many. We would devote a modicum of the intervening hours to the study of the countless laws and circulars which formed the syllabus of the examinations we were to sit for in the autumn.

Our literary studies were varied with excursions, such as those to magistrate's and sessions courts so as to learn how to comport ourselves on the bench. More enigmatic was a week spent in the District Treasury. Its purpose was to acquaint us with the workings of the governmental accounting system; but all I learned was how to sign my name in four hundred different places without getting writer's cramp. Most mysterious of all to me (but not to Sam) was a course in survey work held at Hyderabad (Sind). Our Mahomedan instructor was an aficionado of chains, cross-staves, and geometrical patterns possessing weird Sindhi names. He was also a kind-hearted man, who passed me in the final test-with a score of nil. But he sternly let it be known that mine was an exceptional case, and that for the future no one would pass who did not get more marks than I had.

It was on the evening of the Sind Point-to-Point, in which Sam and I had helped our team to rapturous victory, that Hugh Dow^1^ told me the story of the Plague of Wolves. It was a time for storytelling, both raconteur and audience being well attuned by our purposeful celebrations.

Dow began by asking us if we had ever seen an Annual Administration Report for the Province together with the observations thereon of the Government of Bombay. Sam and I were glad to assure him that we had not.

'Ah, well, you soon will.' He viewed us with kindly commisera-

^1^ Sir Hugh Dow, g.c.i.b., k.c.s.i., later to become Governor first of Sind, then of Bihar, prior to rendering distinguished services, after his retirement from India, in Palestine and E. Africa.

tion, and went on: It is a portmanteau Resolution of Government, ten or more pages long, which every year reviews the whole field of the administration of Sind. Crop acreages, cattle census, statistics of crime, literacy, disease---nothing is left out, and everything is written in the purest officialese and in a way that deprives it of all connection with reality. It is, of course, written by pale and elegant under-secreataries in Bombay.'

We duly groaned, and waited with hope rather than faith.

One day many years ago, he told us, when he was Assistant Collector in the Napier District, the post brought a copy of the latest Administration Report. Being a careful officer, he decided to skim through it before throwing it away; and his carefulness was rewarded. One small paragraph, he said, seemed to leap out at him from the printed page.

Government views with some concern the recrudescence of mortality from attacks by wolves in the Tando Kalyani sub-division of the Napier District. It trusts that energetic measures will be taken by the local officers to stamp out this menace.

His surprise at reading this was mixed with s strange tingle of anticipation. Having read it again to make sure he had made no mistake, his first step naturally was to send for his head clerk.

'Mr Harchandrai,' he asked, 'have you seen the Government Resolution about the wolves in this sub-division?'

Mr Harachandrai smiled kindly.

'Sir, I think your honour must be mistaken. There are no any wolves this side.'

'Read that, then. What does it mean?'

Mr Harchandrai read it and registered a satisfactory degree of puzzled alarm.

'Sir, I do not know. It is somewhat strange.'

'Strange! It's mad. There are no wolves within a hundred miles. Where could they have got the idea from, I'd like to know. The G.R. is a review of the Administration Report, and this bit comes under Vital Statistics. Now, who sends in these Vital Statistics?

'We do, sir.'

'Do we indeed?' asked Dow. 'Then . . . why the devil. . •?

He broke off to watch Mr Harchandrai gazing at the tent roof a forefinger held vertical before the tip of his nose. At last the forefinger began to move from side to side.

'Excuse one minute, sir,' he said, and ducked under the door-flap to reappear in a couple of minutes with the Manual of Village and District Forms. He laid the book open on Dow's table.

Under the banner headline 'Deaths-analysis of Causes of' there was a proliferation of perpendicular columns and sub-columns, which Dow began dutifully to read out from right to left (for the form was printed in Sindhi):

'One, Deaths from natural causes, divided into sickness, old age, and childbirth. Two, Deaths from accidents. Three, Deaths caused by crimes and affrays. Four, Suicides. Five, Deaths caused by reptiles and wild animals-getting warmer now-subdivided into snakebite, wolves, felines, bears . . . Wolves/ There we are! Well, I'm damned! Had you ever seen this before, Mr Harchandrai?'

The head clerk closed his eyes and smiled an enigmatic smile.

Dow read on: 'Six, Deaths-Other. What can they be? After that list, I can't think of any others, can you?'

'Sir, that is for simple deaths. ... I shall ascertain who made the mistake, sir. But I am certain it will be that Mahomedan fellow at Khanpur. When I have found out the guilty culprit, we will report true facts to Higher Authority. But,' he added with a tinge of regret, 'it may go rather very difficult to punish him. You see, sir, faulty figures have been passed on from hand to hand, first by our office, then by Collector's office, then by Commissioner Sahib's office, and no one is detecting error or asking for verification. So each and every one is to blame.'

'Including us,' said Dow, adding to himself 'but I'll be damned if I report true facts to Higher Authority.'

Mr Harchandrai bowed his head in shame, and made way for Dow's first visitor of the day, a splendid gentleman resembling the pictures of Ali Baba.

Khan Bahadur Ghulam Ali Baktriani was the biggest landowner of the District, a man of wealth and catholic tastes and a first-class shot. These attributes, especially the last, made it a bitter thing for him to be without his gun licences. It was about them that he had

come to see Dow, as the latter well knew-knew too to his own embarrassment, for his advice in the matter had only yesterday been rejected.

The Khan Bahadur was dressed formally for his call in billowing snow-white trousers, curly-toed slippers of inlaid leather, embroidered jacket over a flowered muslin shirt, and towering turban. He was agog to hear the result of Dow's intercession with the Collector on his behalf. But good manners dictated that no eagerness be shown, and that before coming to the point much repetitious solicitude should be expressed on both sides on the subjects of bodily health, the state of the crops, the amenities of the camp, the prospects for the annual inundation season, and the availability, quality and price of horses and camels.

'Is everything else all right?' Ghulam All asked for the seventh time, once more scanning Dow's face eagerly for reassurance and murmuring 'Thanks be to Allah' when he received it, as if relieved of unbearable anxiety.

In die end an awkward pause developed, and Dow felt impelled by ordinary humanity to bring up the crucial topic.

'I spoke to Mr Manswell about the gun licences.'

Ghulam Ali's eyes closed in grateful anticipation.

'The order is that they cannot be returned.'

Ghulam Ali's eyes opened again, aglow with indignation.

'But that is a great injustice. It is two years since they were taken away. Government always gives back gun licences after two years. I have been punished enough for this small fault.'

Dow had to struggle to hide his embarrassment, for he had used the same argument himself on Mr Manswell not twenty-four hours earlier. Mr Manswell, a very senior officer who had lately arrived from a thousand miles away without any prior knowledge of Sind, had had his own pig-headed ideas on the subject; and it was those ideas which it was now Dow's repugnant duty to repeat.

'It was not a very small fault, Khan Bahadur. You and the Chief of the Lagti were having a private war. Besides your armed robberies you had a pitched batde, and two men were killed. That is not a small matter.'

But Ghulam Ali had no use for sophistry. 'The two years have

passed,' he repeated. 'It is the custom. Also, the Lagti and we are at peace now. We have taken big oaths. All is quiet on this side. Besides, no one was killed, sir, except two Hindus.'

He fell silent for a space, then with infinite dignity stood up to take his leave. With the aspect of an apostle undergoing some specially painful variety of martyrdom he turned to go.

'My face has been blackened and my honour has gone bad.'

Besides sympathy Dow was feeling a keen personal disappointment. It had always been the Khan Bahadur's regular practice and his greatest pleasure to invite officers to shoot with him at Christmas time. The General, the Commissioner, sometimes the Governor himself would come, not to mention smaller fry among whom the Assistant Collector of Tando Kalyani was always included. His invitations were invariably accepted, for his estates contained some of the best duck and snipe shoots in Asia. For two years now there had been no Christmas shooting party, and the Khan Bahadur had perforce shot his own birds with his own familiar friends and relations and his own unlicensed guns. As a result, Dow had never yet enjoyed the supreme delight of his own sub-division, and now perhaps he never would.

How could he make that pompous ass Manswell see reason? That was the problem he carried round with him for the rest of the day until the answer came to him, as answers do, in the evening tub.

A couple of days later Mr Harchandrai brought Dow his findings. As he had foreseen, it had been the doing of that Mahomedan fellow at Khanpur, one Ali Bakhsh, an inattentive village accountant who in Mr Harchandrai's opinion 'enjoyed too much'. When asked how even so deplorable a type as Ali Bakhsh had contrived to produce such startling results, Mr Harchandrai appeared actually to giggle.

'Your honour, it was the white ants that confused him!'

'Come, come, Mr Harchandrai. Pull yourself together.'

By degrees the story came out. White ants, it transpired, had helped themselves to the margins of Ali Bakhsh's entire stock of village forms; and one of the results of that erosion had been the loss of the right-hand column of the Causes of Death. Consequently Ali Bakhsh had accomplished the feat, not an easy one, of entering the whole tale of Khanpur deaths in the wrong columns.

Dow could now see that, quite apart from the wolves, the results were remarkable.

The village of Khanpur had ostensibly got through the whole year not only without any deaths from snake-bite or in childbirth ---which alone would have constituted a record-but without one single death from any kind of sickness. Practically all the deaths had, indeed, been occasioned by old age. This felicitous record was only partially marred by a rather disturbing rate of suicides.

Mr Harchandrai next laid before Dow his draft for a letter to Higher Authority reporting the true facts. In composing this he had clearly decided that, in this case, the real truth was something altogether too strange to report; so he had relied on the more familiar and less incredible fictions of shortage of staff and extreme pressure of work. The letter did, however, reveal the central fact that the slavering jaws of wolves were in fact a clerical error for the poisonfangs of snakes-a relatively humdrum vehicle of death, quite common among the infirm and the unpopular.

'I don't think I'll sign this just yet, Mr Harchandrai,' Dow said. 'As you mentioned yourself, no one comes out of it very well. I'm dining with Mr Manswell tomorrow, and I'll discuss it with him then.'

It occurred to Mr Manswell during dinner that his assistant's manner had improved since they had last met. He had toned down, was less ready to point out to his chief how his job should be done. That little brush about Ghulam Ali's gun licences-or rather, the reprimand with which he had been forced to end it, had obviously done good. It was time, then, to hold out the hand of reconciliation -to show that he could be gracious as well as firm. He assumed an air of kindly interest when his guest, with limpid eye and diffident approach, next spoke, to ask if he had 'noticed that G.R. about the wolves in my sub-division, sir'.

'I did see something. If I remember right, they want us to get rid of them.'

'They were a little rude, sir, I thought. Seemed to think we weren t showing enough energy.'

'Were they indeed? Well, I'm quite happy to leave it to you; I'm sure you can do whatever's needed.' This was where he could

show that he could delegate, when appropriate. A little anti-wolf campaign was the very thing for a forceful junior to tackle.

With disarming hesitance Dow murmured that it might not prove too easy without the co-operation of all the local landowners. Under pressure he hazarded that co-operation might not be forthcoming, as all would take their cue from the biggest landowner of all, Khan Bahadur Ghulam Ali Baktriani. And he-he hated to bring the thing up again-had no gun licence unfortunately....

During a long silence Mr Manswell weighed in his mind the modicum of kudos that might accrue to him from eliminating the menace of wolves plus the continued concern that might be expressed if it were not eliminated, against the saving of his own face. In the end it was the public interest that prevailed.

\'Mmmm.... They have asked us to take special steps, of course. But. . . how do I know that, if he gets his guns back, he won't forget the wolves, and use them on the Lagti instead?'

'Why not make them provisional, sir? Then confirm them in six months, if he plays the game?'

The next silence was longer still. At last Mr Manswell nodded curtly.

'Very well. But don't just take his word for it.... You must make him bring you the skins as proof.'

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

Ghulam Ali was basking in the glow of renewed possession of his lawful battery of small-arms. But nevertheless he smelled a rat.

'Wolves, your honour? The Collector Sahib wishes me to kill wolves? What is a wolf, sir? I have not seen one.'

Dow read out the printed words of the Bombay Government to his visitor.

'It is printed here that the wolves of Tando Kalyani are killing the people, and we must stop them, must not we?'

Though eager to avow his utter concurrence with this or any other suggestion emanating from Bombay, the Khan Bahadur was still puzzled.

'They are difficult to find, sir. If by any chance we search one out and kill it, what should I do?'

'One will not be enough. You must bring me not less that twenty fresh skins.'

Here, at last, was something that Khan Bahadur Ghulam Ali did understand.

'For twenty skins my licences will be made permanent?' Dow nodded. 'I shall bring them soon.'

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

The last scene of Dow's story is laid in his bedroom tent as he changed for dinner on the last evening of Ghulam Ali's Christmas camp.

In a daily effervescence of happiness their host had been showing the Governor and the lesser guests such sport as they would remember for the rest of their lives.

Each morning the camels, bubbling angrily, had waited to take the guns to the water due to be shot over that day. Arriving at the edge of the lake or of some wide expanse of floodwaters, each man was allotted his boat of wood or straw (according to his station in life) and his party of boatmen. There followed the magical half- hour while they were being ferried or pushed through a maze of hidden ways among tall reeds and thickets of tamarisk and camelthorn growing out of the water; all was hushed save the clop and swish of their passage, the murmured confabulations of the boatmen, and the manifold whispers of nature around them. At long last, all were at their appointed places and the beaters deployed. Then-a distant shot. It was the signal.

A vibrant roar would fill the morning in the crescendo so ardently awaited and now so real; it was the resonant drumming of countless thousands of wings in the bass, with alto and treble descants of fervent quackings and shrill squawks. The grand chorus would sweep close overhead, enveloping the guns in shadow. The air grew acrid with burnt powder and the gun-barrels, at once too hot to touch with the naked hand, swung to their work. I he ancient hunting instinct swamped the mind, and all thought of cruelty was lost in the artistry of killing.

No wonder Ghulam Ali was a happy man. Not only were his birds plentiful and his organisation impeccable, but he was

entertaining at one and the same time the Lord Sahib,⁵ the Commissioner, the General, and the Collector. He had completely wiped the eye of every other zamindar in Sind; his honour had fully recovered its health and was indeed flourishing like a bay tree.

The Governor also was happy. Himself the owner of grousemoors and woodland coverts and a connoisseur of la grande chasse, he was seeing something new even to his experience, besides shooting with a skill that was earning universal applause. That afternoon Dow had heard him commend Mr Manswell for having made it possible.

'I was pleased you managed to fix up that matter of, ah, our host's gun licences in, ah, good time, Manswell. In this sort of case it's always well to temper firmness with---well, discretion. I see you know how to do it.'

That was enough to make Mr Manswell extremely happy.

Dow was happy too, with the peculiar happiness that comes from hugging an exotic secret to one's breast. He removed his boots and, as he walked across the tent to his tub, felt beneath his feet the thick, grateful warmth of a new wolfskin rug. . . .

Cants lupus may have been rare in Sind, but it was not so a few hundred miles away in the foothills of the Himalayas. Ghulam Ali's sixteen-year-old son had had a horrid time there, climbing up unwonted hills and lying doggo behind boulders for hours on end. But wolves were plentiful, and the shepherds of Almore who suffered from them were eager to help. It had not been long before he had collected the required number of trophies and could return home in triumph. He had received a hero's welcome when he got home, and had remained very happy ever since.

It would seem almost impossible to find anything to add to this impressive aggregate of human happiness. But Dow, the author of it all, was in due course to receive a final bonus from the smiling gods. A few months later history repeated itself and his post once more contained an Annual Administration Report, and once more a small paragraph seemed to leap at him from the printed page:

Government [it said], has noticed with considerable satisfaction the cessation of mortality from attacks by wolves in the Tando Kalyani sub-division of the Napier District. It wishes to commend the praiseworthy efforts of the local officers, by means of which this menace has been brought under control.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

At the end of 1927 Sam and I had already been in independent charge of our sub-divisions for a couple of months; we were no more Supernumerary, but fully-fledged Assistant Collectors. The flair for self-preservation that develops in schoolboys and undergraduates had seen us through our departmental and language examinations, and we were at last qualified to take our rightful places in the Civil List. Sam went north to Hyderabad, and stayed on in Sind, and later in Pakistan, for most of his time. I remained in Karachi District as Assistant Collector, Tatta. I stayed there for two more years before being sent to the far south to 'act' as Collector, after which I did not return to Sind.

I see from a modern map that Tatta is now joined to Karachi by an arterial road; and other roads marked in red stretch out in various directions to other places in my old territory. Indeed the whole face of Sind now shows a network of roads, canal and ordinary, that just were not there forty years ago. Is it possible that the present-day A.C., Tatta, leaves Karachi for Tatta by motor, with his camp kit going ahead in a lorry? When I did the same thing, a small Flecker- esque caravan formed up in our suburban garden.

Seven baggage-camels were considered normal for an assistant collector's camp, plus a riding-camel. The last was driven by the contractor who supplied them all, and I rode pillion behind him, unless I elected to ride my pony. The rates of camel-hire were fixed by immemorial custom. For an assistant collector, seven rupees a month [for each baggage-camel, and ten for the ridingcamel. The corresponding sums for a collector were nine and twelve, and for the Commissioner in Sind eleven and fifteen. There is a peculiarly Sindhi logic in this version of the rate for the job.

After my caravan of servants, baggage and livestock consisting

of a few chickens and an Airedale terrier left the garden in a residential road of Karachi, it walked in demure file alongside the motor traffic on the tarmac highways until it reached the sea. Then it turned eastwards along the sands and imperceptibly disappeared over a flat horizon.

A few hours later I would set out on horseback, fortified by various stirrup-cups and much humorous advice from the other members of the 'chummery', and trot after them. Towards sunset, having left the sea-shore an hour earlier, I caught up with my first camp, pitched beneath a clump of mango trees near a village. I had bought a large, two-poled double-fly tent from a brother officer, who had been Assistant to the Commissioner in Sind. It cost me forty rupees (£3). This favourable price was accounted for by the presence all over the big top of countless patches, some very large and all of varying hues of material. Its previous owner had been told that it was too disreputable to be seen in the Commissioner's camp; but it was all right for mine. This tent was one of the few good investments of my life. Not only did I, and later my wife and children, live in it quite a lot; but it also entitled me to draw a tentage allowance of Rs. 19 a month. It was clear to me at an early stage that I could never afford to be without it; and I never was.

The rest of my camp consisted of a sleeping-tent that could just hold a camp-bed, chair and table; a 'necessary tent', which was hardly a tent at all since it had no top-only canvas screens surrounding the thunder-box; several 'rautis', small single-fly tents for the servants and pattewallahs, and huts of reed or straw put up ad hoc and ad lib for use as stable, kitchen, waiting-room and the like. My clerks found accommodation in the nearest village.

On the eve of a change of camp the early part of the night, after I had gone to bed, was noisy with the sound of the men striking my day-tent, the bubbling complaints of the kneeling camels as they were loaded, and the insults with which they were addressed by all and sundry. When I came out in the morning, the world was empty before me. Nothing was left of my camp but my sleeping-tent. I got on my pony, went my way about my duties en route for my next stop, and left a small rear party to pack up what was left and follow on at its leisure. At noon I would arrive at the new place. The day- tent awaited me with everything inside it, down to the pens and pin-cushion on the writing-table, arranged in exactly the same position as it had been the day before, and the day before that. The map of the district was unrolled on the tent wall in its proper place, a cloth was laid on the side-table for my breakfast; and dear old Rahim Bakhsh in fresh-starched coat and clean turban with its tailpiece hanging down (this being the busy time of morning; for dinner it would be tucked up out of sight), would be waiting for me with his kind smile.

Besides Rahim Bakhsh there were, of course, other servants. People in England sometimes seem to think we were lucky to have so many servants, if not that we went to India with the express purpose of having them. They certainly formed a substantial element in our lives, if only because of the anxieties they caused with their disputes, family troubles and ailments, debts, and the large number of resident relations, not to mention the high proportion of our income which they absorbed. In India there was no such thing as a 'chauffeur-gardener', still less a cook-general and least of all a factotum or bonne-a-tout-faire. Each segment of domestic work was rigidly compartmented. It was impossible for me, a bachelor of 23 years, not to employ (besides Rahim Bakhsh) a cook (also heavily bearded), a hamal (male housemaid), a washerman, a sweeper, and a groom. The only one of these who would step an inch outside the demarcations of his trade was the sweeper; he, for a small fee, would brush and feed John the Airedale. But it would be a gross distortion, and unfair too, to record only the anxieties and expense our servants of necessity caused us. They were faithful, honest and cheerful; and they cushioned our persons from a world that otherwise might have been intolerably uncomfortable.

Tatta, fifty miles east of Karachi, was a sad town, full of ghosts. On the Makli Hills-Sindhi hills, that are nowhere more than 150 feet high---at a distance of two miles from the town, and close (too close) to the district bungalow, was a necropolis having an estimated population of a million. It contained tombs that were historically interesting and also artistic, their broken walls decorated

with patterned panels and dados of encaustic tiles. The tomb of one Jam Nindo was recorded as having been built in 1508, from materials robbed from an older Hindu temple. The burial-ground testified to the ancient size and importance of Tatta, in the days when the main branch of the Indus flowed past its walls on its way to the Gharo creek near Karachi. At the end of the seventeenth century it was described by a European visitor as the Emporium of the Province, a very large and rich city, three miles in length and half of that in breadth, with a citadel for '50,000 men and horse', barracks, stables, a palace for the Nawab, canals from the river to the city and its gardens, and a flourishing silk-weaving industry. It possessed famous schools of theology, philosophy and politics, and a fine mosque (still extant). This, the Jama Masjid, was presented to the city by the Emperor Shah Jehan in the middle of the same century in thanks for the refuge it had afforded him when he was in rebellion against his father.

Then, two hundred years ago, the river changed its course. Tatta suffered the same fate as Mohenjo Daro had suffered five thousand years earlier. It was left high and dry. It ceased to be an emporium, and sank over the years to the status of a vast mortuary with a township of 10,000 souls in its vicinity, a field for antiquarian research.

I made my stays there as short as I could. The situation of the district bungalow with nowhere to walk in the evening except the endless stony mazes of the city of the dead, was not enlivening. An untrammelled liberty to inspect miles of ruinous tombs, however fine their encaustic tiling, weighed little against the ennui they engendered, not to mention the faint odour of acetylene gas that hung around the place.

Of the old silk-weaving industry there were still the vestigia, two or three handlooms turning out a superb product for a non-existent market. I gave it a short-lived shot in the arm by ordering a very large quantity for Meonstoke House, the Chrystals' home in Hampshire. Forty years later those chair covers are as bright as ever and only just beginning to show signs of wear.

My charge extended southward to the little towns of Mirpur Sakro and Ghorabari, the pilgrimage resort of Pir Patho, and to Keti Bunder precariously poised on a mud-bank at one of the current mouths of the river. It occurs to me that the face of this tract must have been altered not only by better communications, but by many new canals. When I was in Sind the Sukkur Barrage was still under construction. Now, not only has that been completed with its huge attendant mileages of canal, but a new barrage has been installed lower down near Hyderabad. This, the Ghulam Mahomed Barrage, must have brought large new areas of the Tatta sub-division into cultivation. I suspect that the shooting may not be quite what it was.

I toured for two winters in these parts, hearing cases, listening to complaints, giving out land for cultivation, trying to cope with emergencies, and spending hours nearly every morning doing field inspection {partar). Land-revenue in Sind was combined with waterrate, and was remitted on any field which was not cultivated, i.e. which received no water. The village accountant would enter against every field if it had or had not been cultivated that year (and, if so, with what). In view of the financial effects of his entries it was necessary to carry out extensive checks on their accuracy, if possible in unexpected directions. So, in common with others of my grade and kind, I spent long hours and rode many, many miles on pony or camel, endlessly checking field entries. I can only recollect finding one single field which was wrongly entered. This, I am sure, must prove something.

In other Provinces of India the I.C.S. seems to have spent far more time hearing criminal cases than we did. As a magistrate I doubt if I tried more than half a dozen original cases all told. My magisterial activities were limited to taking committal proceedings in murder cases, appellate work (as district magistrate), and the peculiar cattle-thieving cases I have mentioned earlier. The section of the Criminal Procedure Code concerned was classified as a preventive measure. Evidence would be adduced by the police that Minhwasayo walad Pir Khan was a habitual cattle thief, lived by it, was in the habit of demanding b/iimg-tlie blackmail paid by the owner to get his cows back---and was a well-known bad character (badmasK). As many witnesses as might be required would swear to this; but by some strange working of the law of evidence no proof

of any particular crime was wanted-it was in fact excluded. In the absence of specific cause for disbelieving the evidence, the sub- divisional magistrate would call on Minhwasayo to bring two sureties ready to enter into bonds for his future good behaviour. When he failed to do this, or when (as was the custom) his sureties were found not to be fit and proper persons, Minhwasayo would be sent to prison for any period up to two years.

The first time I did this, poor Minhwasayo (whose name incidentally indicated that he had been born on a rainy day) looked very sad and resigned, and I felt guilty and sick at heart. I thought, correctly, that a mockery was being made of a court of justice. In the next cases that came up, I began to accept the respondent's sureties. That caused great, if undeserved, satisfaction to the respondents and their feudal lords, and a corresponding dissatisfaction to those feudal lords' enemies and to the police, whose routine was disturbed. In due course of time a higher authority tried to remonstrate with me for making the work of the police more difficult; but by then I was not having any. I had lately begun to hear a case of alleged police brutality. Affected, possibly naively, by some black eyes and swollen cheeks, I had reached the stage of framing a charge against the accused. At that point, without a word of explanation, the case had been transferred from me to another magistrate. I regarded this as an affront to my judicial powers, which even at that early age I believed to be pretty well developed. So I was unrecep- tive to the remonstrances, and continued to deal with 'badmash cases' in what I deemed to be the spirit of the law. No perceptible increase in cattle thieving resulted.

I might easily have grown lonely on my first tour, had not the Commissioner kindly sent my best friend at Oxford, Hugh Lambrick, to join me in camp. He had just passed first into the I.C.S. after getting the best History First of his year; and by a coincidence he too had been posted to Sind. Like Sam Ridley he stayed on there for most of his service. Among his exploits are included a campaign in 1942 against the Hurs, who were in active rebellion, an episode recorded in The Men Who Ruled India (volume two, The Guardians, pp. 328 to 330), and the authorship of books on Sir Charles Napier, Sir John Jacob, Lord Hardinge, and on the early history of Sind.

He was sent to join me for the purpose of training. If any reader wishes to ascertain if he actually learned anything from me, he must apply to Oriel, of which College Lambrick is now a Fellow.

In between touring seasons I passed two more hot weathers in Karachi, enjoying the flesh-pots very much. We lost the Point-to- Point Cup to the Gunners in 1928, and after the race I was invited to Hyderabad to attend their celebrations of victory. It was my first guest-night in an army mess, and one that I look back on with unmixed pleasure. I made an excellent speech before draining the cup we had just lost of its champagne. After dinner we did not waste time with the rugger scrimmages and other pastimes usual on guestnights; but I clearly remember the arrival of three or four battery horses in the billiard-room and the re-enactment of our race round and round the room over improvised jumps. It was a very nice evening.

But even in Karachi life was not all carnal delights. Besides running my sub-division I was making serious efforts at advanced Sindhi, and succeeded in passing the Proficiency examination. Of the four languages I learned in India Sindhi was my first and best. But I was not destined, like my friends, to become a pukka Sindhi. I never served in the hot districts of Upper Sind, and indeed my sojourn in the Province was soon to end altogether. In Karachi I met the girl I wanted to marry. Fortune was on my side, and it is she who often comes into the room as I labour at these pages and boosts my flagging determination •with cups of tea. We wanted to go to Kashmir for our honeymoon in 1929, but could not. Leave was stopped that summer on account of a dangerously heavy and sudden inundation of the Indus, threatening floods, cholera and other evils. Instead of a houseboat at Srinagar we found ourselves passing our honeymoon in the uncomfortably vast Collector's house at Mirpur Khas, dealing with all sorts of alarms and excursions.

Much fruitless effort was expended, as usual, in trying to convince the population of the danger they ran of swift drowning if they stayed where they were. At such times Indian villagers are not only lethargic but pig-headed. 'I have told them to evacuate, a local official complained, 'but they get no motion. In the end, again as usual, it was the villagers who were right. The water subsided and the flap was over. Simultaneously, orders reached me that I was transferred to the Southern Division of the Bombay Presidency where, after a short interval at Dharwar, I was to 'act' as Collector of Ratnagiri.

My Sindhi days were over.

A Pinch of Salt

In April 1930 my wife and I motored over the great escarpment of Western India by way of Kolhapur and the Amba Ghat, and descended into the coastal belt. We were to spend a day or two as the guests of the Collector of Ratnagiri before I took over from him while he went on leave.

Ratnagiri is a long, narrow district that stretches for a hundred and fifty miles between the Indian Ocean and the jagged line of the Western Ghats forty miles to the East. Northwards it gets to within fifty miles of Bombay harbour, and to the south it marches with the (then) Portuguese territory of Goa. In addition to a multitude of physical beauties it possessed in those days the incomparable charm of having very little work. The district officers could if they so wished spend sunlit days bathing in limpid water from sandy, palm- fringed beaches, and when they came out could eat the world's most luscious mangos, picked straight from the tree.

For some reason malaria was inactive on this lotos-eating coast; so the inhabitants, mostly Marathas, were strong and healthy as well as being poor. As a result Ratnagiri was a tremendous source of recruits not only for the army but for the police and the Bombay mills. And the Arab-descended Mahomedans settled along a score of estuaries and water-fronts supplied many crews for ocean-going vessels. In fact the district lived on remittances received from beyond its borders.

Road communications were roundabout and difficult. But the Bombay Steam Navigation Company ran a service of passenger and cargo steamers that plied daily between Bombay and Goa and called on the way at several ports in 'my' district. They were a fleet of sister-ships (of which I remember the names Megawati, Kamlavati, and Lilavau) which had been minesweepers in the First World War. They were fast and good-looking, but used to roll nauseously in the perpetual offshore ground-swell.

It was a novel experience to go on tour by sea, and one that never lost its interest. The coast is bursting at the seams with history. It is studded with ancient forts that used to command the entrances to its creeks and estuaries, and most of its now diminutive and unknown towns were important emporia in past centuries, and still exhibit the buildings that once were Dutch or Portuguese or English factories. Perhaps the most exciting harbour is that of Vijaydurg (The Fort of Victory). I could never look at its ruins without awe.

The medieval towers and curtain-walls, which embraced the entire headland, had the look of some great castle in Wales. They had been here since Ratnagiri was ruled by the Mahomedan kings of Bijapur. And when Shivaji came into his new kingdom, at about the same time as Charles the Second was being restored to his old one, he strengthened them still more. For the 'Grand Rebel' had enough vision to appreciate the value of sea-power, as well as of his string of mountain strongholds along the summits of the Western Ghats.

His name still echoes down the coasdands, where his feats of arms, his wily stratagems, and his Robin Hood magnanimity are known to every child.

A century later Vijaydurg was the home port of some of the boldest pirates in history, the Angrias. For decades they held the Indian Ocean to ransom, and were not afraid to engage even the largest European warships. Many were the attempst, all abortive, to break the Angria power and to reduce Vijaydurg. In the end it called for no less glamorous a couple than Robert Clive and Admiral Watson to achieve the task. When Vijaydurg at last surrendered, among other stores and a vast booty were found the hulls of two new fifty- and sixty-gun men-of-war on the stocks. The year was 1756-the year before the same couple were to fight a possibly easier, if more important, battle at Plassey.

A short way to the north the town of Rajapur stands at the head of its creek. Rajapur is recorded as a government headquarters at least as far back as the early fourteenth century---possibly much further, for it has been suggested that Ptolemy's Turannosboas may be a translation of its Indian name of 'Kingstown'. There was an English factory here from 1649 to 1708, a hundred years before anyone dreamed that those unpretentious traders would one day be called by fate to occupy the peacock throne. . ..

The Rajapur factory had a disastrous history. It was closed down four times before the Company at last wrote it off as a hopeless proposition. The first time this happened was after it had been sacked by Shivaji, not without cause. For the previous year the merchants had backed the wrong horse. Shivaji was shut up in Panhala fort near Kolhapur, besieged by the army of Bijapur. The English, thinking it wise to side with the Establishment, especially as Shivaji's position seemed hopeless, lent artillery to the besiegers. Not only that, but four of the factors themselves went to Panhala to see the fun and when there actually lent an active hand.

It was bad luck for them that Shivaji, as so often, came off best out of his desperate plight. Having won his battle, he was not a bit pleased with the English of Rajapur; and the four factors were very fortunate to have been held for ransom. Company headquarters at Surat were not amused either, at being obliged to get these misguided sportsmen out of their scrape. 'How you came in prison,' they wrote, 'you know very well. 'Twas not for defending the Company's goods. 'Twas for going to the siege of Panhala.. . .'

But I did not have to go up and down the district to find historical interest. There was plenty to be had at Ratnagiri itself. Here, in modern times, Thibaw, the last King of Burma, lived for the greater part of his life. This weak and misguided creature of palace intrigue was brought here at the age of 27 in 1885, after the Third Burmese War, if war it can be called.

Together with his queen Supayalat ('Soup-plate' to the troops) of bloody memory and four daughters he lived in Ratnagiri for over thirty years, first in two hired houses and later in a palace, which the British bethought them to build for him after an interval of many years. He maintained royal state until the end, receiving obeisance from his visitors, who had to retreat from his presence backwards, and agreeing to buy anything that was offered to him. An American missionary, who had lived many years in Ratnagiri told me that finally a motor-car, vintage but derelict, was dragged up the hill to the palace gates by bullocks and sold to the king. After that a picket was posted to save him from farther offerings; but by that time most of the two-storeyed houses in the town had already been built from profits arising out of Thibaw's royal obligations.

It is recorded that in 1914 the daughters were in the habit of bombarding the Commissioner of the Southern Division with letters asking him to find husbands for them. The Commissioner seems to have been reluctant or unsuccessful, for in the end one of them was content to elope with her father's secretary. The ladies and gentlemen of the station were playing tennis one evening at the club, when the game was interrupted by a diminutive Burman walking on to the court. Riding on his back was one of the royal princesses. He apologised politely for the odd intrusion, explained to the political agent that he was eloping with the princess, whose feet had given out, and asked for sanctuary in his house before the King of Kings could catch them. The request was granted.

Thibaw, to his credit be it recorded, seems to have been a pacifist in his latter days. He disapproved of the First World War, and soon after it had broken out sent telegrams both to the Kaiser and to King George the Fifth. In them, with all the authority of the Lord of the World, he gave instructions that it should be stopped. . . .

After his death in 1916, the palace was allotted to the Collector of Ratnagiri as his official home. Here accordingly my wife and I sojourned in our turn, our furniture forlorn in a single corner of the marble-floored upstairs throne-room. As a house to live in, although most beautifully sited on a hill behind the harbour, it was massively inconvenient. It was also inhabited by a Burman ghost, who was in the habit of pressing a grinning face, complete with knife between the teeth, against inoffensive ladies' mosquito-nets in the small hours.

The people of Ratnagiri would talk of Thibaw's time as of some golden age, not without reason. When I asked Mr Chiplunkar (of whom more later) for his impressions of Supayalat, he said: 'Sir, she was a very nice lady.'

\'Nice? Don't you know she put all her husband's relations in a trench, and made elephants walk up and down on top of them?'

He shook his head patiently at the carping objection.

'But she used to feed Brahmins on our holy days.'

Space and time forbid me to mention more dtan three of the many memories of Ratnagiri that I carry with me. First, Mr Chiplunkar; and second the ineffable peace of this gentle land. Here the centuries stood still for me to view; tall palms sighed in the sunshine as they had done for Shivaji's soldiers; the ocean rumbled endlessly on the rocks and hissed on the empty sands, the ocean that had borne Ptolemy, the Angrias, and a million peaceful traders.

The third recollection---of which I shall write first---concerns the rude but short interruption of that peace by Mr Gandhi's Salt Campaign.

Early in 1930, with that touch of the theatre which he used to sell his ideas, Gandhi decreed that the Salt Act should be disobeyed as a means towards achieving political independence. Men and women, he said, should make home-made salt from sea-water: and he himself led a famous march to the seaside to be the first to do it. In places which had real salt-works, salt was to be brought out non- violently but without paying duty, and carried away in defiance of the law. Such a place, I discovered to my annoyance, existed in my own territory. . . .

There were big salt-works at a remote village called Shiroda between Vengurla, our most southerly port, and Goa. And in due course they became the scene of one of those demonstrations of Civil Disobedience, which are often said to have forced the British to withdraw from power in India. The facile impressionism that nowadays passes in many quarters for historical comment makes it axiomatic that 'Gandhi's technique of non-violent resistance drove the British from India'.

One day I suppose there will be made a full and objective study of the causes of Britain's retreat from power, first in India then in other places around the globe. Whatever those causes may prove to be, when they have been separated and authenticated, I am certain they will not include the 'technique of non-violence'. They may not even include Gandhi.

In the first place 'non-violent resistance' as often as not was not non-violent. Destruction of property, arson and murder frequently developed at an early stage. Secondly, whether non-violent or violent, it was contained without great difficulty and did not last long.

In the last twenty years of British rule there were only two more or less country-wide campaigns. There was the campaign in the hot- weather months of 1930. The unlawful parts of this had virtually ceased by the autumn. And there was Gandhi's 'open rebellion' of 1942, which (except in parts of Bihar) was brought under control in about a fortnight. For the rest of the time the C.D.O. movement, even when not officially suspended, was sporadic in time and local in distribution. Up and down the country it was an occasional nuisance of a kind that caused the authorities less anxiety than an epidemic or a threatened famine, and much less than a communal riot.

The historian must seek elsewhere-perhaps even in other conti- nents-and probe far deeper, to identify the real reasons for Britain's unparalleled demission of authority.

He may, I believe, find it arguable that Gandhi's policies from 1917 onwards retarded rather than brought about Indian independence. It is sometimes forgotten that the British intention after that date was, explicitly, the achievement by India of full dominion status, a concept that included independence and the right to secede. Gandhi's campaigns of non-co-operation succeeded in partially defeating the working of the Constitution of 1919.⁶ They delayed the working of the Simon Commission and the consideration of its Report. They hampered and protracted the proceedings of the Round Table Conferences. And as a result of all this they delayed until 1935 the eventual enactment of the new Government of India Act. Even when it became law, they further hindered the implementation of its federal clauses-this last in combination with the Princes.

The historian may conclude that, had it not been for Gandhi and the Congress and their activities, the new Constitution could have been in full operation years before the Second World War. India would have achieved independence long before 1947-and could still be undivided to this day.

The mainspring of the thinking of the Congress seems to me to be epitomised in a single phrase of Gandhi's in Young India in

January, 193°* They [i.e. the British],' he wrote, \'only respect those who are prepared to pay an adequate price for their own liberty.' In other words: no fight, no freedom. Some may say that was a glimpse of the obvious. But would they be right? Could it not, more realistically, have been a disastrous misreading of the situation?

There was an arrogance in the attitude of the Congress not only towards the British but towards their own countrymen, an untenable claim to speak for all India with their single voice-for Liberals, for Untouchables, for Muslims-regardless of the other parties' explicit rebuttal of that claim, which finally destroyed half of what they were setting out to achieve. In the end, the price they made India 'pay for its liberty' was not only 'adequate', but grossly excessive.

It may be asked how it was, if the Congress agitations were as ineffective as I have said, that they succeeded so well in obstructing the official plans for the country's advancement. It is a question which many of us have asked ourselves. The answer in my opinion is that the British Government and the Viceroy paid more attention than they need have, or should have, to trying to placate the Congress leaders. By making them seem even more important than they were, they actually made them more important than they had been and than they otherwise could possibly have been.

The same sequence happened later in dealings with the Muslim League, and later still with various 'nationalist movements' in Africa. We seem to have lost the ability, or the will, to discern between good and evil, and to be determined to listen only to the loudest noise.

In 1930, aged 26, in common with the great majority in the Service, I was not at all opposed to the idea of Indian independence. I even thought it was intrinsically desirable. (It was not till many years later, when the gaping voids in S. E. Asia, Palestine, the Sudan, the Congo and elsewhere left by hasty withdrawals of colonial power were at once filled with hatred, bloodshed, corruption and chaos, that I lost faith in political emancipation as an element relevant to human happiness.) But, while accepting its certainty and desirability, it seemed obvious that those major aspects of the scene were being adequately attended to by Secretaries of State, Viceroys, and squads of Privy Councillors and politicians of both races.

That being so, I could see no good reason for people to go around breaking the law-especially in my district.

I did not mind amateurs going to the seaside and making a few handfuls of horrible salt as a demonstration. That was on a par with making speeches, and I unsportingly refused to oblige anyone by arresting him. But when we heard that more ambitious law-breakers had raided the Shiroda salt-works and got away with some hundredweights of the stuff, the Police Superintendent and I thought we would have to try and stop them. But we still did not want to make arrests.

One Saturday night in the middle of May I got word from the Bombay Police that the southbound steamer, the Kamlavati, was crammed with satyagrahis. They were on their way to Vengurla, from where they would go by bus to Shiroda to reinforce our own local demonstrators. An invasion of this sort by outsiders seemed to me a breach of the rules, and I set off in the dark by road to Vengurla in a state of indignation. An all-night drive got me to Vengurla in time to be rowed out to meet the incoming steamer early on Sunday morning. I went up the side of the ship under the uncomprehending eyes of the passengers, and along to the bridge. There I instructed the Captan Sahib not to land any passengers, and handed him an order to that effect written out in longhand on an odd piece of paper to show to his superiors. Possibly because he was of a different faith from his customers, political as well as religious, he agreed with every sign of delight and I departed quickly, supposing my mission to be accomplished.

Before the satyagrahis properly understood what was happening, they were pointed out to sea again en route for the next port of call, Goa. Here they tried again to land, hoping to reach the salt-works from the opposite direction. But the Portuguese authorities were unsympathetic. Deploying a squad of African troops, they cruelly said they would shoot at anyone who tried to come ashore. The Captan Sahib perforce turned round with his ship's complement still intact, and must have begun to wonder if his journey had been really necessary.

His first stop on his return journey was, of course, Vengurla. I ought to have thought of that before. . . .

By the time tile passengers arrived there, for the second time that day, frustration, combined with the virtuosity of the Kamlavit's corkscrew gait, had rendered them extremely anxious to disembark. When therefore they once again saw but a single rowing-boat approach the ship's side, and that boat once again containing only me and an orderly, there was an understandable lapse from the best standards of non-violence. However, we managed to get aboard, deliver the expected message to the grinning captain, and-in the end-to get off again, the orderly through a port-hole low down in the bowels of the ship.

A score of yards away from the side, I remembered that I had forgotten something else! The Kamlavati was due to call at three other ports in my district on her way back to Bombay. And I certainly did not want a couple of hundred irritated volunteers from Bombay sculling about loose, where I could not keep an eye on them. I raised my voice and yelled 'Captan. Sahib!\'

When I saw that I was heard, I bade him, rather in the manner of one instructing a taxi-driver, to go 'straight to Bombay.'

'Siddha Mumbaiko jao !\'

Groans and curses arose from the people lining the ship's side, and above them I heard the captain gaily sing out \'O.K., sir.'

'Accha, sahib,' he called back-and acted accordingly.

Having thus non-violently repelled the visiting team, I was free to go ashore and continue the match with my home side.

I drove through Vengurla's shady street by way of the waterfront, passing the ancient Portuguese and Dutch factories. (Vengurla in the seventeenth century had been a port of call for all ships going to and from Batavia and the Far East.) I passed open-fronted shops selling food-grains, cloth, kerosene and brassware, and the Victorian Gothic market. I forded the neck of the creek by the Irish bridge and turned along the sandy track that led to the saltworks.

A crowd of townsfolk parted politely to let me pass. They had come out to see the fun, and were glad I had arrived: something might happen at last. Next, after driving through the straggling street of Shiroda, I came up with three or four hundred satyagrahu

-local variety, and so less rude than the sea-borne Bombayites. Clad in their uniform of white home-spun and Gandhi-caps, they sat by the roadside looking perplexed. A few spat on the road when I passed, with meaningful deliberation; and others tried, with negative results, to make me react to those innocuous cries of Bands, Mataram! (Hail, Motherland!) and Mahatma Gandhiki jail which at that time somehow seemed so daring.

Finally I reached a posse of police, carrying staves, drawn up in front of the perimeter fence of the salt-works. The sub-inspector, an ex-N.C.O. of the Marathas, came up and saluted.

'Good afternoon, Fauzdar Sahib. What's going on?'

'Sir, these Gandhi-wallahs have come to take salt.'

'Have they tried to take any?'

'No sir, not yet.'

'Why not?'

'Sir, they are waiting for you.'

I turned back towards these courteous law-breakers, and identified their leader as a lawyer friend from Ratnagiri, Mr Joshi. In tones of suitable gravity I told him I was sorry to see that he, an officer of the Court, had brought out a party of demonstrators to break the law. I asked him what they meant to do.

'Your honour, we have decided to enter salt-works and remove salt from go-down.'

'That would be theft.'

He smiled triumphantly. 'No, sir. Salt is property of the merchants, and they give us permission to take.'

Fifteen-love to Joshi.

'It can't be moved unless the duty is first paid. Do you intend to pay the duty?'

'No, sir.'

'Then that would be an offence against the Salt Act.' Fifteen-all.

We must simply break that law, sir. We have no other go. Mahatma Gandhi has ordered it.'

'The police will stop you.'

'V es, of course. They must arrest us and take us to prison. We will not resist, sir; we wish to be imprisoned.'

'They need not arrest you. This is an unlawful assembly, and they can disperse you by force.'

That was the nub of the matter. It was the Congress plan to embarrass officialdom by getting hundreds of people arrested. There would be no room for them in the jails; and as soon as temporary jails had been set up, hundreds of fresh candidates for incarceration would present themselves.

'Then we must suffer, sir,' said Mr Joshi, with a look of holy martyrdom.

We each returned to our lines.

Soon Mr Joshi's troops were seen to be advancing up the road in dramatic procession. When they reached the line of police, they all sat down and a stalemate developed. It lasted several hours. The sub-inspector and I resolutely declined to arrest anyone, and I equally resolutely turned down his requests for leave to bang them about a bit as they sat on the ground. Nor did I sympathise with his regret at the lack of a machine-gun to spray on to them.

Towards sunset the police ate their rations, while everyone else, including me, looked on enviously. Another hour, and we reached an honourable compromise. We would arrest fifteen men of our choice, and the remainder would go away quietly. . . .

But, stange to say, after the police had gone back to their transport and returned with fifteen pairs of handcuffs, there was no one to arrest.

It is one thing to take part in a mass surrender and to watch authority scratch its head in perplexity at the size of its catch. But it is quite another to be picked out for a night in the cells, while one's friends all go home. The salt-marchers had melted away into the gloaming. And only Mr Joshi remained, angry and disconsolate.

'Sir, I regret too much that these people are not keeping to our bargain.'

'Please don't apologise.'

'You must at all events arrest me, sir.'

'Naturally.'

I made a constable sit next to him in the back seat of my car, and he looked very proud and contemptuous when we overtook the scattered groups of his volunteers, walking guiltily homewards.

When we reached the rest-house, where I was staying, I stopped the car.

'Do you mind if I leave you here, Mr Joshi? The constable will, er . .

'Not one bit do I mind, sir. Go in, go in! I will walk to the prison with our good friend. Good night, sir.'

He had a rueful look as he got down on to the road.

'Why don't you go home, too?' I asked.

'But how to go? I am prisoner of His Majesty and must stay in some authorised place of detention.'

'Well, what can we do? You're a lawyer; you tell me.'

'H'mm . . . Your honour could, if so minded, release me on bail.'

'Good. I am so minded, Mr Joshi. You're released on bail!'

I signed to the constable to strike the putative fetters from his wrists.

'But, sir, there must be bail-bond, and perhaps sureties.'

'Can't the constable be surety?'

'Oh no, sir, that would be rather very irregular. . . . Perhaps, if your honour is so minded, I could be released on a personal recognisance to appear in court whenever summoned.'

The constable's expression seemed to be carved in wood; but there was a glint in his eye when he asked: 'Shall I let the prisoner go, sir?'

He saluted with the panache of a guardsman, when I said yes, and disappeared into the night.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

A similar story of mutual accommodation in this odd game had been experienced in other and more important centres, at any rate where respected Congress leaders had been in charge. At the Dharasana salt-works in Gujarat Mrs Sarojini Naidu was in command. The papers reported that 'Mr T. Robinson walked up to Mrs Naidu and told her she could not proceed further along that road'.

Mrs Naidu: 'We will stay here but not go back.'

Mr Robinson: 'We are going to stay too-and offer satyagraha ourselves as long as you stay!'

Mrs Naidu had a chair brought, and wrote a letter to her daughter to describe 'the amusing incidents' ...

(I shall have much more to write about Sarojini Naidu later. She was an old friend of my wife's family; and the daughter to whom she wrote the amusing incidents was later Governor of West Bengal. My wife still corresponds with her.)

Unfortunately the same good humour did not prevail elsewhere. During April and May 1930 outbreaks of rioting, arson, robbery and murder occurred in Calcutta, Karachi, Madras, Sholapur, Chittagong, Dacca and other places. Contrary to the doctrines of its inventor, non-violence followed in actuality its usual pattern.

The Congress actions in 1930 were not popular with the bulk of the general public. Generally speaking public opinion disapproved of attempts, however unsuccessful, to break down the rule of law. A letter in The Times of India on the 22nd May from Mr G. T. Bapat of Poona was typical: 'The mischievous, short-sighted and ruinous movement started by Mr Gandhi more than a month ago is now experiencing the pangs of death.' A week earlier Mrs Annie Besant, a champion of Indian emancipation if ever there was one, had said in an interview that Mr Gandhi's campaign had led Indians astray, and undermined the respect for law and order necessary for any civilised country.

So far as I personally was concerned, however, the 1930 movement was now over. Ratnagiri and its long chain of harbours, creeks, and townlets of laterite ashlar, relapsed into its sleepy and far from pathetic contentment. The monsoon was at hand, and my wife and I settled down in about one per cent of Thibaw's palace to enjoy a few weeks of quiet. She was expecting a baby; and communications being what they were, we would soon have to make the journey over the Western Ghats to the mission hosptial at Miraj, so as to be in good time for the event. Meanwhile Ratnagiri was congenial for both of us. It was the hot season, but we were well placed to get the best of the sea breezes. In the evenings we could look out over the harbour and watch the daily steamers, first from Bombay and later from Goa, creep round the headlands, their port-holes and cabins shining in the dusk, and anchor for their customary hour or two before going on their ways. The fishing-boats moored in the\ estuary lit up their riding-lights. To complete the scene, the lighthouse on the headland opposite began to flash its ciphered message out to sea. ...

It was at this time that I met Mr Chiplunkar and under him resumed my study of the Marathi language, which I had so inattentively begun five years before, at Oxford.

Mr Chiplunkar

Mr Chiplunkar! As I write the name I see a red palm-edged lane curving away from the water-front, a house of laterite masonry with tiled roof and deep eaves, a shiny-hard forecourt stencilled with auspicious patterns in white and ochre powders, a pot of basil on a stone jardiniere. A child of five in a white skirt and no top scampers out, pig-tails flying, and halts stock-still to greet her grandfather and to exclaim: \'Mother has made pairas?

A minute gold jewel ornaments one baby nostril, and the wide grey eyes of the Chitpavan are alight with the joy of being the bearer of such good tidings. (Pairas are a delicious sweetmeat.)

'It is my grand-daughter, Prefnila. You see, she can only think of worldly things and of cooking. And that is good, for she is a woman.'

Mr Chiplunkar and I have just returned from an instructional walk. It was our evening routine, complementary to that of the morning. In the morning he would have come to my room in the kacheri, the government office building, to give me a lesson before my work began and before his own first class at the High School. He would enter with the traditional greeting, the grave punctilio of which veiled but thinly the austere mien of the tutor. Yesterday's exercise was swiftly dropped on my desk from the height of a couple of inches. If I had been an ordinary sort of Untouchable, it would without intended discourtesy have drifted down to the floor; for Mr Chiplunkar was religious.

Seated at a safe distance, he at once proceeded to outline the mistakes I had made, eyeing me the while through his steel spectacles with puzzled reproof. For this purpose he spoke Marathi very loudly; for he believed the theory that a new tongue is intelligible to the stranger in direct proportion to the number of decibels applied to its enunciation.

Writing three hundred and fifty years earlier Father Stevens, S. J., described the language I was learning as follows: 'Like the jasmine among blossoms, the musk among perfumes, the Zodiac among the stars, is Marathi among languages.'

I myself never felt I could go quite all the way with Father Stevens. But then, unlike him, I never got good enough at it to write a full-length poem in Marathi on the subject of 'The Harrowing of Hell'. Long practice with Greek and Latin, however, had given me a knack for doing compositions and unseens in Aryan languages. And it was undoubtedly on the strength of that that in the end I satisfied the examiners. As for the oral part, it was lucky for me that one of the examiners was a fellow Scot. As Mr Chiplunkar said, 'sahibs always understand other sahibs'.

Apart from difficulties of intonation, Indian languages have a double set of consonants to bamboozle the Westerner: two t's, two l's, two n's, two d's, plus an aspirated and unaspirated form of each, not to mention the embroidery of guttural and non-guttural variants of the k's and g's. The resulting differentiations in sound are hard for the European to detect; while for the Indian they are basic. As a result, while the syntax and vocabulary of my speech grew quickly to a respectable stature, its effect to begin with on the hearer ranged the gamut from non-comprehension to mirth, from mirth to embarrassment, from embarrassment to a courteous feigning of deafness.

However, by perseverance and by unconsciously copying those around me I became able, as I had been in Sind, to visit villages, inspect their land records, hear or read applications, write instructions, and carry out a score of other tasks all in the local language. This, I must quickly add, was nothing laudable or unusual; it was common form for all members of the Service. Until we could do that, we were regarded as pretty well useless.

At about ten o'clock my office would begin to show signs of awakening life. It was then time for Mr Chiplunkar to take his departure. 'We will take a walk at five,' he would announce. Then, taking my agreement for granted, he got up to go.

Gravely inclining his head over conjoined palms and fingers he would add: 'I am coming now.' It was a remark which surprised

me until he explained that this was the polite Marathi for 'I am going now'. ^&^

When I left my office in the afternoon, he would be waiting for me at the gate, sitting motionless on a chair placed for him by one of my people. His dhoti, which in the morning had reached down below his calves, was now girded up almost to knee level in preparation for the rigours of outdoor exercise. The formal shouldercloth, which earlier had passed round his neck and fallen stole-like to the waist, had been discarded. So had his socks, sock-suspenders and patent-leather shoes. The last were replaced by a pair of stout chappals, attached by thongs to the pale gold of his big toes. The turban, a tightly-wound affair of purple and gold, was his second best. A strong walking-stick was propped at his side.

When he saw me, he stood up and waited, his face alight with the anticipated pleasures of our expedition.

'Today we will climb to the Fort,' he would announce, or 'today we will visit the harbour', or 'today I have something special to show you'.

We set off briskly, conversing at first in Marathi but later, when both of us had grown weary of my education, in English. When we met strangers, he politely averted his eyes while passing. If they were Untouchable, he gave them a wide berth; and I noticed that the other party would co-operate scrupulously in avoiding his pollution. I asked him if the uncleanness was only ceremonial, or something real. He confided that, when one of them was too close, still more in the same room, he felt physically sick.. . .

'Even if the man himself is quite clean?'

'Yes, of course-even if he were clean. They must always be untouchable (ctsprishya)\', we cannot be near them.'

'But, when they are clean, why do you even forbid them to take water from the well? They are not near you then. And you do not refuse it to the Mahomedans.'

'Mahomedans are not Untouchables.'

I replied with the old argument, which has never got anyone anywhere. 'They aren't even Hindus, so a fortiori they must surely be more untouchable still.'

'Sir, that is not possible. And besides-we cannot prevent them.

'Would you object to me taking water from your well?'

But he was not going to be caught by that one.

'Why would a European draw water? They have water-carriers to do that work.'

When Mr Chiplunkar and I passed the Mahomedan quarter, he would take me round it by a detour. It was not that he disliked or feared Mahomedans; they had lived here for generations in quiet harmony with the Hindu majority. In those days the poison of communal hatred had not overflowed from the big cities into the countryside. He had quite different reasons for our detours. Things happened here to cows, which it hurt him even to think of. . . .

Who knows what mortifying sights and smells might be inflicted on us, if we risked passing by the main road? Even if it were nothing worse, we might see a cow being driven along the red lanes to her fate, and hear her lows of dissatisfaction at the impiety.

In contrast to that, the fact that he was in company with a confirmed beef-eater seemed to trouble him not at all.

'We think it a great sin. But for you-you have been made to do these things from childhood. A man cannot bear the burden of the sins of others.'

'It is part of the karma of the Mahomedans and me?' I asked disingenuously. 'Are we fated to eat beef in this life, because we have sinned in our former lives?'

Mr Chiplunkar shook his head briefly but violently, like a spaniel getting water out of his ears, and the steel spectacles danced perilously on his nose. I saw that he was amused. Clearly I was not qualified to have a karma at all. . . .

A favourite walk was up to the Fort which, topped by the lighthouse, crowned the promontory and commanded the bay. It was a steep path furnished, like an Italian salita, with rough stone steps to take it round its hairpin bends and up its sharpest gradients. But it was pleasantly shaded with mango trees that made the air swooningly sweet in the hot month of May; and at the top was a seat. There we sat to cool ourselves after our climb and to talk, soothed by the vista of the harbour and sands far below and by the swish of the sea.

We chatted at ease, and I learned many things besides Marathi.

Gradually and in small instalments I obtained a picture of life in a small Indian town or village. Multiply that by half a million and you get life in India; you can forget the cities and the newspapers and the television scripts about steel works. Homes, families, dealings with caste-fellows and others, the jolly calendar of festivals, the daily rituals, ritual washing, ritual eating, ritual goings-out and coming-in, ritual worship of public and private gods, ritual relationship with wives and children and kinsfolk, the utter integration of life and religion-about all these things Mr Chiplunkar delighted to instruct me.

His opinions on everyday affairs were available with equal freedom and delight; and if he could make them surprise or shock me, he was more delighted still.

A murderer was hanged in the prison, and that evening I asked him about capital punishment, and expected a dissertation about ahimsa, the sacredness of all life.

'Sir, it is done by a Mahar. He is Untouchable, so . . .' Mr Chiplunkar shrugged his shoulders. 'They give him five rupees to do it. That is good pay for him.'

That shocked me, and I got my own back by asking:

'And if it were done by a Brahmin?'

Registering horror to a gratifying extent, he assured me that a Brahmin would rather be executed himself.

Marital fidelity in a husband, he told me, was not expected and it was of no account whether it were given or withheld. It was a simple question of what a man wanted and could afford. But in a wife frailty was a deadly sin. She would infallibly be a widow in her next life, and very likely for seven successive lives. It followed that widows were fair game.

'But is it not a sin for them too, to be impure?'

'No, sir. Not a sin. A punishment.'

'So they suffer no harm from it?'

'How can they? What they do after becoming widows does not affect their future lives. It is simply and solely their punishment. I tell you.'

'And suppose they enjoy their punishment?

'Why, of course they, enjoy my good sir. Everyone is enjoying!'

I decided to stop asking silly questions. . . .

We talked of V. D. Savarkar, one of the old band of terrorists of Maharashtra which had been active in the first ten years of the century and had included some notorious murders among their exploits. Savarkar was serving out a life sentence on parole in Ratna- giri. He called on me at intervals to report himself all present and correct. I recollect him as a small, exceedingly well-dressed and polished little gentleman, who had no use for the Congress and its methods. Not that he wished any more to improve on them-he was faithfully keeping to the terms of his freedom.

I tested Mr Chiplunkar with the dilemma of Gandhi's methods versus Savarkar's. At first he had no ready answer. Like everyone else, he believed in the cause of Independence; but he doubted if it could or should be quickly brought about. His views about the question of British rule coincided with Pericles's reported remarks about the Athenian Empire: aSurov pev taws KaraXafleiv, afiieaOai 8' emKivSwov.⁷ Those words indeed have a solemn relevance throughout the world today, with the rider that the 'danger' mentioned is now seen to pertain to the ex-colonial territories, not the ex-colonial powers. . . .

Mr Chiplunkar again succeeded in surprising me by at last coming down on the side of the terrorists, the aspect that chiefly worried him being the commission of murders by Brahmins. If they were done by members of the warrior castes, I assumed it would have been all right. I asked him how, if he could accept murder as a method, he cavilled at civil disobedience.

'Do you not understand, sir?' he answered. 'To break the laws is a serious thing no doubt; but to destroy them is more serious still.'

We discussed the topic of official corruption, and I was naive enough to avow it was the curse of the administration.

'But, sir, it is part of the administration.'

'Then the administration must be changed.'

He laughed gently. 'How can it be changed? Our officers and police and headmen are not rich people. They must live also.'

'It is unfair to the poor, who can't afford to pay bribes.'

But good officers only take what is customary. And from a man who is truly poor they may take nothing-only perhaps some work. Or a little fruit in the season.'

'Well, if I catch anyone, he'll be for it!'

He laughed again, still more gently, at my boyish indignation.

That is what all sahibs say. But I do not think you will catch many. And when the English go away, you will see that everyone will take bribes again as much as they used to---even the ministers and top men in Congress also. And nobody will greatly care to stop them.'

It was a prophecy that has turned out correct in all of its parts.

Stimulating and informative as his conversation was, there was one department of knowledge in which even Mr Chiplunkar was a dead loss. Anything to do with natural history was a closed book to him.

'What's that, Mr Chiplunkar?' I would ask, pointing to a flash of gold and green jewellery swooping from tree to tree.

'Sir, it is a bird.'

'I saw that; but what is it called?'

'God alone knows. Who else?'

'And that?'-pointing to a strange fish in a pond.

'It is a fish.'

'But what kind, of fish?'

'Sir, it is a simple fish.'

But, if he were not much help on natural phenomena, he was at home with the supernatural; for in his spare time he was an astrologer of widely acknowledged skill. He cast my horoscope for me and assiduously kept himself up to date with its 'progressed' versions. So he was always able on request to give me the inside picture on my current problems. Like those of most followers of the art, his predictions were rarely blatantly wrong and rarely usefully right.

In exchange for the information he so gladly imparted Mr Chiplunkar for his part exhibited a curiosity about the West and Western habits, which was both insatiable and oddly distributed.

Why did Europeans wear ties? Was it true there were no sweepers in the West, to clean the bathrooms? (Euphemism for emptying and washing the commodes.) If so, how did people manage? Was it

really true that there were underground trains? He could not understand that. Yes-he had seen trains, in Bombay (reached of course by the Lilavati) and also in Kolhapur. But---an underground train! Even my sworn testimony could hardly carry conviction. What! Under the water too ? Under the River Thames? 'No, no, sir. Now you are making jokes.'

What clothes did the King wear, when not in military or naval uniform? How were clothes washed in London? In public washing places {dhobi ghats\'), as in Bombay? If so, was not that rather too very cold in winter? If not, how was it done by the women? . . . Did the nobles in the House of Lords collect the taxes for the Government from their peasants? No? So they kept the taxes for themselves? . . .

When the sun began to go down, we heard the mournful note of a ship's siren and realised that we were late. Round the foot of the headland appeared the Bombay steamer, and the sandy foreshore at once resembled the entrance to an ant-hill. Bundles on heads, and dhotis or saris girt up to the crutch, passengers waded out laughing to the lighters which would take them out to the ship and return filled to the gunwales with a fresh load of arrivals.

It was the signal for us to take our way downhill in the fading light. I walked back with him to his house, perchance to be greeted there by a little girl with flying pigtails. And we would part company until next morning's lesson.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

Before going on to finish my memories of Ratnagiri, I think I should pause a moment to mention another distinguished killer, who stayed with us a short time to enjoy the shady seclusion of our prison. Ratnagiri had all the properties of the nicest sort of place of exile; if, like Thibaw and Savarkar, Ovid had been sent here instead of to the Black Sea, he would have had less to grouse about.

Our latest recruit was the Pir Pagaro, the Pir of the Turban, from Upper Sind. 'Pir' means 'saint'; but this particular saint had a history of crime and sin that would have made Rasputin seem a real one by comparison. His trouble of course was that he was more than a saint. He was God.

The sect of Hurs, numbering half a million or more, who believed in him were not guilty of the presumption of the Romans, who arrogated to themselves the ability to make their emperors into

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gods. The Hurs just believed that he was very God incamate-not one of a hundred like Claudius, but the one God than whom there was no other, and of whom Mahomed was the prophet. And when men believe things like that, there is often a lot of crime and bloodshed.

Early in the year the Sukkur police had succeeded in raiding his

fortified village and in capturing him and a good deal of evidence including an unfortunate catamite shut up in a box.

As is the way with the big gangsters, however, witnesses to the long tale of charges of murder, extortion, robbery, imprisonment and sexual crime brought against him were not forthcoming at his trial-at which, incidentally, he was defended by Mr M. A. Jinnah. But it was impossible to gainsay the tangible evidence of the box, and of the Pir's hoard of illegal weapons. He was sentenced to eight years' jail-and sent to Ratnagiri.

There I met a fattish youth-he was only twenty-two-in spotless and voluminous Sindhi] dress, with a pock-marked face and a rosary. I am not certain to this day why he was not in jail uniform like ordinary convicts. His demeanour was cold, but calm and dignified, and it was not easy to credit him with the lifetime of wrongdoing he had crammed into the last nine years. He was not pleased at being spoken to in Sindhi, and obviously wanted to end the interview quickly. He had no complaints or requests, which was not surprising.

In fact our little prison with its shady courtyards, a few homely red-tiled barracks-the Pir had a large apartment to himself-and its cosy discipline, was not quite secure enough. It was noticed that sundry visitors in the same kind of clothes appeared in the town too often, and soon afterwards someone in Sind might get killed. Ratnagiri was too easy to reach by sea from Sind, and the Government was wise to move its prisoner. But the choice of an alternative prison, the Alipore jail in Calcutta, was not at all wise. For there the Pir met fellow-prisoners who were Bengali terrorists, and learned more sophisticated methods of crime. The outcome does not belong to this book. Enough to say that it included a widespread and violent rising in Sind during the Second World War, the appointment of a Special Commissioner, the diversion of troops to restore order, martial law, and the eventual trial and execution of the Pir himself.

But in 1930 all that was still on the knees of the gods. The Pir Pagaro to us was but an ill-omened bird of passage, whose arrival had been unheralded and whose departure went unnoticed.

The rains came, copious as usual, the sea grew boisterous, the daily steamers were laid up for three months, rice was planted in the

wet fields and in every pocket in the denuded laterite rock of the higher ground. My wife and I would watch the rain squalls race over the ocean towards us, and would hasten for shelter to the vastness of King Thibaw's palace and wait for the storm to strike against the matting with which the fronts of our houses were protected. Soon the time came for us to make our wet and muddy pilgrimage over the mountains, and to leave her with the kind American doctors at Miraj to await her baby.

In the autumn, when calm weather had been invoked with coconuts at the full moon of the month of Shravan and the monsoon sea was abating and the rice had grown tall in the fields, I brought my wife and a baby son home from Miraj. On the way we spent a night at the minute rest-house at Amba on the crest of the Ghats. The pass was in cloud and it was cold. To feel a chill mist condense on the face, to find visibility reduced to five feet, simply to shiver-these things must seem a strange form of pleasure to the uninitiated. To us they were so delightful that I remember them to this day. And apart from the immediate delight they reminded us of the furlough we were to spend in England in the coming spring and summer. It would be four-and-a-half years since I had gone abroad, and I felt comparatively adult. I had certainly had grown-up work to do, and had acquired a wife and family.

It was with happy thoughts and expectations that we set out on the hairpin bends that would bring us swiftly down the 4,500 feet to the steamy Konkan, to Ratnagiri, and once more-mission successfully accomplished-to King Thibaw's palace. . . .

Soon after this I was relieved of my duties as Collector when the permanent incumbent came back from his six months' leave. I stayed on at my own request as Assistant Collector and at once went out on tour, while my wife and son went to Karachi for the remaining months before we were due to sail.

If there was little office work for the Collector of Ratnagiri, there was still less for his assistants, and that pleased me well. I have never been fond of work for its own sake, and still less have I felt inclined, as many men did, to brag about the long hours they spent at their desks. That to me is a sign of inefficiency rather titan a virtue.

Since I had little to do in my camps, I found I could spend long

A SPECIAL INDIA hours every day walking to distant villages that had rarely been visited before. There was no other means of getting about; horses are no good in that country, and the car only took me a mile or two on my way.

A three hours' walk over the back of a promontory or round the head of a creek would bring me, hot and thirsty, to yet another quiet hamlet on the water. There would be sudden, welcome shade after the long trek in the sun-for the uplands of this coast, once heavily afforested and producing great quantities of teak, became hopelessly denuded in the 1830's through the stupidity of certain British officers, who threw them open without restriction for exploitation.

A row of pensioners with medals and certificates of good service to display would be waiting along with the village headman and the village accountant. In spite of its sleepiness the people of this district were more sophisticated than was common in India. They had seen the world, the world of military cantonments at home and military expeditions abroad-to Mesopotamia, to Afghanistan, to East Africa, even to France, the world of the ocean highways, the world of industry and trade unions. When greeting had been exchanged, a boy would be sent up a palmtree to throw down a few nuts; and soon a couple of shrewd diagonal blows with a chopper would yield up for me, fresh and cool, the most delectable drink on earth.

Slowly and discursively we would examine the village records together and talk of village matters: a well, a school, a dredging of a minuscule water-front, a visit from the vaccinator-the diehards still had religious objections to being 'pricked with the goddess' -and could there not be a road to the next village? There was another matter too---a dispute of hoary antiquity about the usufruct of a jack-fruit tree. ...

It was while staying at Malwan, a taluka headquarters, that we heard a faint echo of the civil disobedience movement. An order had been received that no demonstrations were to be allowed in honour of the Sholapur murderers (already martyrs) who had just been condemned. One evening, when I was walking along a road in the little town with my orderly Samandar Khan, we heard approaching a procession that was being taken out in defiance of the

ban. The two of us hid behind a wall in the gloaming. When the head of the procession drew near, shouting the slogans proper for such an occasion, we leaped out from our hiding-place, and with waving arms and eldritch shrieks came jumping down towards them. I regret to say that the procession scattered in all directions and was seen no more! I have always felt a bit ashamed of this effort. That is not the right way to disperse an unlawful gathering; it was taking an unfair advantage. I almost wish they had stood their ground. What a fool I would have looked! I feel ashamed for them, too. . . .

I spent Christmas on the sands at Guhagar, a place long renowned for its coolth and beauty. Had not the last Peshwa, Baji Rao, built himself a summer resort there as far back as 1812? Its ruins were still visible in 1930.

Soon it was time to go back to Ratnagiri to get ready for departure, and to say good-bye to the friends I had made. There was the usual round of pan-supari parties. These affairs, charming and fragrant though they are, are formal rather than relaxed. They are the diametrical opposite of those Bohemian revels in Chelsea studios of which I read with such respect and envy.

The host and principal guest sit behind a table draped with an ornamental cloth at one end of the room, with the other guests ranged round the walls. The programme of events, often a written one, includes garlanding, the distribution of bouquets or nosegays, the anointing of the back of the right hand with sandalwood essence, songs of welcome and farewell, and (of course) speeches. The air is made aromatic with burning joss-sticks, and early in the proceedings the pan-supari is handed round. Each guest receives some chopped betel-nut (supari) garnished with paste, cardamon seeds or other spice, the whole wrapped up in a green leaf (pan), and pinned together with a clove. The entire bonne bouche, if you play the game, is thrust into a recess of the mouth and chewed, like a bovine cud, to destruction. Liquid refreshment is either absent, or restricted to bottles of coloured mineral waters provided exclusively for the chief guest and rarely opened.

The party that I remember with particular clarity was the one given by Mr Chiplunkar. The hard forecourt of his house had been roofed over with lengths of white cheesecloth spread between the

stars and the guests. My old friend and mentor greeted me by the roadside. He looked very small in the glare of a dozen pressurelamps hissing from the tops of posts, but the spare frame was upright as ever, and the glance as piercing.

Amid my protestations at the lavishness of his hospitality-luckily I already knew how I could neutralise it-he led me into the mandap to meet the company, and took me to my chair. Inside the scene was gay with banana leaves ranged up the tent-poles and criss-cross strings of coloured lights. Sitting next to me I found Mr Joshi.

He had returned to normal after his law-breaking adventure at Shiroda, and was looking magnificent. Ready to take me under his wing, he rose to shake hands, his rig of voluminous homespun making him resemble a galleon under full canvas. There are two ways of wearing Indian nationalist costume: the modest unobtrusive way of one in love with the age-old life of the villager, the way of Gandhi and Mr Shastri; and the flamboyant, challenging way. In this, the coat becomes a chiton, the dhoti a purple-fringed toga, the shoulder-cloth an archbishop's cope; and the whole effect is of one about to make a bid to take you over. This was the way Mr Joshi preferred.

He laughed as we sat down together and asked if I had had any salt troubles lately. 'We patriots suffered much for our cause,' he added turning to his other neighbour. 'Why, our guest here arrested me himself. But enough of that. . .

As if reluctant to spoil the occasion with tales of atrocities, he changed the subject and began to question me politely about my health, whether I had enjoyed my tour, how I meant to spend my leave-fox-hunting perhaps? Or shooting duck?-and where I was to be posted on my return. . .?

A round of well-bred applause circled the room as I sat down. In an atmosphere now laden with the scents of rosewater, sandalwood, and incense my fellow-guests turned to each other with subdued cries of astonishment at the quality of my speech. For, puffed up with pride at my linguistic skill and fortified with the knowledge that I had the whole thing written out in case of accidents, I had been speaking in Marathi.

I ended with two words expressive of my enjoyment: Anand

watati. My host's sharp hiss of pain, as if he had bitten on a tender tooth, was drowned to ears other than mine by the clapping of hands. . Anand watate' he whispered. 'You still do not know the difference between palatal and dental t?'

I begged pardon in English and renewed the old, old promise that I would try to do better in future. The reproof the piercing grey eyes gave way to commiseration.

We chatted disconsolately while the other guests departed; and I took the opportunity to ask for my horoscope to be brought up to date for the last time. At the same time, with bated breath, I handed him an envelope with an unspoken question. To my relief he accepted it happily.

'Yes, yes I see; it is my fee. That is correct: we must always have fees, isn't it? And I will post you the readings soon.'

At last I could linger no more. It was time to go. Like an icy dagger the thought pierced me that I might never see him again in this life. And my merits were unlikely to bring me within reach of him in the next. . ..

Each of us in turn bowed to each, over palms pressed together.

I said in Marathi:

'Well, I am going now.'

Mr Chiplunkar wagged his head in slow despair.

'You must not say "I am going", sir. It is not polite. You must say: "Z am coming".'

Criminal Tribes

Our leave in 1931 was penurious but happy. My mother was living in North Oxford, and we made her house our headquarters. Ten pounds judiciously invested at the Morris Garages equipped us with an open Buick which even then was fully mature and by now would rank as vintage. It had, mysteriously, just been re-upholstered, and its only defect other than age was a leaky radiator. But it was a slow leak, and a couple of spare cans of water clamped to the runningboard rendered a search for its whereabouts unnecessary. With only one failure, and that a rewardingly dramatic one, it carried us gallantly around southern England for the whole summer, and made our friends think we had come into money. The Chrystals of Meon- stoke, whom I have mentioned already, were particularly impressed. Himself a quasi-millionaire and the owner of two very costly saloon cars plus one or two lesser vehicles, he felt there was something amiss when he learned that our dignified tourer had cost less than a set of his own tyres.

Some time before the end of our holiday it became apparent that our son was soon going to have a brother or sister. We determined to take an English nanny back to India. And in due course at the end of the autumn our party of four reached Nasik, where I had been posted as Assistant Collector. It will surprise no one accustomed to life in India to hear that we arrived to find (a) there was no house for us, and (6) that our furniture and household effects had been submerged in the sea on the way north from Ratnagiri. At some undisclosed point in her voyage the dhow that brought it had sunk at her moorings. After she had been raised, it was naturally nobody's business to try and dry out the cargo. . . . We spent many grimly resigned hours scraping mildew and marine deposits from our way- wardly-bent teakwood furniture. It was never quite the same. And the mattresses were too far gone even for us to use again.

In the midst of such laughable misfortunes our good spirits remained unimpaired. They did, however, receive a set-back a little later, when it was announced that our pay was to be cut by io per cent. It was the time of the Recession; and, presumably as a gesture to the business world (for its cash effect would make or break no government), it was decided that all the Services must have their pay docked. It seemed, and still seems, unfair. For the theory was that the permanence and safety of our emoluments was the consideration we received for their comparatively lowly scale. My pay at that time without die cut was about £6oamonth before deductions, not a great deal for a couple with a baby, shortly to have two, and a nanny.

However, we survived. We found a bungalow, which by a coincidence turned out to be one that my parents had once rented and in which I had myself spent some months as a small infant. My wife's mother joined us, and I myself set out on tour.

A local disaster occurred about then, which proved in the end a blessing to my family.

A freak shower caused a mass of water to build up in a torrentbed at a place called Lasalgaon. It destroyed the bridge that carried the main G.I.P. railway line, and went on to overwhelm the village, destroying houses and causing loss of life. I went off there at once to deal with relief measures, anti-cholera precautions and the like. Walking along the railway to the gap where the bridge had been, I noticed two Europeans and wondered what they were up to. Unknown Europeans on one's territory often aroused curiosity bordering on suspicion. I walked up to them briskly and said:

'I am die Assistant Collector, Nasik. Who are you?'

'I am the Chief Engineer, G.I.P. Railway.'

'Oh.'

I could hardly object to his being there. .. .

Later the Chief Engineer, who in due course became Chief Commissioner for Railways, and his assistant and I were entertained to supper by some charming Seventh Day Adventists, who had a mission-house near by.

It was an agricultural mission, intended among other things to instruct middle-class Indians in the dignity and beauty of manual

labour. Next day I was invited to see them at work, and observed that instruction was given by means of example. Under a grilling sun the American missionary was ploughing an enormous field behind a yoke of bullocks, while his pupils sat under a tree smoking and chatting about something that had little to do either with ploughing or with manual labour.

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From Lasalgaon I had to go back to Nasik to report to the Collector and to arrange for certain supplies. It was lucky for us I did so; for that night our daughter decided to be born, a fortnight too early. And if I had not been on the spot, the ten-mile journey to the military hospital at Deolali might never have been accomplished. As it was, it was a hair-raising drive. My poor wife, already in labour, was in the back with her mother, while I drove along the pot-holed road in a frenzy of anxiety. Next to me sat the same orderly, Saman- dar Khan, who had twice visited the steamer with me at Vengurla in 1930. He held a watch and was timing the events in the back seat. . . .

Praise be, all turned out well in the end; but it was 'a damn close- run thing . As Samandar Khan and I drove slowly back in the dawn, the air over the Deccan plateau was cold and clear. The rising sun was in exact opposition to a full, setting moon. It was a scene I will always remember. How thankful I was that I not only still had a wife, but a small daughter too!

My wife s mother, who stayed with us during her convalescence and later went with us to Dharwar---she had been in Ratnagiri too, where she had sprinkled holy water throughout Thibaw's palace with secret incantations-was a tremendous character.

She was friends with most of the leading figures in the India of those days. She knew Gandhi well, and used to stay at his ashram, where he gave her a special dispensation to smoke. They remained close friends while she was in India, and continued to correspond after she returned to England for good in 1938. Like many old ladies she was constantly writing letters of good advice-in her case reinforced with astrological readings-not only to her family, but to Prime Ministers, Primates, Presidents, and Gandhi. Many years later I asked him if he had heard from my mother-in-law lately.

'Oh yes!' he exclaimed with his wide toothless chuckle, 'yes indeed! She's a terrible letter-writer.'

Her circle of friends included the Ali brothers, C. P. Ramaswamy Iyer, Mrs Besant, Jinnah, the Begum of Bhopal, and scores of others. She was a specially close and affectionate friend of Sarojini Naidu.

In most cases her friendship was fostered by her skill as an astrologer. It is an art which has an instant appeal to the Indian, however highly placed, and she excelled in it. She was in a position to disparage the ability even of the top-ranking pandits of Benares, let alone such run-of-the-mill practitioners as my Mr Chiplunkar. Her predictions were often uncannily true. I myself, unwilling to concede that astrology can be such an exact science, think it may have been a vehicle which she unconsciously used to express her own psychic intuitions. That she possessed these, in common with other seers and diviners, is suggested by a story she used to tell about herself. Once, in London, she went out of curiosity to a consultation

with Cheiro, the palmist. His clients were unknown to him, and used to insert their hands through a curtain for him to read. When my mother-in-law did this, Cheiro at once said: 'Why do you come to me, sister? You are one of us.'

At the risk of running ahead of my chronology, I quote here from two documents which have an interesting bearing not only on her gift, but on current events and personalities. The first is a letter to her from Sarojini Naidu, now on my desk, dated the 2nd March 1934.

Dear Old Thing,

I have been wanting for weeks to answer your letter and to thank you for remembering my birthday, but I have been overwhelmed with work. Besides, I have been ill. This is not to be taken as a proper letter, only a hasty note to ask you to help a soul in distress. You know : I

enclose his date and time of birth. He needs a steadying hand at present. So will you use the great gift that God has given you on his behalf?

M. A. J[innah] was very pleased to get your letter of welcome. I do hope he will justify all that you prophesy for him in the near future.

My Little Man⁸ is working out his destiny in his own way, but I wish it were also in our way. I am going down to Hyderabad to meet him next week. C. P. R [amaswamy Iyer] was here this week with the royalties of Travancore.

Dr Ambedkar is just coming to see me. So all the world must give way before the Harijan. Just now you must be pushed into Limbo! Give my love to your children and grandchildren and send me a line soon. You know that I am always your affectionate friend

S. N.

The second exhibit is a press cutting, a news item from the Hindu (Madras) headed 'A PREDICTION RECALLED' and date- lined 'From our correspondent. New Delhi, July 12th 1947-' It was

sent to me next day by Mr Kanji Dwarkadas, a Bombay friend and business-man. It reads:

That Mr Jinnah will rule a State of his own seems to have been predicted by an Irish lady (about two decades ago). The incident is recalled of a dinner in Bombay at which were present Mr Jinnah, Mrs Sarojini Naidu and the above-mentioned Irish lady and others. The Irish lady looking at Mr Jinnah is said to have remarked:

'This man may look down and out now. But he will one day rule over his own State.'

The Irish lady also made some prediction about the late Mrs Jinnah which also, I am told, has come true.

The prediction last mentioned related to the circumstances of Mrs Jinnah's death.

One assumes that Mrs Harker's prediction about Jinnah's ruling a State of his own was not the prediction Sarojini had in mind in her letter of March 1934. Even at that date, when the thing seemed not only impossible but inconceivable, she could not have 'hoped' that he would 'justify' that particular prophecy. More probably she hoped that through Jinnah a rapprochement might be achieved between Muslim League and Congress. At one period Jinnah was in love with Sarojini. When he declared his passion on his knees, she told him to get up and not be such a fool-a charming tableau on the stage of history.

It was about that time that I met Shaukat Ali. The Ali brothers had never forgiven Gandhi and the Congress for walking out on their joint anti-government campaign in 1921. And Shaukat, wearing a large grey astrakhan fez and in high spirits, felt no inhibitions about expressing himself on the subject of Hindus in general. He told the luncheon party that he liked Hindu ladies very much, but as for the men ...! He waved his butter-knife in the air, and looked fierce. Whether the gesture related to the slaughter of the infidels or their conversion, I never knew. He was in a very jolly mood.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

Early in 1932 I found myself temporarily diverted from the main

stream of administration into one of those side channels which made our lives in India so full of pleasing variety. For eight months I was put in charge of the Criminal Tribes Settlement Department, with headquarters at Dharwar, a district on the Mysore border. When two years later, I took over the Department on a permanent footing, I found its tasks had meanwhile been swollen by the addition of a general mandate for the progress of Backward Classes of all types. We had become the champions at administrative level of the Depressed Classes (i.e the Untouchables) in their struggle to escape from the toils of their hereditary degradations. And, later still, I had to carry out a formal investigation into the needs of our aboriginal and hill tribes.

There was no intrinsic connection between these fields of endeavour, or between them and the job of promoting children's courts, approved schools, and a probation service, which also fell to my lot. The connection that linked all these beneficent tasks resided in the personality of my predecessor, O. H. B. Starte.

At the end of his service Starte was awarded a C.B.E. It was the least honour that could decently be given to him. But if merit were measured by lasting achievement and by the reality of a man's contribution to the happiness of others, he ought to have got one of the knighthoods or G.C.I.E.'s bestowed as a matter of routine on governors and members of council.

A century after Western India was taken over by the British, organised, endemic and chronic crime was still a feature of the countryside. Most of us know something of the Thugs, and many have heard of the Pindaris. What is less commonly realised is that, even after these major menaces had been broken, India remained infested with tribes and groups, often nomadic, who by heredity and tradition were criminals. Robbers, cheats, murderers, highwaymen, coiners, sneak-thieves, confidence-men, each tribe according to its guild and its craft.

It became obvious in time that these people needed help rather than punishment. It was easy to see they were a menace to the public, but less easy to condemn them. If a whole generation of infants is brought up in the assumption that counterfeiting coin, or housebreaking, is its proper and only way of life, what follows is inevitable. And

it was not only a question of one generation, but of countless generations going back to time immemorial. The Thugs for example (in other ways not an exact parallel, for they were a secret society drawn from all castes and religions, not a tribe) were historically recorded in the thirteenth century; and they themselves claimed a far greater antiquity still.

The machinery deployed in this century to cope with the situation was that of the Criminal Tribes Act. The first step was the notification of a particular tribe as coming within the scope of the Act. As an example, six important tribes in Bombay Presidency were: Kai- kadis, Haranshikaris (= 'deer-hunters', this being their main sideline to gang housebreakings), Ghantichors, Mang-Garudis, Kanjar Bhats, Chapparbands. Each posed a different problem, and incidentally each had its own special interest and charm. The last- named, who were Mahomedan coiners, responded most quickly to new opportunities. The last but one were reputed to be ethnically allied to the Gypsies of Europe. Readers of George Borrow, especially of his Romano Lavo-Lil, can see without further research the high proportion of Indian words in the Gypsies' vocabulary; but no one knows when or by what routes this diaspora came about. The Kaikadis were well-drilled and dangerous robbers, ready to kill if necessary. The Mang-Garudis in contrast, though once keen cattle-rustlers, tended to degenerate into recidivist sneak-thieves, the hardest people of all to cure.

When a tribe had been notified, the next step was to register the names of such adult males as possessed, or later achieved, a prescribed number of criminal convictions. The main effect of registration was to make the man liable to daily roll-call at his village, if he had a village. This enabled him to be kept under surveillance by the headman or local police, and for the most part no further restraints were needed. But in cases where men got caught out in further offences, or where a group had no settled home at all, a criminal tribes settlement' was the only answer.

It was here that, in our Presidency, Starte s life work lay.

A man of working-class origins, and neither ashamed nor proud of it, a Nonconformist, a non-smoker and non-drinker, it was commonly and rightly said of him that he was more like a missionary

than an Indian Civil Servant. But in spite of the frugal austerity of his life, he had a sense of humour and a down-to-earth pragmatism that made him very agreeable. And in spite of being such a good Christian-or could it be because of it?-he was able to understand and make allowances for the frailties of ordinary men like the Haran- shikaris and me.

He devoted his whole service to the care and redemption of the backward and the criminal, especially the criminal tribes. And the measure of his success can be gauged not only by statistics but by the existence of a dozen or so free colonies, where the children and great-grandchildren of one-time hereditary criminals live and support themselves by honest work in local industry or in their own businesses. The methods by which this result was achieved can only be briefly sketched here, but their main features were these:

First, the settler was obliged to work for his living; reciprocally the department was obliged to find work for him to do. For this purpose Starte and his team of equally devoted settlement-managers slowly built up good relations with mill-owners, factory managers, railway officers, forest officers, and other employers up and down the country, in whose neighbourhood settlements were established. Secondly, the settler was required to support his family and to send his children to school. He was given a large plot in the settlement and helped with materials to build his house; and there he and his neighbours, who were also his caste-fellows, lived their lives in conditions as far as possible similar to those in a village. Tribal affairs were dealt with by caste panchas (= committeemen), and were not interfered with provided they did not conflict with good order.

Registered settlers were required to attend roll-call morning and night, and at night to remain inside the settlement, some of which had perimeter fences. By day they went to the town to work and were free to go about as they liked; but plain-clothes guards kept watch on the liquor-shops, and on the bazaars-to see that settlers only went there to buy things.

Besides industrial settlements, there were agricultural and forestworking setdements; anything that might help a man to a stable and normal way of life was tried.

After a period of good behaviour a man's attendance at roll-call

CRIMINAL TRIBES would be excused, and he could move out of the settlement proper to an adjacent free colony'. Eventually the last step was taken: his registration under the Criminal Tribes Act was cancelled, and he was a free man. He would probably elect to continue in the free colony -to which indeed many men who had never been registered at all resorted of their own volition---which finally became a suburb of the neighbouring town.

When I took over, the population in settlements and free colonies were 8,000 and 5,500 respectively. The corresponding figures for my last year in India (1946) were 4,500 and 9,500, and illustrate the steady if slow accomplishment of our purpose.

It is easy thus to outline in a few words the basic theme of settlement work, but the reader must not think the work itself was easy. There were many backslidings year by year, many horrid crimes committed by settlers and absconders, instances even of connivance by the subordinate staff of the department. The alteration of a tribe's mode of life, still more the re-orientation of its thinking, is a slow- motion affair of setbacks and sad disappointments. In 1924 Starte wrote:

Nothing is so essential in a settlement as the preservation of the spirit of optimism. We have to make the settlers believe in themselves, and that they are able to take their place in the ranks of honourable citizens. For generations it has been assumed by their fellow-men, and by themselves, that they must be capable only of committing offences and incapable of honest toil. This tradition is slowly being broken down.... Failures we have. Nevertheless, to look back and compare their condition in former days and their present conditions is the best tonic for any occasional feeling of despondency.

It was in this spirit that he had already battled for more than twenty years by the time I met him, when his system was visibly prevailing.

It is a measure of Starte's success that he was able to sow the seeds of his own faith and enthusiasm in the minds of his subordinates. As a charming example I quote from the report of a junior assistantmanager:

We the staff members take part in the outdoor games with the settlers by which a steady fellowship is being developed and we try to understand each other on the playground better than anywhere else. One is pleased to note one of the staff running with a leg-guard if wanted by the settler batsman and helping him to tie up, or running with a glass of water if required by the settler batsman. Such things ordinary will never happen except on the playground.

I found the work fascinating; and when Starte later asked me if I would like to succeed him on his retirement, I agreed with enthusiasm. The 'crims' were generally very nice. They were always charmed to show off their skills. A V.I.P. visitor would smile in disbelief when warned that he would have his pocket pickedjwhile he stood there. The smile would change, when one man handed him back his note-case and another returned a silk handkerchief to his wife. In dealing with their requests one needed to be even more of a psychologist, or preferably a mind-reader, than in the usual line of service. When Hanmant Naik Ramoshi (naik. = gang-leader, in the army a corporal), once the leader of a notorious band of robbers, asked me for a pass to visit his village and attend to the lease of his fields, what did he really want to do? Dig up stolen property? Acquire some more? Pay off an old score? When I believed him, I did him much harm, as you will hear later. He slid all the way down the worst kind of snake, and had to start again at square one.

And when five Haranshikaris said they must go on a long journey to get their hunting-nets exorcised, since a nameless enemy had put a spell on them and they couldn't catch game any more, what was one to think? Naturally I did not disbelieve them; indeed I would have liked to know where to get my own gun exorcised, as it had been bewitched for years; but could I honestly take the risk? If the treatment of the hunting-nets were to coincide with two or three housebreakings in the same neighbourhood, I could picture very well the caustic pity of the local Police Superintendent as he discussed the matter with me.

In the course of my eight months I visited all of the dozen or so settlements up and down the province, dealing with little problems of this sort and meeting the settlers and the managers. A few of the

latter were departmental officials, but the majority were missionaries or social workers, Indian as well as English, American, and Australian, whose societies ran the settlements under government supervision and were financed by a system of capitation grants. In my spare time I tackled my fourth Indian language. I had achieved 'proficiency' in Sindhi, lower standard in Urdu-for both of which I had to learn to read and write their Arabic-type scripts-higher standard in Marathi with that most beautiful of scripts, and in my experience the only true phonetic one, Devanagari; and now I had to qualify in Kannada (Kanarese), which, to my mind quite tiresomely and superfluously, had a script of its own.

My tutor this time was a professional language-teacher, Mr S. R. Tiwari, and he too (like Mr Chiplunkar) managed to get me through. I last heard from him at Christmas 1966. He wrote:

Long 35 years ago we had met in Dharwar and now I feel so thankful to you when I saw your letter to my relative Tripathi (Sushil, masculine: Swshila, feminine), [Thank you, Mr Tiwari, for your grammatical tip written in the Devanagari. I knew that one already.] who had been in U.K. for training. I wonder if you can now read your own handwriting in Kanarese. I have many such chits. They are my companions and the writers I always pray God to keep them well. . . . [Mr Tiwari encloses a scrap of paper I wrote to him in 1932 about the time of a lesson.] The Xmas Time brings us together though far away. May God give you all the Best.

Letters like this make us feel both nostalgic and unworthy.

The mention of Christmas ought to be noticed by those who do not know India. Indians of all faiths love to share in the seasonal happiness of their Christian friends. And I believe that the myth itself, the story of divine motherhood and still more divine babyhood, strikes a specially responsive chord in the eastern heart.

I once got a Christmas card from a junior official whose feelings, though warm and friendly ex hypothesi, were studiously regulated. Inside it bore the printed caption 'With loving greetings from . . .' The word 'loving', I noticed with pleasure, had been neatly ruled through.

When Starte came back from leave, I reverted to the regular line and became Assistant Collector, and later Collector, of Dharwar. The week after Christmas I spent shooting with Nawabzada Niaz Ali Khan Abbasi, who was Collector of a neighbour district. I shall try to describe his camp in the next chapter.

The Evening and the Morning

The first day of our camp was ending.

It had been a success, and Nawabzada and I were feeling good. Now, as a wisp of the evening breeze touched us like a blessing and mist began to form over the noisy river at the foot of the bluff, we settled down to reap our reward-the reward of men who have spent the day wading through bog and creeping up and down hill in thick undergrowth to outwit the snipe and the wild duck.

Nawabzada twirled a grey moustache of military cut and cried aloud for service.

'Oh, Hussain!'

Since Hussain was waiting exactly eight feet distant, cross-legged on the floor of the tiny forest rest-house and tactically close to the sideboard, it did not take him long to respond. Within seconds he was at our side, decanter in one hand and ball-stoppered bottle of soda-water in the other.

'Bring my sweater.'

The unexpected order shook his poise briefly. Glancing sheepishly at the unsolicited and seemingly unwanted gifts he had brought, he turned away as one perplexed. Nawabzada emptied his glass.

'Hey, don't take that away.'

Hussain's poise returned, and he snapped back into his routine. He could now purse his lips in disapproval as he refilled his employer's glass. When it came to my turn, the disapproval mellowed to benignity; for I was both a guest and a non-Mahomedan.

At an early stage in our friendship Nawabzada had sensed my unspoken question, and admitted that he was a sad transgressor against the Law.

'But if Scotch whisky had been invented in the Prophet s time, I tell you, the rules would not have been so strict. Wiltshire bacon

too, . . . and Bradenham ham. . . .' His thoughts seemed to float away in succulent fantasy.

The tutti of stridulation in the forest grew into its evening crescendo. The light faded, fires began to show here and there in the village opposite, and the sustained chord of the finale boomed in our ears and went on booming, relentless and intolerable. Then, at the drop of a ghostly conductor's baton, it was cut off.

Silence, dead and merciful, supervened; and soon our ears could again pick up the chatter of the tumbling water and the dry whir of a woman late grinding her corn.

Nawabzada murmured in relief.

'Now that we can hear ourselves talk,' he said, 'you must listen to my arrangements for tomorrow, and tell me if you approve.'

Nawabzada had failed in the I.C.S. examination a score of years earlier and had attained his rank by promotion from the 'provincial' Service. So, although only a little above me on the list, he was my senior by twenty years in age and experience, and was also Collector of the district. Apart from those good reasons for 'approving' his arrangements, I knew that in matters of shikar, as in other things, I could rely on him without question. And had not our first day's outing proved it? Thirty-seven duck and thirteen-and-a-half couple of snipe might be small beer compared with the big shoots I had enjoyed in Sind, but here they meant a fine day's sport.

This border land between the great evergreen forests and the half-wooded hills above them, lavishly watered with streams and innumerable lakes among the fields of rice and millet, is the wrong place if you are looking for a big bag. There is too much water about, and it is too widely scattered in small pockets in every fold of the hills. You are lucky if you have time to reload before your quarry flies off, squawking at your rude interruption, and settles down to feed on another tank a mile away. Then you start all over again. It is hard slogging but good fun; and it is the best way to get to know one of the most beautiful countrysides in the world and its human inhabitants.

A three-quarter moon began to climb into our wine-dark planetarium, and the air grew cold. We were glad to hear a crackling of sticks as Hussain lit the fire indoors. It was time to leave the open

THE EVENING AND THE MORNING veranda and go to our tents to bathe and change. Pangs of hunger assailed me and my thoughts became revoltingly carnivorous. Nawab- zada thoughtfully made his cook appear to submit his menu, again for my approval'. Hare soup, a teal apiece with the right contorno, a few snipe as savoury. Yes? And 'for a drink', as Nawabzada put it, would I like a bottle of. . .?

It was at this high point that we heard voices and saw a hurricane lantern shining on the gravel path.

A messenger came in and saluted. Clothed in white tunic and red turban, he wore on a broad shoulder-sash the brass badge of his calling, the patta which gave him his title ofpattewallah. On his arm he sported a very large set of sergeant's stripes. He was no less a personage than the Collector's havildar.

He held out a folder with all the reverence of a priest proffering the hallowed elements of a mystical religion.

Nawabzada's manner of receiving was in sharp contrast. He held the folder away fronf him as if it smelled bad, and eyed with loathing the blue 'immediate' tab that was pinned to it. 'Where does it come from?' he asked, dangerously quiet. 'From the district? Or from Government?'

The havildar replied in hushed tones: 'From Government.'

Nawabzada took the folder by the corner. Then-rather as if he were playing ducks and drakes back-handed-he flipped it out into the night. . . .

The pattewallah's face, probably mine too, registered a dramatic sequence of changing emotions. Respectful attentiveness was frozen into shock. Shock grew to stupefaction; stupefaction to incredulous horror. Incredulous horror in turn yielded to a flash of unholy glee. Then it was all over; the aquiline, heavily-bearded face resumed once more its original respectful attentiveness, as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

'Bring it in the morning, if you can find it. Now go.

'Very good, sahib.'

The man repeated his smart salute and went out. India had trained her servants well.

Nawabzada turned to me, ablaze with righteous vexation.

'Nothing urgent can ever come from Government, I tell you, Jimmy. It simply is not possible. When they call a thing urgent, it can simply and solely mean that some Secretariat fellow thinks he must have an answer to something today, so that he can write another letter to some other fellow tomorrow! The urgent things can only happen Aere-here where the people live.'.

I bowed my head to show I realised that I was receiving training in my profession. My mentor sprang to his feet.

'That's enough shop,' he exclaimed. 'Come on! The bath water will be getting cold!'

If you happen to be one of the lucky people who are used to bathing in a tin tub under canvas and an Indian winter's sky, you will not need to read the next sentences. If not, I must ask you to picture a minute, chilly room, with a steep-pitched canvas ceiling and walls of a bright green-on-yellow design, the cloth of the tent's lining. Underfoot a woven floor-covering of a faded blue colour yields weirdly to the pressure of your weight; for a thick layer of straw has been laid between it and the earth beneath. The furniture is lavish. Next to the tub itself, which is half-full of steaming and often opaque water, there is a wooden grill to stand on, a stool to receive your towel, and a bucket of cold water with an enamel mug for dipper. Yorn: soap-dish is handy on the floor. On the floor too is the only source of light, a diminutive oil-lamp. There is an overpowering smell of new-mown hay-field with a sharp overtone of lamp smoke. In a few minutes this delicious ambience will be still further enriched by the perfume of your bath-soap. By then you will be lying on your back, head resting on one of the handles of the tin tub and knees cosily cuddled against your chest. You will be lapped around with warm, scented water, and sunk deep in contentment.

It is then, when the splashing of the waters has been stilled and the light of your flickering flame is dancing on the woven walls, that you will all at once find yourself part and parcel of your retinue, listening-in to the sounds of your camp. Your pony will blow and stamp; the august havildar, squatting with his hookah by the cook's reed shanty, will laugh rudely and make someone else laugh rudely with him-surely that couldn't be the sweeper, but it sounds like him! The buffalo, whose duty it is to provide milk for tomorrow morning's tea, will low suddenly and mournfully into your left ear.

On this particular night I heard a different sound, rare but not unknown, and cursed aloud to myself at this second interruption of our evening. I aere was a burble of voices, one of them strange, a word of command, the clunk of a rifle-butt being grounded, die jingle of a chain.

It was a prisoner.

His name was Shiva; caste, Lingayat; age, a blank look-well, say nineteen; father's name, village, occupation. The camp clerk, already waiting in my office tent when I emerged from the bath, went through the routine with practised speed. He passed over a letter from the police-station twenty miles away.

Sir, this boy has come for recording confession under Criminal Procedure Code. Section three hundred and two Indian Penal Code.'

Section 302 I.P.C. was murder.

I looked at Shiva. He did not look a murderer; just a tired lad, saddened and benumbed by the ineluctable working of Fate.

I caused his leg-irons and handcuffs to be removed, dismissed the police escort, and began on the prescribed schedule of questions. Had he made a statement to the police? Yes. Was it quite voluntary? Yes. Did he now wish to make a formal confession? Yes. Had the police made any threat or offered any inducement to him to do this? No. Did he know the consequences? Yes. Very well; he would be given a meal and would sleep in the camp.

And, if he still felt the same way about things tomorrow, I would record his confession.

As always, I felt a squirming guilt when asking those questions. That they are well-meant, indeed necessary, is obvious. But it takes little imagination to see that each answer serves in effect only to draw the noose tighter round some poor fellow's neck. Instead of carrying out the drill and feeling like a hangman, I wished I could have said: 'Don't be a fool, man. Confess nothing! You might get off scot free.'

The glory of the moonlight had lost most of its glamour as I walked back to the rest-house. And the hare soup and roast duck did not taste as good as they would have tasted if Shiva had not come to join our camp.

' Why did you kill him?'

Shiva glanced round the tent, and said nothing.

The particulars of the crime itself, which next morning he said he still wished to confess, were straightforward and well corroborated. He had gone secretly to Basappa's threshing-floor before sunup, and found his victim alone and asleep. He knew Basappa slept there; it was to guard his corn in the harvest season.

He began by dropping a heavy stone on the sleeping man's head. After that he got to work with his axe. . . .

When he was dead, he dragged the body across the field and into the jungle, to make it look as if a tiger had got him. And he embellished the corpse with cuts and tears to support this appearance. His own brother and his uncle had both been killed by tigers in the last year; so he knew what it looked like.

' Why did you kill him? What had Basappa done?'

He took on a vacant look and still said nothing.

'Why?' I repeated, and waited.

At last he felt he had to say something.

'It was a mistake,' he muttered.

At last! I felt the knot loosen a fraction.

'You mean you didn't intend to kill him? It was a sudden quarrel? Or perhaps an accident?'

'It was not an accident.'

'But it was a mistake. What was your mistake?' Silence. 'You'd better tell me. I'm only trying to help you.'

Almost inaudibly Shiva murmured some words in Kanarese that I thought I must have misheard. I turned to the clerk and asked, in English: 'Did he say he thought Basappa was a tiger? Dash it, he can hardly expect us to believe that!'

The clerk agreed that that was what he had said. But Shiva himself would neither repeat the words nor explain them. I asked if he wanted them to be written down. But he would not answer. He had shut up like a clam.

'Sir, I think he may be meaning that this Basappa was one veetch.' 'Basappa was one veetch? What on earth's that?'

'Sir, these ignorant fellows are still believing these veetchcraft things. They believe some of these bad veetches become like tigers,

THE EVENING AND THE MORNING and kill their enemies so. Your honour must not be forgetting,' he went on, 'that his two close relatives have been killed by tigers also, sir. Maybe he is believing that this Basappa was . . .'

'That Basappa was a were-tiger-and, and killed them? Well!\'

I had heard of were-wolves, of course, and even of leopard-men ---but, a were-tiger! (It was not until I got to know our forest people better, that I found that such beliefs were far from rare.) Shiva and Basappa belonged to a social stratum that ought to have been a cut above such ideas; but still, one never knew. There was no doubt the tiger theme entered the story somewhat obsessively. And the theory did at least provide a motive for the crime, which so far no one had been able to explain.

I noticed Shiva was watching with intense interest our exchanges in a language he did not understand. So I quickly asked him if he had thought Basappa became a tiger, and killed his brother and uncle.

The gleam of interest died out of his eyes. Once again he gazed steadfastly and silently at the floor.

I had scarcely expected him to say 'yes'. But why did he not say 'no'?

When he spoke, it was not to answer the question.

'Sahib, I killed Basappa. I have said it; I have nothing more to say. The government can take me away and hang me. Then my family will have no more troubles. There is nothing more.'

So in the end Shiva's confession was recorded according to his wishes, with no explanation to his motive. When it was done, and he had signed it with his thumb-mark, he seemed happier. Indeed, a portion of his sadness had been transferred to me.

I was sorry and still puzzled as I watched him being marched away again by his police escort. I had done that which it was my duty to do, and felt myself to be an unprofitable servant.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

Nawabzada, on the contrary, I found on the top of his form when I joined him at the bungalow.

'Finished, my dear fellow? Good, good. These confessions don't take so long as a rule. But I sent word to the beaters that we would be late. Now we can be off!. .. But first, you must see this, Jimmy. The havildar managed to find it this morning. It was nearly in the river, but not quite. Ha! Ha! They have seen the light at last. Miracles are happening, I tell you-miracles!'

I took the dew-wet, muddied sheet from him, and read aloud its glowing periods. More pompous if less illiterate than the prose writers of Whitehall, the secretariats of India delighted to wallow in Victorian turgidity.

[Subject: Volume of Official Correspondence,\ Measures to Reduce.]{.smallcaps}

'It has been brought to the notice of Government that the volume of official correspondence, which, on account of the growing scope and complexity of official activities, has shown an inevitable tendency to increase during recent years, has now attained such dimensions as to militate against the effective discharge by district officials of their touring duties.

Government adheres strongly to the view that the maintenence of day-to-day contacts between its officers and the population of the rural areas, in particular the cultivating classes, is now, as it has always been, of paramount importance

I stopped for breath.

'Do you want me to go on with this?'

'Yes, yes, I tell you; you must not stop. That is not the spirit that makes Empire-builders, my dear Jimmy.'

After a couple more paragraphs to rub in its point, the circular ended:

Government accordingly views with some considerable degree of disquiet the tendency referred to above, and desires that the departments concerned should take all reasonable steps that may be open to them, in order to counteract it.

All officers in the categories listed overleaf are therefore requested to favour Government as soon as may be practicable with their views on this subject, together with their suggestions in regard to the measures by which, without lowering the existing high standards of efficiency, the volume of official correspondence might be reduced.

All concerned are requested to treat this matter as one of the greatest urgency.

My eyes grew big with surmise. 'Don't they make it sound beautiful? And to think you threw it into the river!'

I turned the paper over to view 'the categories listed overleaf', and duly saw the entry 'Collectors of Districts.'

Hallo, Nawabzada, you're got to answer this; it's lucky your havildar found it again. You've got to favour Government with your suggestions as a matter of the greatest urgency. What suggestions will you make?'

'Me? Why, my goodness, man, you don't imagine I'm going to answer, do you? You ought to know my methods better by now, my dear fellow.'

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

When the week was over, I went back to my own district and finished our touring season. It is easy to write those words, but to express all they connote would need volumes-and indeed volumes have been written.

I lately came across a post-card written by my wife to her mother a quarter of a century ago. 'Back in camp,' it reads. 'It's the only life.' That says what most of us felt. But the life was not all fun and games. There were days of depression in barren spots with a dust storm swirling round you on a hot wind; days of despair, when you were held up by spates in the torrent-beds, muddy roads, or a sudden and unexplained lack of all forms of transport. There were other setbacks too, setbacks and frustrations caused by the stubborn ignorance of conservative peasantry and by the smooth obliquities of their exploiters.

The I.C.S. has been accused at many times of a large variety of sins of commission and omission. We are supposed by some to have been haughty, inflexible, severe, and pachydermatously unaware of popular feeling---in particular, the feelings of the middle classes. It is true that, broadly speaking, we were not fond of the middle classes, especially the shopkeepers, moneylenders, produce brokers, most of the pleaders (a grotesquely overgrown profession), many landlords, and the parasites who hung about the villages in the guise

of political workers. But this dislike was not the result of unawareness or lack of understanding-rather, the reverse. It was simply that we objected to their ruthless and unceasing exploitation of the poor and the ignorant, the smallholders, the landless labourers, the industrial workers.

Sardar Panikkar, one of India's ablest officials and most levelheaded of commentators, got near the truth when he wrote:

They [i.e. the I.C.S.] developed a common tradition, an esprit de corps, doctrines of political integrity and a general attitude towards India. India, as the country where their career began and ended and as the country they were 'serving', became their exclusive concern. True it was not the India of the Indians, but a special India^1^ of their own conception. To that India they developed a sense of loyalty. They visualised it as a country whose millions of inhabitants were entrusted to their care.

I. accept all that and am proud of it. But I do not therefore necessarily accept that the writer's 'India of the Indians' is a more real, still less a finer, idea than the 'special India of our own conception.' We do not know what exactly Panikkar had in mind; but, in fact, the India of the Indians among other things was an India where the poor were as a matter of course cheated and despised by the commercial classes, who were the mainstay, and the main element, of the Congress Party. Even Gandhi was by caste a bania, and even highly cultured and charming people like Sarojini Naidu were liable to be a little impatient of the woes of the Untouchable. When I asked her what free India would do for them, she only replied briefly that they would benefit like everyone else. And you may have noticed a certain asperity in her little joke about Dr Ambedkar when writing to Mrs Harker (see page 80): '... all the world must give way before the Harijan'.

That aspect of India certainly did not attract our sense of loyalty. The 'India of our own conception' was a more ideal state, in which the poor and the untouchable could, so far as we could achieve it, get fair play.

II. have taken these three words for the title.

When I come to describe my Inquiry about our aboriginal and hill tribes, I will quote chapter and verse for what I have said. Meanwhile, even in the settled parts of the country, instances of extortionate loans, foreclosures, levying of unpaid work, the incitement of litigation by pleaders, corrupt officials, and everywhere the eternal oppression of the Untouchables were rarely absent, and formed the constant background of our work and our life.

But having said that, and having made due allowance for the occasional mishaps and cross-accidents that befell a touring officer and his family, no one will admit---indeed, acclaim---more readily than I, that it was a good life.

Imagination takes me back to the old routine: the cup of smoky tea drunk in the dark, the jingle of bit and curb-chain as one's pony stamped and danced in the chill of dawn, the brisk start over the stubble. At the confines of each village one would be met and accompanied for a mile by the local landowners, headmen, village accountants and anyone else who wanted to come along. Outstripping these, one might stop at a threshing-floor, or at the straw hut of a watcher in the fields, and call out to the occupant while waiting for the others to come up.

Grumbling with surprise, a lean figure in loin-cloth and blanket would stumble out from his sleep, shivering and winding on his turban as he came and demanding the cause of the disturbance. Krishna! A white man! Amazement and non-comprehension supervened, until it dawned on him slowly that the strange sounds coming from the mounted apparition were a funny version of his own language. If he listened carefully, he could understand! Smiles and chuckles took the place of amazement. And wonders had not ceased --- the apparition could, it seemed, understand what h& said! It was an opportunity not to be missed.

Did the Government know their well had gone dry? And how to deepen it without a permit for gunpowder? Good, the sahib was writing that in a book. What was that? What were the crops like? Why, terrible. They were all ruined men. The moneylenders were making oppression. Not only that, but the sub-assistant surgeon was forcing people to be vaccinated-no wonder the cows were all going dry! And their women and children were being taken by

tigers; could he have a gun licence? Also, his nephew had passed his Vernacular School Final and was applying for a job in the police; would I arrange this? If not, the boy's parents would undoubtedly starve to death.. ..

When it was time to move on, a wide smile would grow on his face and a restraining hand would be laid on my bridle. Would I not rest and drink milk before I left? There was some milk in the hut.

In the evening there would be a walk through the fields, with a gun if there was a chance of partridge or quail for the pot, or along a canal-bank. Chance-met strangers were always glad to gossip, and one returned having added a little more to one's store of local knowledge. Perhaps the post would have arrived by then. If not, there was the remainder of last week's bundle of newspapers still unread, with news of distant, unreal things such as the latest political demarche by a Viceroy or the strange goings-on at the current Round Table Conference.

The Collector's house at Dharwar is a spacious and colonnaded relic of a grander age, and the place itself is pretty and healthy, with red roads and gardens full of tall trees. My wife and I spent some happy weeks there with the children, until the time came for us to move again. Once more I was relieved by a senior officer returning from furlough---a recurring theme in the early years of the service of most of us. This time, I learned, I was going to be posted to the Secretariat as a Deputy Secretary.

In the underdeveloped parts of the world secretariats resemble in one particular aspect the headquarters of a brigade or of some higher military echelon. That is to say, officers in the field commonly talk about them with contempt, and think about them with envy. However much you may enjoy district life, the Old Adam generally feels at least some small rush of pleasure at the prospect, when from time to time it comes your way, of modern houses comfortably furnished, civilised dinner parties, golf, bridge at the club, and the races.

When therefore, on one hot day in May, with the shooting season left far behind and the fields and roads befogged with reddish dust, the post-bag brought me a letter franked by the Chief Secretary, I felt a surge of interest. And when I opened it and found that in a few weeks we were to be translated into Secretariat-wallahs with a

flat in Bombay and summer quarters in Poona, we were unashamedly pleased.

My last weeks in the district were busy with a farewell tour. I was loaded with undeserved garlands and presented with much sugar- candy and innumerable lemons. I was the guest at more pan-supari parties. School-children sang songs in my praise, and very properly dissolved into giggles afterwards. The customary petition to Government, beseeching in the name of suffering humanity that my transfer be forthwith cancelled on account of the uncontrollable public grief it engendered, was courteously prepared and dutifully signed. It was then, I imagine, tactfully lost sight of. Such petitions, though frequently drafted, were not so often dispatched; and I never heard of one being granted.

My wife and I were delighted to find we would have time to pay our first visit to Mahabaleshwar before I joined my new post. Set 4,500 feet up on the top of the escarpment of the Western Ghats, it used to be the hot-weather retreat of the Bombay Government and of the principalities and powers of Western India. Here the Governor, Maharajahs, Nawabs, Residents and Political Agents had their summer residences, their clubs, their golf-course, their pologround, their racecourse. And from this remote hill-top they had ruled their respective territories for three months in every year, in a holiday atmosphere and without noticeable ill-effects on their subjects.

Now, as a result of the Depression, it had lost some of its status. Government visited it no more. But it remained as beautiful as ever. Sited on a promontory of the mountain range, it commanded views to north and south of deep valleys and rugged hill country plentifully furnished with ancient fortresses. To the west one could see over the foothills and get a clear view of the Indian Ocean fifty miles away.

There was one special mountain which I was resolved to climb, if I could. Commonly known as the Saddle-Back, its real name is Makrandgad and it consists of two opposing summits connected by a long ridge. The Gazetteer said: 'The S.E. hump is scaleable, but the N.W. very difficult to climb, if possible.

Hills and Cells

It was still half-light, when the tonga put us down at Shivaji's Point. We shivered while we waited for the driver to hand out our haversacks and walking-sticks.

My companion was H.H. Chanduji Sambhaji Chavan, ruler of the little state of Ninigarh in the political agency of the Collector of Aramnagar. I had met him when visiting a settlement I had there, and we had become friends. He was a devotee of all sorts of hearty activities, polo, pig-sticking, big and small game shooting, even such lowly things as golf and tennis. And when he had heard the evening before that I wanted to climb Makrandgad, he wanted to come too.

The foreground of the picture that now met us came to an abrupt end ten yards away, at the edge of the plateau. A stone seat and a low parapet-wall were visible in the growing light, but beyond them there remained a yawning abyss of darkness. Rising to mingle itself with the clink of the pony's bit and the uncouth squawks of a covey of parrots came from far below the chatter of waters swirling over boulders.

A human figure materialised from the background, and introduced itself as Kolya Mahar, one of the village-servants from the village at the bottom. He had come to be our guide. He bowed low before Chandu, and went through the stylised motions of one applying dust to the top of the head. His dress was formal for the occasion: that is to say he wore a cotton vest above a dhoti girt high between his legs and leather sandals. On his head was a loosely-tied grey turban, and in his hand he carried a spear. He was very dark, grey-haired at the temples, wiry and spindle-shanked; and he exuded all the cheerfulness of those who possess nothing in this world.

He told us that the police Inspector and a constable were five minutes ahead of us, also bound for Makrandgad. We asked the reason for such unwonted interest in climbing steep hills.

'It is Hanmant Naik. He is sheltering in the temple at the top. The Inspector is going to arrest him.'

Hanmant Naik!

I suddenly felt guilty. I thought of the stocky, bow-legged man who had appeared before me six months earlier and asked for leave of absence from the Criminal Tribes Settlement at Belgaum. He had, he said, an urgent and compelling need to attend to some incredibly intricate problem concerning the lease of his land at home. There were ramifications extending to the welfare of his brothers, children, nephews and nieces, the stability of his joint-Hindu family, and the survival of civilised life for the whole community. Weary with fruitless probing-for every question opened up a new and cogent field of persuasion that he had forgotten to mention before-I had given him a pass, which he was supposed to render up to the local constabulary on arrival at his village and thereafter present himself daily for inspection during the period of his stay.

He had next been heard of when he was arrested with others of his gang, of which he was the leader, in possession of a quantity of newly-robbed jewellery. He had got five years' Rigorous Imprisonment; and I felt myself to be not without blame.

'Hanmant Naik!' I exclaimed. 'I know him; he's one of mine. Why-he must have broken jail.'

Kolya caught the last word and nodded vehemently.

'Yes, he has run away from jail. We recognised his footprints yesterday when we were hunting, and ran and told the police. A tracker followed him to Makrandgad and saw him sleeping.'

'Let's get going. We can help the Inspector to catch him,' said Chandu, adding with relish: 'Isn't he supposed to be dangerous?'

The Mahar nonchalantly walked over the parapet-wall and disappeared from view. Chandu followed, and thenl. Stepping gingerly after them I found myself on a dizzy path that hurled itself down the face of the bluff in a series of minuscule traverses. In the gathering light I stood for a moment, propped on my stick, to take in die view. I could now see right down to the floor of the valley; it was filled with a patchwork of fields and down its centre rushed the shallow,

broken waters of the Koyna River. The vista was both closed and dominated by the twin peaks of Makrandgad, equal in height and separated by a long ridge. One of the older mountains of the world, this morning she carried her aeons of denudation well; she looked gay and juvenile in the early sunlight, the emerald of her nether slopes set off by the pale gold of cliff and scree.

I felt drawn to her by a passion of love.

The cool breeze urged me forward. My spirits soared. A day on the hills had begun.

Eight hundred feet down we stopped for a breather. We were on a wide grass shelf, and the path divided in front of us. One fork disappeared to the right and led, so Kolya told us, to the shrine of the tiger-god, Wagheshwar. Here, I had read, a canopy of rock sheltered an ancient stone engraved with a tiger rampant and much smeared with ghee and turmeric. Outside stood a dozen votive pillars of carved wood, erected in memory of men and women of the hills who had fallen victims to the god. I would have liked to visit it. But we had too long a day ahead of us; after only five minutes' rest we set off along the other path, and very soon met our first hazard.

This may be the time to explain that, in spite of its honourable mention in the Gazetteer, to climb Makrandgad is not a mountaineering adventure. Ropes, pitons and axes are not required and no snow ever settles on these hills. The expedition consists first of a descent of two thousand feet from the plateau to a side valley. You cross this, walking several miles through fields of hay and mountain millet and fording the river on your way. Next, you climb 1,800 feet to the southern summit of the mountain, descend from that, walk a mile along the saddle-back and, if you can, climb the northern peak.

Then you turn round and come home.

As you bask in your tub that evening you can reflect that you have had a glorious day, and that you have climbed 4,000 feet up, the same distance down, and covered about twenty miles on the relatively flat. There are only two awkward places. The more uncomfortable is where the path skirts the northern bastion. Here it is very steep, the surface is horridly loose, and you need a light tread and a little nerve. The other place is at the start of the walk. A thousand feet below Shivaji's Seat the hillside has collapsed and taken the path with it. The result is a diversion-via the branches of a tamarind tree, which help you to the next traverse thirty feet below.

Although this was said to be the less objectionable of the two places, there had been cases of travellers coming to grief at it. A prolonged crashing noise, accompanied by cries of fear and anger, all at once suggested that something of the sort was happening at that very moment.

Kolya held up his hand to keep us quiet while he listened. He had better ears than we, and soon a broad grin split his face.

'It is the Inspector Sahib! He has fallen out of the tree. ... He is a very fat man!' His eyes lit up with naughty glee. 'He is very angry!'

It was a disgusted and dishevelled police officer who introduced himself as Inspector Balakram.

'If I had gone round by the valley in a cart, this would not have happened. But when these fellows report that Hanmant Naik is absconding in my area, how to spare the time? I must be too much keen to run and catch him!'

'That's the spirit!' Chandu said. 'Get cracking and do the job!'

'Yes,' agreed Inspector Balakram with a slight abatement of enthusiasm, 'that is what my Superintendent said on phone: "Go yourself, Balakram," he said, "and make sure of it." But am I making sure, sir? Here I am simply falling out of trees and spoiling my uniform. Also, I am no longer slim; I do not like to walk too much. When I reach up with absconder, I may be too tired to get him. Maybe he will get me.'

'Cheer up, Inspector. We'll all go together. Then we can help you and the constable to make the arrest. Four of us ought to be enough.'

Late afternoon found us near our objective. The hours had passed for me in the old enchantment of days on the Westmorland Fells and the Cairngorms. We had weathered the worst hazard of the outward journey, the traverse of the scree. Inspector Balakram had been an anxiety here. When he saw where he had to go, he had averted his eyes and his portly frame had quivered. But he was not brave enough to turn back, or to accept Chandu's idea that he should wait for us to bring his prisoner down to him. His Superintendent he said, would be too damn angry.

Eventually, and not too gladly, I had gone back half-way to meet him, and steadied myself as well as I could with a tussock of grass. We had a nasty moment when he embraced me, and I hoped I would not be called on again on the return journey. But that lay in the future; tire present was occupied with thoughts of our impending encounter with Hanmant Naik, and of lunch.

'Hush!' said Inspector Balakram, when we were grouped just below the summit. He put his finger to his lips to enjoin silence.

'What's the point of that?' I asked. 'He must have been listening to us for the last hour. The only question is, who's going up first? If you like, I will. I know him.'

'Oh my, sir! That would be rather too very much irregular,' Inspector Balakram protested. 'Besides, it may be dangerous. Perhaps he has got gun, or a knife at the least. Oh no, sir, it is not for you to go!' He hesitated, then turned brusquely to tire constable.

'Go on, Jadhav, you go!'

P.C. Jadhav was neither put out nor surprised by the order. He climbed nimbly up the last ten feet of the path and peeped round the rock at the top. Then he wriggled out of sight. In a minute he was back, scrambling down to us with the good news that the robber chief was unarmed. Inspector Balakram squared his shoulders and produced a pair of handcuffs from his pocket.

'I will go first,' he announced.

The northern summit of Makrandgad is a grassy elliptical platform about thirty yards long, littered with stony detritus and with a natural parapet of jagged rocks. Centuries ago a few dozen of these had been shaped and carved into materials for a tiny temple to Kalsubai, the goddess of the mountain. To the east a panorama of broken hills, deep valley, midget fields and villages intervened between me and the main escarpment. On the other side the view fell swooningly to the very floor of the Konkan, the coastal strip four thousand feet below me. It was lost in haze; but, beyond, the Indian Ocean rose to the horizon under a burnished sky, blue, cool, and speckled with the sails of the fishing fleet. Far out of sight, to my left, lay my old home of Ratnagiri with its chain of sandy beaches and ancient forts now pensioned off and wrapped in warm sleep.

I breathed deep the scented ether that is found only at the tops of high hills, and made my homage to Earth and Sky. How right the people of India are, and how reverent, to make every mountain- top a shrine.

Not too pleased that we were being made to share this day with Inspector Balakram and Hanmant Naik, Chandu and I turned to see how they were getting on. The prisoner looked neither dangerous nor a robber. He was squatting on his haunches, handcuffed wrists uncouth before him, a dirty handkerchief on his head and round his shoulders the ruin of a black blanket which he must have gathered from some rubbish-heap on his long trek from Satara Prison. He looked resigned-resigned and hopelessly sad. He recognised me, and turned aside his head.

'He must be hungry,' I said to Chandu. 'Give him your lunch, and you share mine.' I suggested that, because the man would almost have starved rather than eat my food.

We got water from a spring, and sat down to eat, smoke and rest. I lay on my back and watched the gilt-edged cirrus scudding along a few miles up. Sleep, though desired, was kept at bay by the niggling thoughts of the return trip. How would we cope with that nasty traverse just below us, with not only fat Balakram but a handcuffed prisoner as well? And how would we all manage to climb that tamarind-tree in the dusk?

'We must take off his handcuffs,' Chandu said to the Inspector. 'He can't go a yard on these slopes with his hands tied.'

'But, sir, that would not be in accordance with regulations. Already this fellow has been convicted of offences punishable with transportation for life, and now to break jail also! Rules say that prisoners in such categories must be secured by all necessary means, including handcuffs and even leg-irons also. If he escapes, my Superintendent will be too much angry---and as for me . . .

The aposiopesis suggested utter, final ruin.

'But don't the rules also say you must bring in your men alive? I promise you that if you keep him in handcuffs he will fall off the mountain and perhaps take Jadhav with him-or even you.

Inspector Balakram looked round desperately for an escape from the dilemma, but in vain. Meanwhile Chandu asked Hanmant if he would promise not to run away if the handcuffs were taken off. Hanmant laughed briefly and promised.

'How can I run away?' he added reasonably, 'when the trackers here know my footprints?'

The Inspector gave in.

'Very good, sir. I must take responsibility. But if he runs away again, it will be rather too very serious for me.' He turned to me, with grisly humour. 'Perhaps your honour will give me a job in Criminal Tribes Settlements.'

We got to our feet, stretched, slung our haversacks and got going, but not before Hanmant Naik, who was of religious disposition, had taken time off to make his devotions to Kalsubai. I was stiff at first and, although my muscles had warmed up a bit by the time we got down to the scree, I did not feel at all like manhandling Balakram across it again.

Chandu went first with P.C. Jadhav and Kolya the Mahar, and the three waited for us. Then the Inspector sent his prisoner over, with a sign to Jadhav to keep an eye on him. He next turned to me, evidently expecting me to take my midway post once more and help him across. With my heart in my mouth I started.

When I was testing my third step I felt the path crumble under my boot. I drew back in panic, with loose earth and stones clattering away out of earshot below me. Before I could pluck up courage to try again, Hanmant called to me to wait. Stepping free and light he came back to us, carrying Kolya's spear. On arrival he held the business end towards the Inspector, who shrank away from it, eyes bulging.

'Hold the point, sahib,' said Hanmant, 'and follow me.'

Without more ado he turned round again and walked steadily across the bad place, holding the butt-end of the spear tight against his side so as to make it as rigid a support as possible. Inspector Balakram walked meekly behind him and reached the others without mishap. I went next, before Hanmant could put me to shame by coming back for me too. Later in the afternoon it came home to me that, if Balakram had fallen, Hanmant would almost certainly

HILLS AND CELLS have gone down the mountain-side with him. He had risked his life in order to help his captor, but I did not hear any word of thanks.

'Give that spear back to the Mahar!' was all that Inspector Bala- kram said.

The gloss had distinctly gone off that sunny day.

We had not gone far along the knife-edge of the saddle-back when Hanmant, who was next behind me in single file, began speaking in a low, persistent voice to attract my attention.

'Sahib . . .' he said, 'sahib . . . sahib . . .'

'Yes?'

'I have a request.'

'What is it?'

'I want release.'

After six years of improbable requests I thought I was immune from surprise. I was wrong.

'How can that be? You got a pass from me by making false excuses and went and committed a big robbery. So . . .'

'They were not false excuses. There is much trouble about my land.'

'Then why did you not attend to it, and walk straight?'

He sighed.

'It is too difficult. Our people have always been robbers. When they say: "you must come with us tomorrow. We are going out hunting", how can a man refuse?'

'Then I was wrong to listen to you and to give you a pass.'

Hanmant Naik was quick to seize on a debating-point; but he was also magnanimous.

'That is true. If your honour had refused, I would still be passing my days well at your settlement. You should not have listened to me! But how could you know? You are still a very new sahib. He laughed briefly. 'It was not your honour's fault.'

He went on to enlarge on his idea. If I would arrange his release from prison immediately, he for his part would engage to live quietly in the settlement, and not ask for leave again. When I pointed out the difficulties, he lowered his sights. Would I arrange for his transfer? To another jail? No, no, not from Satara jail, where he had so many friends, but to the garden squad. He wanted to work in the jail garden, not in the weaving-shed. Weaving indeed! That was not work for a man. . . . And so on.

In the end, wearied with his importunities and resenting the distraction from the unsurpassable beauties that surrounded us, remembering too how he had helped Inspector Balakram across the scree and that he was now walking peaceably back to captivity, I agreed to pass on his request to the prison authorities. Then he tried to embrace my feet.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

As the afternoon wore on I began to flag a little in the warmer air of the valley. My legs began to move numbly and automatically, and my head to swim. Even on the best expedition there comes a time when you wonder whatever it was that induced you to start on it.

When the party reached the river, it was Hanmant who knew the best place to ford it. And it was he who made the others wait for me and who, after I had come up, relieved first me and then Chandu of the weight of our haversacks. He slung them both about him and led off. Before we restarted Kolya the Mahar saw we no longer needed him as a guide and, suitably rewarded, took himself off to his village.

There was little daylight left when we reached the missing segment of path and prepared to set about our tree-climbing act. It was, need I say it?, Hanmant who took charge.

He sent Chandu up first and, when he had got to the top, told P.C. Jadhav to follow. The constable's job was to haul the Inspector up from above, while Hanmant himself stayed underneath him so as to guide his slippery shoes into the best footholds. A period of groans, grunts and exclamations of fear and anger from the Inspector ensued and lasted several minutes. Then it was my turn.

It was hard work for the end of a day, and I was out of breath and dizzy when at last I hauled myself off the final branch and lay panting on the grass shelf. The others had gone on ahead, and I was glad of the chance to have a rest and a cigarette in solitude. At length I got wearily to my feet and walked along the shelf to die

hills and cells

point where the path diverged to the tiger-god's shrine. Then I set myself to face the last, long, bitter climb.

It was dark by the time I got up to Shivaji's Seat and heard Chandu s voice cheering me on. It was sheer pleasure to see the tonga waiting for us and to hear the pony stamp and shake his harness. Meanwhile P.C. Jadhav was standing by the roadside, holding the two police bicycles which he had uncached.

'Are you all right?' asked Chandu. 'If so, let's get in and go home.' Inspector Balakram had another question to ask.

'Where is Hanmant Naik?'

We looked at each other foolishly.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

I will spare the details of the nightmare conversation that ensued: how they thought Hanmant had gone back to help me up the tree, how I had thought he had stayed with them, etcetera etcetera. The short fact was that after all the physical trials and mental agonies Inspector Balakram had undergone to catch his prisoner, we had between us contrived to lose him again.

'We can't do anything more tonight, that's certain,' Chandu concluded. 'You'll just have to send your trackers out again tomorrow.'

'But, my good sirs, you too must please to help me!'

'You mean, climb another mountain?'

Inspector Balakram shuddered. 'Oh my God, no, sir. No more mountains! It is something altogether quite different.'

He took us aside and spoke low and earnestly. Would we promise not to tell anyone that we had been with him at all that day? If we would promise that, he himself would instruct Jadhav and Kolya what they should say. . . . Pressed to make his intention clearer, he hedged a while but finally came out with it.

'If my Superintendent hears of prisoner simply and solely running away in darkness, he will be too bloody angry I tell you! He will demote me like anything and maybe suspend even! So-we must tell some other tale. You did ought to help me, because did not your honour order me to release him from handcuffs on mere verbal promise? So---I must tell Superintendent Sahib that I reached up with Hanmant alone at summit, and there was huge struggle, and he fought me down with damn big bludgeon and made me lose my senses. And when I am conscious again, lo and behold he has buggered off. ... So I chase him for miles and miles, but now it gets too dark and I must only chase again tomorrow. When he hears this, he will be angry, but not so angry.'

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

An hour later Chandu and I sat with our feet up on the club veranda, restoring our tissues and telling my wife of the day's exploits. The story of Hanmant's capture and the circumstances of his second escape lost nothing by our treatment, still less did Inspector Bala- kram's final plea for help. Sympathy, I regret to say, was tinged with mirth coupled with speculation from Chandu about the Inspector's future in the Criminal Tribes department. The gusts of laughter flowing out into the night were only interrupted by a tactful cough, followed by the looming of a well-known figure on the other side of the veranda rail. It was Hanmant Naik.

'Good Lord! Hanmant!' I cried. 'Why, we thought you had . . .' I broke off the sentence, but too late to deprive the robber chief of the pleasure of a pitying smile.

'You thought I had run away? . . . But, did I not give my promise? Besides, I have brought you the haversacks; I am not a thief!'

'But where have you been?'

'Nowhere. I went to the temple to take darshan of Wagheshwar, because my uncle was taken here by a tiger. Then I came here, walking. . . . Shall I wait for the police here, or go to the policestation?'

Inspector Balakram was breathless with haste, when he arrived on his bicycle with P.C. Jadhav.

Besides being breathless he was afflicted with a bandaged head, a fine black eye, and a gruesomely swollen cheek.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

One morning a fortnight later I put on my best tropical suit, a silk shirt and a pair of brogues polished to a glowing mahogany. A new solar topee with a heavy nap, white as a swan's wing, was on my head when, punctual to the minute, I arrived at my destination-the Government offices in Poona. Our holiday in Mahabaleshwar had

ended the day before, and I was all set to make my debut in the Olympian airs of the Secretariat and to be formally inducted into the mysteries of office.

Having parked my car I walked round to the front of the building, and wondered if 1 had come to the right place. It was, I reminded myself, only the monsoon headquarters of the Government and therefore not to be compared with the costly Venetian Gothic of the capital. But even allowing for that, I had expected something better than the long, featureless, single-storeyed brick barrack which I now beheld. When I mounted the steps, I found myself in a narrow veranda with a long row of half-doors opening into separate offices of identically meagre size. As a battery of loose-boxes on a stud farm it might have been respectable.

No one was about. Lonely and leaden-footed I began a halting advance, as in a dream that has not quite grown into a nightmare. Each door had a board over it: 'Secretary, Home Department', 'Under-Secretary, Home Department', 'Joint Secretary, Finance Department' and so on, to the end of the vista. A patuwallah, by no means as clean and smart as my own in Dharwar, came out of a room with a duster. He inspected me with a surprise which later I well understood, and at once misunderstood my presence.

'No sahibs have come yet. Who do you want to see?'

I eyed the man sternly and tried to frame a suitably crushing reply.

'I don't want to see anyone. I'm a sahib myself.'

As a crushing reply it was not up to much, and I passed on feeling foolish.

I had nearly walked past a door labelled 'Deputy Secretary, General Department', when something in the phrase arrested my attention; had I not heard it or read it lately? Then I remembered: this was me! Journey's end!

Before going in I glanced up and down the veranda. Thus, I felt, does a prisoner glance up and down the long galleries before he is locked into his first cell. When my eyes got used to the gloom I saw a square room with dingy whitewashed walls, furnished with a table draped in brown cloth, a filing-cabinet and two unpolished wood chairs. On the stone floor was an expanse of the same faded blue stuff which I have already described in connection with my camp bathroom. My spirits sank.

I put my white topee on the filing-cabinet and sat down at the brown table. Immediately I was aware of a pile of objects on the floor to my left, between me and the wall. They were files. And they reached from ground level up to the seat of my chair.

A pattewallah came in from the back veranda. He too was surprised to see me, but this one grinned in friendly fashion.

'Sahib has come early.'

'What are these files?' I aked, not very sensibly.

'That is the work to be done. When a file is finished put it down on the other side; I will take it away.'

It was borne in on me that, so far as my formal induction into the mysteries of my office was concerned, I had now had it.

'There are more new files outside. I am bringing them.'

He went out and returned with a fresh armful. Grinning with pleasure like a successful retriever, he stacked them too against the wall.

'Do the old ones first,' he advised, 'and the new ones afterwards.'

I picked up the top file on my left and opened it with trepidation, wondering what feats of mental agility would be needed to solve the knotty problem which it doubtless contained.

\'Indent for Office Stationery', it read, and went on reassuringly: 'As per usual. May be approved.' I put my initials against the letters 'Dy. Secy.' and I dropped the thing on the floor on my right. For the first time I heard the bang which for a century or more has been music in the ears of secretariat officials all over the world.

The pile on my left was now two inches lower, and I noticed with pleasure that the heavy object I next picked up reduced it by at least another four. I flipped open the cover, and under the heading 'Subject-Matter' read with incredulous eyes the legend:

' Volume of Official Correspondence, Measures to Reduce.'

The vision grew before me of an oblong file-board skimming like a swift into a velvet dusk. I heard Nawabzada's voice say 'This is where urgent things happen-here, here!', and almost wept. Then the weakness passed, overcome by curiosity.

Like a prospector eager to examine his first drill-core I turned to

page one and started in. The minutes ticked into eternity and I read on and on in wonderment.

The whole thing had apparently begun with a harassed district officer complaining casually to the Governor that he could not get on with his job because he was getting too much paper work. Other officers, asked if they suffered in the same way, had naturally said yes; for it is a complaint among district officers both real and hallowed by antiquity. The ball, thus set rolling, was passed to my predecessor in office; he was junior enough to have an impossible subject inflicted on him without answering back. And by now it had snowballed into at least three pounds of typed foolscap in avoirdupois and much more in terms of imbecility.

The Indian Civil Service has always been famous as a cadre of more or less rugged individualists. From the officer who said of a new law that it would not apply in his district, to the amateur of aboriginals who called in all the documentary evidence of the debts of these folk to their moneylenders and then caused the lot to be accidentally burned, the Service has exhibited a full range of riders of hobby-horses. I now perceived that the breed was far from extinct. My department's polite request to be 'favoured' with opinions about the volume of official correspondence had had the same effect as a psychiatrist winning the confidence of his patients. Every madman in the Presidency apparently felt himself both invited to give full expression to his ego, and simultaneously released from all the restraints of common sense.

Mr Joshi from the northern division was a devotee of the co-operative movement. He had a very clear idea how to reduce the volume of correspondence: anything not connected with Registrars, Chairmen and Secretaries of Societies should be forthwith abandoned. That would encourage these public-spirited and under-valued persons, and would bring the millennium perceptibly nearer with one stroke of the pen. Understandably enough, Mr Joshi s scheme had not occurred to anyone else.

Mr Jenkins, for example, took quite a different stand. He presided over a district of blissfully benighted lotos-eaters on the Malabar coast. In this enviable refuge he had plenty of time to become the inventor and expounder of a new and personal variety of Basic

English. He reported that 'in his view, the words used in postnotes were far too long now . It was not the fact that there was too much work to cope with; he had not found that. But, of course he used, and made his clerks use, none but such words as found place in his new book of Ground-Words. A wide spread of this rule, he\' was sure, would soon cure the ills which were now \'militating against the effective discharge by district officials of their touring duties!'

I pictured dear old Jenkins trotting down to his bathing-beach for his pre-luncheon dip and, as he trotted, chuckling at his massacre of those asses in the Secretariat.

Impatient to see how my predecessor had coped with the avalanche of rugged individualism, which he had brought down on his own head, I skipped forty pages and turned to the last. There I found the answer, not to mention a rewarding insight into the instinct of self-preservation as it functions in secretariats. He had directed that all the replies received should be printed together and recirculated to the same officers as before, together with a courteous request 'to be favoured with their further comments in the light of the views hitherto expressed'.

Next day he had gone on long leave.

While prosecuting my research with frowning alarm, I had grown conscious of sounds of human life developing around me. Cars were being driven up, mutual greetings grunted, table-bells punched with recurrent pings up and down the veranda, and my next-door neighbour dropped his first file to the floor with a crash. My half-door was pushed open, and the Secretary of my department came in. He was wearing khaki shorts and a tennis shirt.

Ambling forward with hand outstretched, he caught sight of my topee on the filing-cabinet, and stopped in his tracks. Then his eye travelled over me in admiration.

'My word! Lunching at Government House? Not bad for your first day.'

I blushed richly and mumbled a disclaimer.

'But why then ...?' He grew contrite. 'My dear chap, you shouldn't have put on all that just to call on mil Very civil of you, all the same. But as you see we are less formal up here than in

Bombay. Well-you've started in; good, good. No difficulties yet, I suppose? Ha! Ha! What's this?'

He picked up the file in front of me. 'Hel-/o! I haven't seen this for quite a while. What's this? Co-operative Movement? Ground- Words? Good Lord, the Crazy Gang's really gone to town.'

He turned to the last page, glanced at it, and wagged his head with an admiring grin. 'Sent it on its rounds again, did he? Just before he went on leave. Clever young devil! He'll do all right. D'you think you can cope?'

I shook my head.

'Hmmm! Don't want it on my own plate, though. . . . Tell you what---put it on the agenda for the Collectors' Conference next month. Then we can forget it.'

He went out, and I carefully penned my first note on a secretariat file: 'Secy wishes this to be oil agenda of Collrs' Conf'nce. Meanwhile keep pending.'

I was getting the hang of things.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

With the passing weeks I grew more and more certain that I did not like the Secretariat. Both the nature of my work and the surroundings in which it was done were repellent. To read a score or two of files, to write something on them, to drop them on the floor of my gloomy cell-what a contrast to the teeming life of my offices in the districts! I had grown used to having the world flow around me, clerks, police officers, lawyers, applicants, witnesses,... and prisoners. One prisoner in particular I could not forget.

I felt rather sick when I recalled Shiva, the young and compulsive killer of the were-tiger. I saw him squatting on the floor of the condemned cell, still bewildered, waiting to be executed. Not for him, like his victim Basappa, to cease upon the midnight with no pain. For him retribution was to be loaded with the cruelty of suspense---and consummated with the shameful, scrambling terror of the steps to the gallows. I tried my hand with the Judicial Department, but got little joy. The most I could extract was a promise that, purely as a matter of courtesy, they would keep me informed of developments, if any'.

One thought sustained me during my weeks of disillusionment the thought of our annual Service Week and of meeting friends from far-flung districts who spoke the same language, and were interested in the same things. In particular, I was looking forward to seeing Nawabzada again. At last it arrived, and early on in the junketings my dark mood vanished. We raced, danced, played games wined and dined; and when the last morning broke, the only complaint I had left was a severe headache.

This last day's programme was compounded of light and shade -the former represented by the golf and tennis finals and a farewell cocktail party, the latter by the Collector's Conference. This was a dim affair, anticipated with moaning and groaning, and generally agreed to be an unwarrantable curtailment of our short holiday.

It was half-past two in the afternoon when the Conference reached its last item. The Chief Secretary, an old hand at the game, suddenly looked at his watch and announced that he had to rush away.

'The last item belongs to your Department, I think,' he said, and firmly caught and held my Secretary's eye as he got to his feet. 'So if you will kindly deputise for me . .

The door closed after him, and the new chairman walked unwillingly to the head of the table. There he deployed a file I recognised, and began:

'Well, gentlemen, let's get on with it. The item is: "Measures to Reduce the Volume of Official Correspondence". Since we have all, ah, seen the relevant material, I shall throw the matter open at once for discussion. Would anyone, ah, like to set the ball rolling? . . . Yes, Mr Gokhale, thank you. Pray proceed.'

I began to take notes, while my left-hand neighbour groaned and started doodling. He was a young boffin from the Finance Department who attended all conferences, in order to make sure that nothing was agreed that might cost money.

Mr Gokhale was a very senior officer notorious as a stickler for systems, correct procedures and all the external paraphernalia of the government machine. He cleared his throat, glanced banefully round the table, and said that it was of vital importance to tackle the subject in a methodical manner. Some of the suggestions recently circulated were not methodical. He would go further and say that some

of them were not even sensible. For example, he could not for the life of him see the connection between matters of system and procedure on the one hand, and Basic English or Ground-Words or whatever it was called on the other. The same was true of another suggestion which concerned the Co-operative Movement. In matters of this kind it was essential to keep strictly to .. .

Here, not a moment sooner than I expected, the first interruption occurred. It was not that Jenkins had been dilatory in picking up the gauntlet; it was simply that surprise had rendered him speechless for a few seconds. Now he intervened loud and clear, his spectacles agleam with the light of pure unreason.

'What do you know of the use of Ground-Words?' he demanded bitingly. 'You use long words, but what makes you sure they serve your ends? They do not! If no long words or group words were used, all our post would be short too, and to the point. And that is what we all want, I think! Eh?'

'Gentlemen, gentlemen,' the chairman begged. 'One at a time, please! Mr Jenkins, I will give you plenty of opportunity later to ventilate your opinions-or should I say a good chance to say your piece? Now if Mr Gokhale will please go on. . ..'

This time it was Mr Joshi who interrupted, with heavy deliberation. 'Mr Chairman, I would be very glad for you to ask Mr Gokhale for his explanation and apology for very unwarranted and precipitate attack on Co-operative Movement. It is well known that this Movement, if I may say so, is very lifeline of our country s social evolution. . . .'

The boffin stopped doodling long enough to mutter a few very monosyllabic ground-words.

At that moment a note was put in front of me. It was from my acquaintance in the Judicial Department.

'A mercy-petition in the case you are interested in was sent to the Governor this morning. This Department has recommended rejection?

'I've got to go,' I said to my neighbour. 'Please take notes for me while I'm away.'

The representative of the Finance Department only had time to give me one look of mortal injury, before I was gone. Twenty

minutes later, after a fast drive out to the baronial splendours of Government House and a difficult interview with an outraged A.D.C., I was sitting before the great man's desk. He received me with frigid astonishment and an inquiry, more politely phrased, as to what the devil I meant by butting in, in a case that did not concern my Department. I told him I was the magistrate who recorded the man's confession, and his manner thawed.

*1 see. I hadn't noticed that. But as far as I recollect the confession added nothing to the case.' He picked up a black file labelled 'Death Sentence' in red letters, and turned the pages. 'I noticed that nothing was proved about his motive; but, according to the lawyers that is not required if the fact of the crime is clear. It is clear. So . . .?'

I began talking. I described Shiva's demeanour, his silences, his mumbling about a mistake; I spoke of witches and were-wolves and were-tigers, and of how, in the eyes of millions of human beings, there was only one, inescapable way of dealing with a witch-death. It used to be so in Europe; and it was still so in every other continent in the world. I went on to Shiva's words about his family: he wanted to be punished, so as to prevent a feud and more deaths. It was for that reason he refused to disclose his reason for killing Basappa.

There was a silence when I stopped, while His Excellency subjected me to a long, reflective and incredulous gaze.

'Are you seriously asking me to believe that he really thought this Basappa used to change himself into a tiger, and kill people?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Very well. I'll reprieve him.'

I began to thank him, but he checked me and went on: 'I'm always glad of an excuse to do it-however far-fetched.'

He rang the bell; and when the A.D.C. was taking me out he asked: 'By the way, do you like being in the Secretariat?'

'No, sir.'

'Well, we must see what can be done about that, mustn't we? He smiled for the first time. 'You acted last year as Backward Classes Officer. Would you like to do it permanently?'

hills and cells

It was nearly four when I got back to the conference-room. It was obvious that the meeting was getting restless as the time grew uncomfortably close to the hour set for the golf and tennis. The boffin pushed across his notes to me reproachfully.

'How's it going?' I asked.

It s not. Short of a miracle, the whole afternoon's going to be mucked up.'

Someone had just suggested that the returns of damage to crops by wild elephants should not be required from districts where there were no elephants; but there was no reaction .The only sound that greeted the preposterous idea did not connote concurrence. It was a snore.

At the far end of the table Nawabzada was sitting erect, dignified as ever, the grizzled ends of his moustache pointing impeccably up- wards-but asleep. Somebody nudged him, and his eyes opened and surveyed us serenely.

The chairman was stung to sarcasm. Having consulted the paper in front of him in a meaning way, he addressed Nawabzada nastily. 'Nawabzada, we've had very little help from you so far, either in writing-I don't seem to find your reply to our circular-or at our meeting today. I was hoping you might be able to assist with some concrete suggestion.'

'Yes, Mr Chairman.'

'You mean you have some advice for us, after all? Then please let us have it.'

'My goodness me, yes! I did feel a little shy after all the fine proposals we have already heard. But, if you would wish to hear it, I will tell you. . . . The only way I can see to reduce the volume of official correspondence, is to scrap the correspondence about reducing the volume of official correspondence.'

It took three minutes for the applause to die away.

Then the chairman called the meeting to order.

'Gentlemen, it seems that the Nawabzada's proposal has been carried by acclamation. Is that the sense of the meeting? Renewed applause. 'Then, speaking for myself, I am very happy to accept it. . . . Well, gentlemen, that I think concludes our business for the day. . . .'

He scraped his chair back, and there was a buzz of talk like a classroom of schoolboys released from detention.

'One moment, please.'

When quiet was restored, the chairman said: 'I take it that ALL district officers are now satisfied with the position? And that there will be no more complaints about too much paper-work?'

The Children of God

When I took over from Starte as Backward Classes Officer in 1934, the work of the department had already grown a great deal both in volume and variety since I had acted for him two years before. I will say no more about the working of the Criminal Tribes Act, which has already been described, although it still accounted for the largest part of my work during my period of office.

The two immediate additions were the working of the Bombay Children Act and the supervision, at administrative level, of antiUntouchability measures. Later on I was given a new and separate task with the aboriginal and hill tribes.

The Children Act was a new law modelled on the English Act. Needless to say, Starte had taken a big hand in its drafting and enactment. The work involved the setting-up of children's courts, remand homes, approved schools (I was ex officio Chief Inspector of Certified Schools), and the formation of a probation service. For good measure the work included advising the Prisons Department on the running of Borstal Institutions, not to mention the secretaryship of the Borstal Association, which provided supervision for lads on licence.

In order to get some inkling of what I would have to do, I spent a good deal of my leave in the winter of 1933 visiting courts, homes, schools, institutions and prisons in England, besides picking the brains of the officials in the Home Office and of local authorities. The generous help and advice I got from all proved immensely valuable when I got back to India and began functioning on my own. But that did not mean I fell hook, line and sinker for the current approach to juvenile crime, which was then in its glad confident morning. For example a Borstal case was counted as successful if he was not convicted again for three years after discharge. But the reliability of that yardstick would only be certain if we could know what offences, if any, he had committed in the three-year period without being convicted, what offences if any he committed after that period, and (more basically) how he would have conducted himself if he had never been to Borstal but had served an ordinary term in prison instead. Since we cannot find out the answers to the first two questions, and the third is entirely hypothetical, one's verdict can only be a matter of individual guesswork. It is fashionable now to blame home conditions for delinquency, a fashion that has perhaps gone too far. The penal system itself may also be to blame, in particular the surrender of the old, abrupt sanction of the cane.

In India, we were still at a primitve stage. There was an immediate and obvious need to get children and young people out of the procedures of the ordinary criminal law, and out of the prisons. Not that they were maltreated there-that would be quite foreign to the Indian character-but in order to keep them away from bad contacts. And to meet that need there was a ready response from everyone concerned, police, magistrates, schoolmasters, and volunteer workers of various kinds.

This part of the work largely devolved on a wonderful part-time assistant, Miss M. K. Davis, who in addition to running a pioneer children's home in Bombay on her own account was gazetted as Inspector of Certified Schools and helped others all over the Presidency with practical advice. The Children Act with its concomitant institutions and services became an accepted thing, and in a short time was working smoothly as a normal part of the everyday administration.

Much more intractable were the problems of the Untouchables. Their misfortunes had become permanent centuries before, and were by now crystallised as an inherent component of the social order. The Indian village was once, and to a great extent still is, an independent entity. In the ancient pre-Mahomedan days contemplated by the modem Hindu with yearning nostalgia and through rose-colured spectacles, the village used in some sort to govern itself through its elected panchas (committeemen). A cross-section of the community would show all the main elements of a mutual self-sufficiency. The main bulk would be the primary producers, the growers of food and of money crops. There was a headman, a village accountant,

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a priest or priests, artisans, shopkeepers and---beneath all and the servant of all-the village servants.

Village servants were maintained and worked on a system which has survived till the present century. They were maintained in theory by a holding of land, hereditary and in perpetuity, free of tax or at a reduced tax, conditional on their performance of their customary duties. These included the daily attendance of a set number of men for any job that might crop up; the work of porters, guides and tentpitchers for visiting officials; carrying and guarding treasure (especially land-revenue collections); the upkeep of footpaths; the removal of carrion (which, regrettably, they were driven by hunger to eat, and still did so in this century); waiting on the commands of the village-officers; carrying the villagers' ploughs and harrows to their fields; and in general being at everyone's beck and call.

The village-officers and the priests were also remunerated by the same system, a tax-free holding of land descending from father to son, in Maharashtra known as a watan (to rhyme with button). But whereas their watan lands were reasonably big and good, the Mahars' lands-again I refer to Maharashtra; elsewhere there were other equivalent castes-were more often than not practically worthless. In spite of that they had to continue to provide the fixed number of men on duty; and since they could not survive on what their land produced, they subsisted on minute gratuities and scraps of bread doled out by the villagers. But that was only the beginning of their troubles.

Being untouchable, they were not allowed to draw water from the common well, even though the well was provided at the public expense. Sometimes they had a well of their own, needless to say a wretched, unlined affair in most cases; but where they did not, or when their well dried up in hot weather, their womenfolk had perforce to squat on the ground and wait until some caste-Hindu woman came to the well and out of charity poured water into their pots.

There were many other sad grievances. Difficulties in getting their children into school were an example. A case is recorded of a child found sitting outside an upper window on a raised platform, of the kind used by farmers to watch their crops, and trying to hear what was going on in the classroom inside. Entry was naturally banned to public eating-houses and rest-houses and temples. And there was a unanimous public opinion to keep them in their proper station all round. If a Mahar dressed smartly, or even in clean clothes, or if he so much as wore his dhoti low over the calves of his legs instead of girt up tight to the crutch, he was in trouble. He would be putting on side, pretending to be something other than a sweating menial and must be taken down a few pegs. I learned of one unfortunate fellow who was beaten up for wearing a wrist-watch.

It was obvious that these attitudes did not develop simply from religious prejudice, although in all conscience that was strong enough, but at least in part from the usefulness of having and keeping a class of public fags to do everyone's dirty work.

In latter years the leaders of the Depressed Classes had grown vocal in demanding justice, and met with a body of enlightened opinion that was not unsympathetic even if it was more or less ineffective. As far back as 1923 the Bombay Legislative Council resolved that 'the untouchable classes be allowed to use all Public Watering Places, wells and Dharamashalas (rest-houses) which are built and maintained out of public funds, or are administered by bodies appointed by Government or created by Statutes, as well as public schools, courts, offices and dispensaries'.

The Government accepted the resolution, but not too forth- comingly. It directed its officials to give effect to it so far as it related to Government's own institutions, and 'to advise the local bodies in their jurisdiction to consider the desirability of accepting the . . . Resolution so far as it relates to them'. In those days the reality of the responsibility of District Local Boards and Municipalities for local affairs was a tender plant, which might be blighted by words of command. Apart from that the Government must have known that the throwing open of wells to the Untouchables was too hard a nut for anyone to crack, and so took the easy course of advising them only to 'consider its desirability'. Public wells, of course, vested almost exclusively in those local bodies.

This lukewarm invitation, not surprisingly, had no effect. Not all local bodies even 'considered' the matter. Of the others some voted for acceptance and some against. It made no difference; the outcome in any event was the same. No single well then, or in my time, or

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(I believe) even now, was ever used in common by caste and out- caste villagers except as an eye-washing expedient for the benefit of important visitors.

The sanctions used to keep the Untouchables in their place rarely had to be physical or overt. To use force to prevent a woman from using a well or a man from going into a dispensary would be an offence under the Penal Code---wrongful restraint or wrongful confinement. The victim (ex hypothesi a determined type) could complain to the police or a magistrate and even, if he were lucky, win his case. But boycott was not an offence, and the threat of it was terribly effective. The whole Mahar community could be refused its customary doles of cash and chapatti, refused supplies in the shops, and refused the charitable pouring of water into their pots. Their lives, literally, were in the hands of the caste Hindus; and they were bound to keep on good terms with them.

After the British left, the law-makers did what we had hesitated from practical reasons to do: they made boycott a criminal offence. The Constitution Act in an early section declares that 'Untouchability is abolished and its practice in any form is forbidden. The enforcement of any disability arising out of "Untouchability" shall be an offence punishable in accordance with law.'

Later it provides more specifically that 'No citizen shall, on grounds only of caste, be subject to any disability, liability, restriction or condition with regard to access to shops, restaurants, hotels and places of public entertainment, or the use of wells, tanks, bathingghats, roads and places of public resort maintained wholly or partly out of State funds or dedicated to the use of the general public.

Later on the Untouchability (Offences) Act, 1955, penalised persons who refused any service to an Untouchable.

Such an unequivocal statement of the official attitude of the State is admirable, especially as Hindu Orthodoxy continues to show an ebb and flow of political power. Unfortunately it does not mean that the law is effective. In fact, so far as public wells are concerned, there has been little change since the Legislative Council s Resolution passed forty-five years earlier.

As we shall see, nothing could be franker-and that in itself is a sign of grace-than the annual reports of the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes, which regularly post the failures to achieve in practice the fine principles laid down by the Constitution, particularly with regard to our old bugbear, the use of wells. Nevertheless, the law is there, to fortify the dim flame of public conscience and to back the valiant but disregarded endeavours of the reformers.

Over the field of Untouchability as a whole there is no doubt that improvements have come about both before and after the departure of the British.

When Starte left India in 1934, he left behind as part of his legacy to Bombay the Backward Classes Board. It consisted of the leading men of the depressed classes. Dr B. R. Ambedkar M.L.C. (an allIndian figure, but a Bombay man. He was a Mahar.), Dr P. G. Sol- anki, some well-known social workers such as Mr A. V. Thakkar of the Servants of India Society, and a group of M.L.C.'s interested in reform. As Backward Classes Officer I was Chairman. We met often and regularly-differing in this respect, it seems, from our present-day successors-and by sifting out grievances and finding the right place to make our attack we managed to get quite a lot done. It was a process that had begun before and continued after my three-year period in the department. In the field of education we succeeded in getting depressed-class children not only into the primary schools, but into seats in their proper classes. At the outset 'school entry' connoted the huddling of all these children together, irrespective of age or class, near the door. Places in secondary schools, hostels and university scholarships were comparatively easy. We got accepted the reservation of places in Government service, not only menial but clerical, and in time higher still. Places in public transport were now given to them without demur---the railways had never permitted discrimination-and we secured an agreement in principle to overhaul and rationalise the system of village servants. This was later implemented by a scheme of commutation of watans and the gradual introduction of regular pay.

Another improvement was the enforcement of the ordinary courtesies in Government offices. When I first came to the Kama- tak, my head clerk when serving papers on some Untouchables dropped them on the floor, and the servees had to grope around to

THE CHILDREN OF GOD pick them up. I was angry, and the head clerk was genuinely surprised at my anger. That particular custom, however, was already on the wane, and I never myself saw another instance.

It must not be supposed that the Untouchables sought any sort of integration with the higher castes. All Hindu society is broken up into watertight compartments, which even now are only disregarded by the sophisticated, and the Mahars and other Untouchables had no wish to intermarry or interdine with Marathas or Brahmins or even each other, even if that had been conceivable. I should mention in passing that the Untouchables practised Untouchability among themselves: a Mahar would not eat or share a well with a Chambhar, and neither would tolerate a Bhangi (sweeper). (At one time caste Hindus would have the temerity to cite this custom as justification for their own attitudes, an infuriating case of putting the cart before the horse.) Being all good Hindus, who might through due submission to karma deserve to become Marathas or even Brahmins themselves in a future life, they were perfectly ready to recognise their own ritual uncleanness. Taya Zinkin in her last book, Challenges in India, describes how even last year an Untouchable servant had to be overpersuaded by some caste visitor into pouring out tea for them; left to himself he would have felt it to be too sinful.

It is true that at one period there were satyagraha campaigns to establish the Untouchables' right of entry and worship in public temples; and a Temple Entry Bill became law in course of time. But Dr Ambedkar told me they were not really interested in entering the temples for the sake of worship. They agitated partly to annoy the orthodox, and partly to assert their right to use all institutions supported by public funds or by the usufruct of public land. It was the denial of their rights as citizens that galled them and reduced them to despair, coupled with their helplessness as a tiny, nakedly vulnerable minority in every single village in the land.

Their leaders developed an implacable hatred for the Hindu majority, and were prompted by it to demand separate seats in the legislatures of India, separate electorates, separate representation in the public services, and the like. They argued, and with reason, that if the Mahomedans, who were not maltreated at all by comparison, could get these things, why should not they? The demand for separate electorates was resisted by the Congress to the uttermost and by Gandhi himself to the point of a 'fast unto death' by means of which he succeeded in blackmailing the depressed class leaders into accepting a compromise-the 'Poona Pact' of 1932. Gandhi's feelings of sympathy for the Untouchables was, I am sure, genuine- but even he could not make it immediately effective.

With his maddeningly elliptical logic he coined a new word as a substitute for the brutally realistic Asprisliya (Untouchable). He called them Harijan, Children of God, and thereafter called his weekly paper by the same name. 'All the religions of the world,' he said, 'describe God as the Friend of the friendless, the Help of the helpless, and the Protector of the weak. Who can be more friendless or helpless or weaker than the forty million or more Hindus of India, classified as Untouchables?'

So he named them Children of God. And it certainly seemed that God alone could look after them, for on earth they remained still friendless, and helpless, and weak.

With all the purity of his philosophy and his overflowing humanity, he was also a politician; and politicians cannot try their supporters too high. It was impossible for him to insist, without buts or excuses, that no one could join his party who did not make sure that in his own village the Mahars could take water from the well without hindrance or revenge. If he had tried that, even Gandhi would have lost his following. He did not try it; and Dr Ambedkar and the other Harijans wrote off his sympathy and the whole Congress attitude as humbug.

Things have not changed as much as Gandhi would have hoped even today. A recent report (1962-3) of the Commissioner for Scheduled Castes and Tribes, under a heading about the refusal to Harijans of the use of wells, says: 'Such occurrences, however, go unnoticed, because the persons offended against do not dare to report the cases to the police for fear of the caste Hindu co-villagers, on whom they economically depend.'

To me that has an all too familiar ring. Less familiar and more ominous is the indictment that follows later.

The State Governments had issued orders to all and sundry to pay attention to the removal of disabilities'. But 'in spite of clear

THE CHILDREN OF GOD instructions, it is noticed that most of the Officers do not take necessary Interest'. I can imagine that an Officer who took too much 'interest' might be thought an awkward liability, for 'necessary interest' seemed to have been lacking in higher quarters too.

Other paragraphs dealt with the working of the Central Advisory Board for Harijan and Tribal Welfare, and also of the State Boards. The Central Board had not met at all during the year. Of nineteen State Boards, eleven had not met. Out of the eight that remained five had only met once. There was repeated criticism that information, returns, and progress reports were not being sent in.

Thus even lip service to the ideals of the Constitution is perfunctory.

In Nehru's time India was much inclined to adopt a high tone and to lecture more earthy peoples on their moral shortcomings. No wonder she was frightfully indignant, when white South Africans rebutted her criticisms of their treatment of their black brothers with a tu quoque of this magnitude. Nothing is more exasperating than a home truth.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

During those years we were living in Poona, once well-known as a music-hall joke. It was a joke that only those who knew the place could really savour. We lived in a Government bungalow which had recently, in a moment of wild modernisation, been supplied with electricity. But the bathrooms had no flush system and water for our tin tubs was still carried in by hand. My wife and I lived happily there while the children added three years to their stature. From our porch we could see the mountains of the Westem ohats rise from the Deccan plain a score of miles away. On summer evenings they would be wreathed in necklaces of fire when the grassy slopes were being burned, and in the rains the grim head of Sinhgad, Shivaji's Lion Fort, was swathed in cloud. Nowhere in the Deccan or the Konkan is one far away from the traces and memory of that Grand Rebel. ,

The biggest deprivation of those, and of later years, was that there was no touring in the proper sense of the word. I was constantly on the move inspecting the various establishments which my

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department had in charge, going to meetings, and sometimes visiting villages for some special purpose. These journeys took me from Gujerat to the Mysore borders; but they were journeys in which I stayed in friends' houses or in P.W.D. rest-houses, and which were performed in motor-cars or even in trains. There were no more inspections and marches by camel or on horseback, and no more of a leisurely but at the same time intensely busy and altogether delightful life under canvas.

When we had been in Poona for about a year, I was told that I was to be promoted to be Secretary, Revenue Department. At my stage of seniority that would have been very remarkable advancement, and I was so elated that I told the Finance Secretary I was ready to do the job at a cut rate. I thought it might help the poor fellow to cope with the 'financial stringency' which constantly beset him. It was (I have been told) my old friend J. W. Smyth, who protested loudly, successfully and, it must be admitted, correctly, that I lacked the necessary experience. The project fell through, and a senior officer was brought in. It was a disappointment that did not fret me much. I had too many other things to do.

THE CHILDREN OF GOD

Happy times, like unhappy ones, must end. And in the spring of 1937 our happy time in Poona was over. My wife had to take the children back to England; we were putting a niece into Malvern Girls College, and our little boy had been ill with dysentery. I was intending to follow them, on leave, a year later. We thus suffered, not for the first or the last time, one of those separations which were an essential but searing part of service in the tropics. The task of clearing up an empty home when its inmates have flown is one which I would not wish for my worst enemy.

I betook myself to a rather horrid residential hotel, until some good friends bailed me out and had me to stay with them as a p.g.

Meanwhile, interesting things had been happening in the world of politics. After three Round Table Conferences in London, the publication of a White Paper ('completely unacceptable', it goes without saying), the enactment of the Government of India Act, 1935, and a year of haggling plus a general election, the Congress agreed to accept office in those provinces of India (seven out of eleven) in which it had a majority. It was a momentous occasion when, in the month of April, we came under the rule of the Party which had been agitating against the British raj for more than twenty years. It was also an episode which I fancy most people in the world have forgotten all about. But, if anyone at the time expected dramatic and revolutionary changes, he was in for an anticlimax.

Our new Government had enough good sense and experience to realise that nine-tenths of its work would lie in the field of day-to- day administration, and that spectacular reform must be a fringe activity.

Its most novel and characteristic measure was the introduction of Prohibition. This brought with it, in addition to the loss of revenue, the usual concomitants of evasion and bootlegging; but they never became in India the menace that they had been in America, and I cannot honestly aver that it did not benefit the population at large. We foreign addicts, along with the aboriginal tribes, were given a special dispensation to meet our congenital weaknesses. We got an issue of ration-cards sufficient not only for our own pathological needs but for those of some of our co-addicts of Indian birth as well.

One feature of the early months of Congress rule was objectionable, and embarrassing to the new Government. Every petty Congress committee, regional, district, or village, not to mention their secretaries and chairmen, assumed it had somehow acquired official status and could give orders to local officials. This quickly grew into a nuisance; and firm action was needed, and was taken, by the Congress High Command to squash it. Naturally that did not prevent the High Command itself issuing off-the-record directions to the cabinets of 'their' provinces. On this procedure Jawaharlal Nehru explicitly proclaimed: 'The Ministries and the Congress Parties in the legislatures are responsible to the Congress, and only through it to the electorate.'

So far as I personally was concerned, the work of my department went on without interference or interruption. My minister was K. M. Munshi; and both then and later on, when I was Municipal Commissioner in Bombay and afterwards Collector and District Magistrate of Sholapur, I found him an excellent man to work under. Other members of the Cabinet were the Prime Minister, B. G. Kher-he became P.M. again in 1946 and later High Commmissioner in London-a pure-hearted, indeed sentimentally inclined Gandhian if ever there was one; Morarji Desai, now Deputy Prime Minister of India, upright and austere, the enemy of drink, gambling, horseracing, and most forms of pleasure; and Doctor Gilder, a Parsi heart specialist.

Like the other Congress governments elsewhere and at other times, our Government was committed to agrarian reform, debt relief, and all kinds of social betterment, which of course included that fine old catchword 'the removal of Untouchability'. It was they who passed the Harijan Temple Worship (Removal of Disabilities) Act. But since its provisions were only permissive-i.e. temple trustees were enabled to declare their temples open to Harijans if they thought fit-the Act was little more than a gesture. In other ways they were able, having regard to the realities of their political situation, to do no more than we were doing already to help the Harijans; and when they resigned office two years later the position remained virtually the same as before.

Meanwhile my own special connection with the backward, the

THE CHILDREN OF GOD oppressed, and the anti-social was rapidly drawing to an end. In November 1937,1 was put on special duty in connection with our aboriginal and hill tribes, and handed over my department to a successor.

A published Resolution of Government thanked me for my efforts, and kindly added that I had carried out my duties 'with distinction'. Had this appeared twelve months earlier, one would have written it off as no more than common politeness. I only mention it now because it was said by a Congress Government. When one remembers that the I.C.S. had for years been partly occupied in containing the agitation of the Congress, and that most of our ministers had, albeit on their own insistence, spent some time in 'British jails', it is remarkable how quickly a happy and correct relationship came into being between the Service and the new Indian ministries.

Election and Exclusion

The city nearest to our most important aboriginal tract, and the point of departure for my next task, was a sleepy, warm, dusty place that justly earned the name of Aramnagar (which, with apologies all round, might be translated Restington). Itself set in a cotton-growing plain, the northern parts of its District grew progressively more hilly and afforested until they flowed up against the barrier of the Satpura range. Beyond those purple hills lay a primitive, feckless, happy country innocent of roads, wheels, guns and villages, which stretched, northward still, to the Narbada River and the boundary of the Province.

I knew Aramnagar well, since there was a Criminal Tribes Settlement there which I had visited regularly during the last three years. It was a typical headquarter town of the remoter type: rambling, derelict cantonment, three wide tree-lined streets of shops, a medieval fort, an ancient temple, a mud-and-plaster city of forty thousand inhabitants, a group of modem offices built in the 'sixties, and two cotton ginning and pressing factories. It was served by the railway at Bhowani Junction a score or so of miles away. The Collector at that time was a senior officer, Nitya Deshmukh, eccentric, not to say slightly cracked, and charming. His main enthusiasms in life were religion and bridge; and his indulgence in these pastimes was intense, introspective, and productive of odd results.

Whenever I stayed with him alone, I was given a comfortable spare room, and he would go off in a normal way to his own bachelor quarters. When my wife was with me, we were put in the same spare room; but he himself would sleep in a tent in the garden. Asked the reason, his face lit up happily and he eyed me indulgently awhile, before replying that he preferred it. So might a pope answer if a Red Indian asked him why he ate fish on Friday.

There was a club of the usual mofussil variety. Once it had served

a score of civilian officers and their families and a still greater number of military men belonging to a garrison long since departed. Nowadays the membership could be counted on the fingers. The large rooms were dusty and dilapidated and mostly empty. But the bar still functioned, and so did the bridge room. Nitya would take me there every evening for a spell of mental exercise that was exacting and exciting. Another regular attender was Dr Pereira, civil surgeon and ex officio superintendent of the prison. But our most colourful player was Mr Rajaram Dinkarrao Divakar.

Mr Divakar was a flourishing and flamboyant lawyer, a Barrister- at-Law and the District Government Pleader. A man of jaunty and naive opportunism, he had for years balanced on the fence between the British regime and the Nationalist opposition. So far from the iron of that fence entering his soul, it seemed to have acted as a tonic. He would wear a 'Gandhi-cap' in the street and take it off with a disarming grin when he arrived in the presence of authority. When Congress satyagrahis were haled before the courts, he would press for a conviction and then with merry deprecation get them off with a nominal sentence. Now his careful impartiality was bringing its reward: Congress was in office-and he was still persona grata.

At the bridge-table a purist might have objected to the kaleidoscopic register of emotions that could be seen on his face as he looked at his cards. But even the most acid purist could not fail to be enchanted by the cunning glance which swept round the table, as he conceived an intricate idea; by the sly wagging of forefinger in front of nose, which gave notice of the exquisite skill of his next play; or by the triumphant cry (ffiagao /') with which the card of fate was at last slapped down.

'Collector Sahib! Why did you not finesse with your Queen of Clubs? It was obvious from my biddings that I must be having King.'

Nitya finished counting our tricks in a sad trance, but he could not let such a crude proposition pass unchallenged.

'Obvious? What is the meaning of this "obvious"? Can truth be obvious, my friend?'

When my wife and I arrived in Aramnagar in the autumn of 1937? Mr Divakar was making ready to enlarge the horizon of his success

by becoming President of the Municipality. He told me of this new ambition at the club; and it was confirmed when I paid a visit to the Municipal offices to see another friend, Shet Gopinath.

Shet Gopinath, as he himself told me at length, had served no less than four three-year periods as a Councillor. He was now Chairman of the Works Committee; and by precedent and prescriptive right he was due for the President's chair, had it not been for the unconscionable behaviour of Rajaram Dinkarrao Divakar. Mention of the name brought on a spate of eloquence.

'Always we have pulled on so peacefully; but now this fellow brings party politics into our Council. Our work is to look to the streets and lights and water-supply, and we are local authority for primary schools and for town-planning. And it is our duty to preserve our Hindu society and culture. Such things should be done by those who understand them-not by politicians, who understand nothing. The Congress have their Legislative Assemblies now, and Cabinets and Ministries to line their pockets. Why must they take away our local bodies also?'

Shet Gopinath, surprisingly in one of his caste and profession, was a seasoned enemy of the Congress Party. And, being by a long way the richest man in Aramnagar and, more important still, the biggest moneylender, he could afford to take an independent line. As for his present argument, his opponent had used the same one from the opposite point of view.

'Why must Shetji want to dibble-dabble in politics?' Mr Divakar had demanded. 'He is rich enough already, isn't he? Such matters ought to be left to experienced politicians, who know best how to serve the people.'

'Objection! Objection!' Dr Pereira had cried. 'What the people want is honesty. And will not a rich man like Shetji be more honest than a horde of your hungry Congressmen? He does not need to take bribes from anyone.'

'Why then does he contest to be President? Pray tell me that, Dr Pereira!'

The doctor collected our eyes as a prelude to his own telling diagnosis. 'It is not for bribes,' he said, and paused dramatically.

'It is for monkeys.'

Nitya and I gazed at each other in wild surmise.

'Ah yes, of course,' he murmured, 'it must be monkeys. What else?'

'For monkeys?\' I asked, more sportingly, speaking hardly above a whisper.

'Yes, yes, it is for the monkeys-and the cows. He is chairman of the Aramnagar Hindu Religion Protection Society. They keep up the pinjrapol, the home for old cows, and they feed the monkeys of Aramnagar also.'

'But what's that got to do with being President of the Municipality?'

'If he is elected, the Council will give a grant-in-aid to his Society, so they can give more to the monkeys.... But why do you worry, Rajaji? You have got your majority. You have got seventeen votes out of thirty, and Shetji has only got ten; and the other three don't count.'

When, next day, I asked Shet Gopinath if he thought he had any hope now of winning, he studied the middle distance thoughtfully and slowly raised his shoulders almost up to the level of his ears.

'He has got more men than I... . So-what to do?'

As I got up to go, he courteously escorted me to the main entrance and turned aside on the way to show me the Council Chamber. About forty feet long and wide and high in proportion, it followed the P.W.D. Ecclesiastical style of architecture, with large pointed windows and an embryonic suggestion of vaulting. It was furnished with a table of teakwood running down the middle and a set of padded chairs around it. The high-backed presidential chair, its cresting embellished with the city's coat-of-arms, stood at one end; and a handsome clock rested on a high pedestal in the centre of the long wall opposite the windows.

I already knew of that clock by hearsay. For generations it had enjoyed the distinction of never gaining or losing so much as a minute in a month. In the days of the garrison the subaltern responsible for firing the noon-day gun had been under standing orders to check his watch with it every day.

It was an upstanding piece of Victorian workmanship in shiny black marble with ormolu mounts. Beneath a terrestrial globe, which housed the clock-face and the works, stooped a figure of Atlas, heroically battling under his load and apparently getting no help from the six Corinthian columns which stood around him. Between his legs one could see the pendulum swinging on its unending travels, gravely ticking off one unforgiving second at each movement. On top of Atlas and the world a recumbent female figure somehow contrived to make itself comfortable. It was a replica of Michelangelo's Night., which has been authoritatively described as 'sunk in an attitude of deep but uneasy slumber'.

The pedestal carried the inscription:

'Presented to the Municipality of Aramnagar by Angus McBain Esquire, C.S.I., Commissioner, on the Occasion of its Creation as a City Municipality, the 31st December 1879.

Come, let us build us a City.'

Mr McBain had acquired enduring fame as an exponent of sardonic humour, and an oft-told tale about his gift was now again retailed to me by Shet Gopinath, who had probably heard it from his grandfather.

'You see, it is an allegory! When he was presenting it, Mr McBain said in his speech that it represented the British bearing the burden of Democracy in India! Oh, he was a very humorous gentleman. We liked him very much.'

Shet Gopinath gazed steadily and approvingly at the monumental timepiece, before turning to usher me out.

The following days were ones of unceasing vigilance for Mr Divakar.

Having duly deposited his nomination papers on die day and hour advised by his astrologer, the task remained of keeping an unremitting surveillance over his supporters, to make sure the rats did not get at them.

His rival, in spite of his ostensibly smaller following, was a man of dangerous potentialities. In all countries of the world the mere possession of wealth is liable to have an attraction for voters. Still more is that true when the distribution of this wealth to the possessor's fellow-men, albeit in exchange for signed and stamped pieces of paper, is the candidate's profession.

A goodly proportion of the ratepayers of Aramnagar owed money to Shet Gopinath, and a still goodlier proportion would have very much liked to do so. It was the fear that the same pattern might apply among the ratepayers' elected representatives, which Mr Diva- kar found so worrying.

One factor that made this worry particularly hard to dispel was the procedure laid down for the election of Presidents. The Regulations on the matter, frequently amended and re-amended in the light of years of surprising experience, were absolutely explicit. Within a prescribed time after the municipal general election a Special Meeting of the new Council was required, with the sole purpose of electing a new President. This meeting, as soon as it assembled at the appointed hour, had immediately to appoint a chairman to conduct its business; and the chairman was required forthwith to announce the names of the candidates who had been validly nominated, and at once to call upon the members present to vote for one of them by secret ballot.

It was this last provision which Mr Divakar found so irksome during those difficult days. How could he be sure, in a secret ballot, of the staunchness even of his most vocal adherents? Members, however much enthused by the collective ideals of the Party, were after all only frail mortals; and, like most frail mortals, the frailer they were, the more hard-up they were too. And it was not feasible to prevent men in need of cash from going to the customary and legitimate source in search of it.

Mr. Divakar accordingly visited or button-holed each of the seventeen as often as he could manage, his anxious assiduity only thinly disguised by his usual hearty back-slapping technique. He did not stop at that, however, but even set out one day to canvass the independent members. Two of these were occupants of the seats reserved for Untouchables. To them he promised the swift installation of five new water-pipes in their shanty-town, a project that had long ago received 'approval in principle', but was still held up by 'financial stringency'.

The two members were exceedingly polite to Mr Divakar and perfectly agreeable to promise him their votes. Even if he remained dubious of their intentions, Mr Divakar was gratified by their

A SPECIAL INDIA behaviour, and rewarded it by sending a junior engineer and three assistants with instructions to walk round the Harijan quarter in a purposeful manner, taking measurements.

That left only one member more, Mr Flannigan who represented the Anglo-Indian colony. Mr Divakar was shy of approaching him now, and decided he would wait until The Day and then slap him on the back on their way into the meeting.

At five minutes to ten on the morning of the great day Mr Divakar took his stand at the top of the steps of the Town Hall, to keep tryst with his followers. He stood, watch in hand, counting them as they arrived by twos and threes and mounted towards him. In front, the lawns of the public gardens were green with the rain of the late monsoon and the flower-beds ablaze with cannas and zinnias. Troops of monkeys were leaping and swinging with hoots of pleasure in the tree-tops, waiting for the luncheon which piety would soon provide. But Mr Divakar had no time to admire the pretty scene.

'... sixteen, seventeen, good. And Ax Flannigan. Good morning, Mr Flannigan. I am too glad to see you arriving in good time to vote for me, I hope, ha! ha! You know how we will work for you -anything you wish, you will but have to ask! Relations between our two communities are very amicable these days, isn't it?'

He slapped Mr Flannigan on the shoulder.

'Well, it is time to go in, I think. Meeting must begin at io a.m. precisely, and Regulations say we must not delay on any account. Ah, here are our two friends of Reserved Seats. Good morning, gentlemen!'

The Harijans smirked happily at the great man's urbanity. They raised their hands with palms together and agitated them before their bowed heads. Mr Divakar viewed them with approval, and turned to lead the way.

'We do not seem to have the pleasure of our other colleagues' company yet,' he went on, 'but we must on no account delay. Regulations are regulations, and io a.m. is io a.m.!'

As they reached the door of the Council Chamber Mr Purohit, the Secretary, scuttled out carrying a large calf-bound book. Fie threw Mr Divakar a frightened look, and disappeared. Mr Divakar

was momentarily puzzled; it was a funny time for Mr Purohit to be going away. However ... He squared his shoulders and marched grandly into the room, the others sidling in after him.

When he got in, he stood stock-still, his jaw slowly falling open as wrath and suspicion fought for supremacy in his heart.

'Shet Gopinath!' he exclaimed in a terrible voice to the figure that was sitting magisterially in the high-backed chair at the head of the table..'Shet Gopinath, by what right do you occupy that place? You are sitting in President's chair, and we have got no President as yet, I am thinking!'

Shet Gopinath exchanged indignant looks with the nine Councillors, who sat ranged on his eidier hand.

'I fear you are mistaken, Mr Divakar. Moreover, I must ask that you address the chair with more respect. We have a President. My fellow-Councillors have just done me the honour of electing me. I am too sorry you were not here in time, so that you could vote with them. But we could not wait! Under the Regulations meeting had to commence at io a.m. sharp; and Regulations must be strictly complied with. That is altogether mandatory.'

In nightmare stupefaction Mr Divakar turned unbelieving eyes towards Atlas and his terrestrial globe.

The clock stood at eight minutes past ten.

It was about half an hour later that I saw Mr Divakar. I had taken a morning walk from the old cantonment to the Town Hall, to hear the result. No one was about, so I sat on a bench in the gardens and waited. Turning round at the sound of footsteps, I saw Mr Divakar come slowly down the steps and approach me. His mouth was working furiously with futile objurgations and his usual flamboyance was utterly deflated.

'Great Scot, Rajaji!' I exclaimed. 'Whatever's the matter?'

He struck his right fist impotently into the other palm and groaned:

'It was the clock! It was fast by eight minutes-so we were late!' ,

'McBain's clock! I don't believe it; it's never been wrong yet.

'That is true. It is never wrong-unless some rascal moves the

hands! He changed clock, I tell you; and there and then he held meeting without us! But-how to prove it? It cannot be proved!'

Mr Divakar spoke bitterly, but not without a touch of grudging admiration. The whole story then came tumbling out-the strict orders to his side to arrive on time, his collection of them at the main entrance, the arrival of the three independents, the surprise of all at the lateness of their opponents, and then the horrid denouement!

'I tell you, we were going in to hold very prompt meeting without them, and then . .

Who could fail to sympathise with such a cruel reversal of fate?

I asked why they could not establish what the real time was. What about the railway station? Did they not have the right time there? Or the telegraph office?

'Yes, but of course we tried them all. I telephoned to stationmaster, but switch-board is too bad. After five minutes they give me only goods foreman-what can he know about time? And telegraph office is always engaged; so my men ran to it as fast as they could and got right-timed signalled from Delhi. They set their watches, but it took them fifteen minutes to run there and back.'

'No matter; you have got evidence, then, of the correct time! So, oughtn't that to make it easy ...?'

Mr Divakar checked my childish prattling with a gesture, and went on with his tale. As soon as they had found out the correct time, they had set their watches and run back to the Council Chamber in order to prove that McBain's clock had, for once, been wrong. They found Shet Gopinath still sitting in his chair, signing papers; and Mr Divakar triumphantly exhibited his watch.

'AW, Shetji! This is right-time as per telegraph from Delhi. You see; even now it is only ten-twenty-five!'

The new President looked at him kindly.

'I am very glad to know you have right-time at last, Rajaji. For the future I hope you will be arriving at our meetings more punctually.'

He indicated the clock with a gentle gesture. Its hands stood at ten-twenty-five exactly.

It was not long before another amendment to the Electoral Regulations was promulgated.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

Soon after the furore and fun of the Presidential election died down, the time came for my wife and me to go north and begin our tour of the Bhil country. A word of explanation is needed here about the background of my inquiry and its terms of reference.

The Government of India Act, 1935, while providing full re- ponsible government in the Provinces and a dyarchical system at the Centre,⁹ excluded certain jungle areas inhabited by aboriginal and hill tribes from the scope of the Act, and placed them under the direct control of the Governors as a 'special responsibility'. There was apprehension that the populations of the tribal areas were not equipped to take their share in a scheme of democratic government, and that their interests were liable to be neglected by a popularly- controlled Government. Those ideas, especially the former, were probably true; and, in passing, it may be noticed that if a similar delicacy had prevailed during the last twenty years many parts of the world would still be under the orderly tutelage of the colonial powers, instead of providing a feverish hotbed for corruption, tribal ambition, internal bloodshed and international intrigue, all done to the detriment of the common man and in the name of freedom.

Certain areas in our Province were thus Partially Excluded under Section 92, in particular the forest areas in the north of Khandesh and also those lying in a particular tract between Bombay and the Western Ghats. The Act provided not only that no Federal or Provincial law should apply in those areas unless the Governor so directed, but also that the Governor could make 'regulations for their 'peace and good government'. Finally, in the exercise of those powers, the Governor should 'exercise his individual judgement as to the action to be taken'. That meant that he should receive ministerial advice, but not necessarily act on it, in which event he would act under the eventual control of the British Parliament.

In actual practice these special powers were never used. But that is not the same as saying that their existence achieved nothing, or that Section 92 did not fulfil a useful purpose by focusing attention on areas which were in sad need of special help.

A Resolution of Government was published to the effect that the Governor

required that he should have information of the present condition of the Bhils and of the effect which Government action of every kind, whether actually taken or contemplated, is having, or is likely to have, upon the Bhils.

It went on to appoint me as a 'special officer' and to charge me with the duty of

investigating and reporting on the following among other matters:

(1) The present condition of the Bhils with special reference to the disabilities from which they are suffering.

(2) To what extent these disabilities are capable of being remedied by Government action.

(3) How far the measures taken by Government in the past to improve the Bhils are adequate and whether they are being regularly and satisfactorily carried out.

(4) What new measures require to be taken by Government.

(5) Whether existing Government agencies and methods are adequate to enable the Government policy in respect of the Bhils to be regularly carried out and developed and the effects of Government activity of all forms on the Bhils to be ascertained, or whether additional Government agency or methods should be provided.

It was later explained-a very necessary gloss-that my inquiry was meant to include all aboriginal and hill tribes living in the areas, and not only the Bhils. It was, however, with the Bhil country that we began our tour.

For several weeks we travelled slowly through the middle of the Bhil lands between the River Tapti and the Satpura Hills, meeting large gatherings of them at public conclaves in tire open, smaller

ELECTION AND EXCLUSION groups in private, and discussing local problems with officials of all departments, members of the Local Boards, and missionaries of many denominations including the (Hindu) Bhil Seva Mandal. I had previously sent out, and got replies to, a questionnaire covering the most important aspects of the aboriginal's life to all these people, and so had the advantage of beginning my task with a mass of written material already to hand.

It is a beautiful countryside, and could be a rich one. The good black cotton soil spread far and wide on all hands, interrupted by wooded hills and forest blocks of teak. These became steeper and bigger in an undulating park-like tract till they merged in the continuous woodland of the Satpura slopes.

In such a paradise it was sad to find so much human misery.

The country was settled; that is to say, the people lived in villages and by agriculture. And, apart from the wretched state of the land, it resembled outwardly other forest areas of the Bombay Dec- can. But it was that appearance, or rather the open communications that occasioned it, the roads, the river traffic, the telegraph wires and the post-offices, that made my work depressing. I soon saw that it was the contacts with the civilised world which these communications created, that had caused the aboriginal populations to be ruined.

Nominally they were independent smallholders. This status had, mercifully, been preserved for them by Government action in the past. Government had given them preference in acquiring land, and had also granted their lands on inalienable tenure, thus saving them from losing them all through the foreclosure of mortgages. In this, they were better off than other below-ghat aboriginals whom I shall mention later. The latter, lacking this protected tenure, had lost all their land, and their position as agriculturists was irretrievable.

But the Bhils' titular ownership was the only benefit they derived from their holdings. Universally-and hopelessly-in debt to the local moneylender-merchants {sowcars), they lived the lives of serfs. Every year they surrendered the whole usufruct of their property to their creditors, in return for minute doles to keep them alive enough to go on working.

They were oppressed, drunken, improvident, devoid of ambition, and the worst possible cultivators; indeed they had no incentive to be anything else. When reporting in the following Spring on this aspect of tribal life, I wrote:

The Bhil small-holder of these parts has been caught in a vicious circle. Having spoken to hundreds it is not an exaggeration to say that there is not one (except in Akrani) who is not in debt to sowcars, and not only in debt but hopelessly involved so that, unless special measures are taken, neither he nor his heirs have any prospect of extrication.

He begins the cultivating season in debt and without money, so he has to borrow to meet the cost of cultivation, to feed himself and his family for part of the year, and to get drunk occasionally.

At harvest-time the sowcar or his agent comes and takes the whole of the money-crops away, if necessary by force, measures it roughly, and credits the Bhil's account with the value - as calculated by the sowcar.... The Bhil's money-crops go this way as a matter of course. If his debt is large, or his sowcar particularly grasping, his food crops go as well....

... as a usual thing the Bhil's debts go on increasing on paper even when repaid in full in fact; and worse still the entire profits of agriculture are taken out of the villages and put into the pockets of non-agricul- turists. The Bhil ... is not a good cultivator. He is lazy at clearing, weeding, etc., sows his seed broadcast, and is wasteful of both water and soil by neglecting to bund and terrace his fields. Everywhere one can see fields covered with a network of water-courses which must remove untold tons of soil every year; and the Bhil has a habit of rapidly exhausting the soil of his land and then applying for permission to cultivate elsewhere. This state of affairs is largely due to idleness, which in turn can be partly accounted for by his addiction to drink; but it is also due to the fact that under the present system of agricultural economics he has no incentive to do things better. The soil of these areas is good, in large tracts excellent cotton soil, and ordinarily careful and industrious cultivation would bring wonderful results. One has only to look at the fields of the rich Shahus (non-Bhils) of the district for an example. But even if the Bhil were to become an equally good farmer, the benefit would, other things being equal, go not to him but to the sowcar. . . .

The methods of unscrupulous sowcars are widely known, but I will enumerate some of those employed in these areas, where the sowcar appears at his worst and most rapacious:

C^1^) The rate of interest charged is not less than 25 per cent per year or part of a year.

(2) Promissory notes, however, are frequently taken for much more than (usually double) the amount actually advanced. The thumbimpressions of borrowers are sometimes taken on blank paper.

(3) Recoveries are invariably made in kind. This is most pernicious since it results in the wholesale removal of all money-crops and sometimes of the food crops as well. The Bhil is regularly cheated over both the measurement of his produce and the rate of payment which is allowed for it.

(4) Usually the Bhil hands over his produce without a fuss. Should, however, he show any reluctance it is taken from him by force. Similarly, if he owes money to two sowcars or to a co-operative society his crop is pounced on by a sowcar's agent immediately it is ripe. The cooperative society enjoys theoretical priority, but this is a dead letter of the law in these areas.

(5) Sowcars regularly employ Pathans, Bhayyas or other bullies to terrorize the Bhil into meekness.... Instances of assaults, beatings, and hurt are of such constant occurrence that they do not arouse much comment locally unless unusual brutality has occurred.

(6) The sowcar insists on the Bhil assuming responsibility for the debts of his deceased father, uncles or other relations, although he is not legally liable for them. This is done by forcing him to execute a fresh promissory note in respect of these sums.

(7) The sowcar will resort to trickery to prevent the Bhil putting in an appearance in the Civil Court as defendant in his suit. He can frequently prevent the summons being served on the defendant, since the Court bailiffs, like most other subordinate officials, are often in his pay. If this fails, he resorts to other methods --- such as accompanying the defendant to the town under the guise of a friendly trip, almost a picnic, to settle these Government formalities; and then leaving him in a liquor shop for the day, while the suit is being decided ex parte. I was told of one case in which the Bhil was left all day with a friend of the sowcar outside the magistrates Court, where he was fondly waiting for his case to be called.

Meanwhile a decree was passed against him ex parte in the Civil subjudge's Court.

(8) The sowcar is bitterly opposed to co-operative societies, and will do all he can to over-reach and wreck them.

My recommendations included proposals for the composition of debts; a rigid control of the profession of moneylending by means of licences to be issued on strict conditions as to permitted methods of doing business, and inspection; and, since that was bound to cause a huge contraction in credit, a new system of agricultural credit to be run by Government agency.

Depressed by the things we had so far seen and heard in Khan- desh, my wife and I ascended the only road that crossed the Satpuras into the Akrani tract. It was a winding hill road, forty miles long, which surmounted the range and then stopped at a place called Dhadgaon.

Dhadgaon consisted of a rest-house, a school, a dispensary (not much used), and the office and residence of the Indian Range Forest Officer. He was an excellent man who combined in himself, like Pooh-Bah, all the main offices of State. Besides his forest duties, he was revenue officer, magistrate, and excise inspector. It was a system which worked very well.

In the Akrani we found ourselves all at once in a more primitive and a cleaner world.

There were no roads up here, and it was too far away and too difficult for the sowcar to extend his operations. Our impressions of this carefree, if malarious, country were as follows:

This area is an exception to what has been written before, the differences being accountable for by the inaccessibility of the tract which prevents contact with the outside world, and the comparative sparseness of the population (under sixteen thousand and nearly one hundred per cent Bhils).

There is plenty of cultivable land for all. The people are practically all independent smallholders. Each family lives on its fields in comparatively spacious huts. The vast majority of huts have no immediate neighbours, and it is rare to see more than five huts in one place. The produce of their fields is generally sufficient to maintain them. They also keep cattle for sale, as a side-line. If com runs short towards the end of the year they sell a cow or bullock, and the proceeds meet the gap in the budget.

There are no roads for wheeled traffic. Traffic is by foot or horse, and in the case of agricultural produce by donkeys. The latter business is in the hands of Bhois. The cultivator sells such of his produce as he does not require to the Bhoi, who takes it on donkeys to Taloda... and sells it at a large profit. The Bhoi though he does not pay very well pays cash. The cultivator therefore has money to supply his few needs in the way of salt, cloth and trinkets, and enough com to maintain himself and his family. He also supplements his diet by fishing and hunting, and if he carelessly runs short of food he can always sell an animal. He can afford to drink a great deal.. ..

He is not habitually in debt or even a frequent borrower, although he occasionally borrows a little money or grain from his neighbours. One or two Bhil patils (headmen) have made themselves comparatively rich by lending money, but there is no regular system or habit of debt.

The liquor shops are under Government management. Liquor is only 4 annas a bottle and great quantities are drunk. Illicit distillation is said to be carried on only on a small scale, but I would not vouch for this. Drinking does not have such a disastrous economic effect here as in other areas, and prohibition is not in my opinion quite so necessary as in other areas....

Crime is negligible. The people will not steal. Their chief crime is quarrelling over adulteries, usually in their cups, and committing hurt or homicide.

In general the Akrani presents a refreshing change from the below- ghat areas of Khandesh. The people are free, independent, truthful and law-abiding. As soon as communications improve they will be accessible, unless measures are taken to prevent it, to exploitation and victimisation in the same way as elsewhere. If the measures suggested in this Report are accepted, they will serve to protect them....

Bhils in general at that time had a reputation for being lawless and untameable. The reputation was not deserved; but considering their history and pre-history it was not surprising. They represented the remnants, in this part of India, of the ancient pre-Aryan population -the black-skinned, peeping, treacherous bush men whom the white invaders, perhaps of necessity, came to treat as enemies. Over the centuries they slowly came to be pent up in ever smaller areas in the more inaccessible hills and denser jungles, from which they raided and robbed the settled lands whenever opportunity offered.

In historical times they were still wild and, from the plain-dweller's point of view, anti-social. And willy-nilly they got mixed up in the struggles for power that were fought out in the vicinity. In the eighteenth century many disturbances took place in the course of the transfer of power from the Moguls to the Marathas; and terrible cruelties were perpetrated against the Bhils by the Marathas. Individual Bhils caught in a disturbed area were flogged and hanged without ceremony. Torture was freely used, and large-scale massacres of men, women and children were committed at various towns in Khandesh.

The same story repeated itself in the transfer of power from the Marathas to the British; and when it was completed the British authorities, like their predecessors, began at first to use severe repressive measures against the Bhils. When these measures failed to check their raids and robberies, there was a reversal of policy. Efforts began to administer the Bhil country in a kindly way, and in 1825 Lieutenant Outram set about winning their confidence. He conceived the idea of putting their fighting qualities and powers of endurance to good use by forming the Bhil Corps.

He started with nine men, then got fifty more. At last the favourable reports from these first venturers, combined with his own prowess as a hunter of tigers, broke down suspicion. In 1827 the Bhil Corps was inspected by a senior officer and pronounced 'highly efficient'.

They were received into the brotherhood of the Company's Army through the good offices of the Twenty-Third Regiment, Bombay Native Infantry. In the charming and pregnant words of the chronicler, 'men of the highest caste visited the wild recruits and gave them betelnut'.

The Bhil Corps was eventually absorbed in the Khandesh police force, and at the time of our visit there were a thousand Bhils in the

force. Even so the Bhils' reputation for criminality still stuck to them. Indeed, the Government Resolution which appointed me, and from which I have already quoted some extracts, opened with the words:

'The weaning of the Bhils from lawlessness ... is a special concern of the Government of Bombay.'

It needed nothing more than an examination of the statistics to see that the level of crime in the Partially Excluded Areas was lower than in the Presidency at large. I could also ascertain that the only area where Bhils committed more than their fair share of the local crime was a small one, in which they did not possess any land. Here, conforming to historical pattern, they were driven by want to commit house-breakings and road robberies. By and large I was able to report that:

'The Bhils inhabiting the bulk of the Partially Excluded Areas have a reputation for honesty and respect for the law. Offences against property are rare, and in some parts (e.g. the Akrani) almost unknown. The offences committed are usually hurt and homicide in the heat of the moment and often under the influence of drink. The Bhil is honest even in these crimes, for I have been told by police officers that, having committed the offence, he will freely confess it and even give himself up.'

In this respect, as in so many others, there was an utter unawareness in Government circles of the character and needs of the Bhil. Was this the state of things which the 'exclusions' from the Government of India Act were intended to perpetuate?

The purpose of my appointment and inquiry grew more and more irrelevant, as my work progressed. However, it was time someone reported something, and time that some light and fresh air were admitted to the dark places. . . .

If the condition of the Bhils of Khandesh provoked disgust and indignation, that of the Varlis and other tribes living in the Thana District between Bombay and the Western Ghats was still worse. There is not the time or the space to enlarge much more on the sad state of our tribal folk; so I will simply here enumerate three factors which made them the most wretched people I have met.

First their land for some reason had not been held on inalienable tenure. As a result it had all, during the preceding half-century, passed out of their ownership into that of their sowcars. The latter had now become their landlords, and their masters. They were tenants-at-will, inhabiting and cultivating the land that had once been

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theirs, and living on minute subsistence doles. In effect, they were slaves, liable to eviction and starvation if they displeased their landlords---their effective owners.

Secondly, they were subjected to a regular system and tradition of forced labour on the landlords' properties, known as veth. This labour was remunerated with a single meal per diem or, if cash was paid on rare occasions, it never exceeded one anna.

Thirdly, they pledged future services for immediate small cash advances. And since these debts, like the others, were in practice irredeemable and, as in Khandesh, were forcibly saddled on their heirs by means of fresh promissory notes, they and their families were for all practical purposes hereditary slaves.

All this I found going on within fifty miles of Bombay.

Today, as I sit at my desk and look out over the English fields and think back to that winter's tour among the aboriginals, a dreamlike or, rather, nightmarish feeling comes over me. However, as may happen even with a bad dream remembered, a few pictures stand out in contrast and relief against the background of outrage.

I see a stony track rising and falling sheer over a series of outlying spurs of the Satpuras. My hill pony humps me up a slope like a mansard roof, among the slender trunks of a teak forest, with sturdy determined bounds. Then he carefully picks our way down the far side molto staccato but occasionally glissando. There is a ford at the bottom. At some of the hairpin bends in the track stand wooden posts, rudely carved with the smiling face of a tiger, heavily whiskered. Here some ancestor, or bits of him, had once been found, a victim of the Bhil's constant enemy. At the end of the march I reach a valley where, hurrying darkly, a great river slips past the narrow meadows. It is the Narbada, our boundary with Indore, the end of my journey. I wait a while to rest my pony, relishing the river's strength and the secretive beauty of its purpose. When I have seen enough, I turn back; for that was the only object of my ride.

I see a hundred dark-brown men sitting on the ground, naked but for loin-cloth, a dirty kerchief wound on to the head, and a string round the neck carrying a charm or some lucky nuts. They are asking, of all things, if I can order the liquor-shops to be closed. They say they are tired of the loss and mischief they cause; but if the shops are there, they cannot resist the temptation. I take the part of devil s advocate and chaff them. But, always laughing---for the most cheerful folk are those who have the least---they will not change their ground.

I see the plaster and mud hut of two Spanish fathers deep in the forest. They are hospitably-minded, but have nothing to be hospitable with. Apart from faith, their home is furnished with two

Indian cots and two tooth-brushes. In their poverty and forgetfulness of self, they are the most Christian of the missionaries I met. They too can be merry-at times.

I see another gathering, this one in the dusk, outside the little rest-house at Dhadgaon. We are playing a record on our portable gramophone. In those days one had loud needles, medium needles, and soft needles, each longer and slenderer than the last. But the softest of all-and in time they are all you can get-are the thorns of the babul tree. So the Eroica is coming over pianissimo. When its last chord dies out the gathering, which has come silent and uninvited, melts away again into the night. . . .

Mention of the request that the liquor-shops should be abolished reminds me that I did, in point of fact, recommend that and also an attempt to enforce prohibition. Although in doing this I was influenced by repeated and widespread appeals from the people concerned, I later thought, and still think, that this went too far. Closure of the shops, yes; for here large sums of money, and borrowed money at that, were wasted in a manner that put the last nail in the coffin of the aboriginal's potential solvency. But to suggest total abolition, including the traditional distillation of the flowers of the mhowra tree, was too big a break, besides being enormously difficult. Nevertheless the demand for prohibition was real enough at the time, as events were soon to prove.

I was quickly put right about this by Verrier Elwin, whom I soon met several times in Bombay. Verrier was one of the greatest field anthropologists that have ever been. His books are not only models of comprehensive and accurate observation, but are also informed and enriched with human understanding, sympathy in its proper etymological sense, and humour.

In those days there was controversy between 'interferers' and non-interferers' in the approach to the aboriginal tribes. In theory the difference was that the 'interferers' wanted to break down tribal religion and custom in so far as they conflicted with their own subjective habits of thought, and as quickly as possible to bring the jungle folk up' to the level of their more civilised neighbours; while tile non-interferers', of whom Verrier was the champion, saw all sorts of danger in that, wished to put a brake on impetuous change, and thought the aboriginal ought to be left in possession of his customs and beliefs, perhaps not permanently, but for an indefinite time.

In practice however, the difference between them became wobbly- edged and faint. Once, when introducing Verrier as the guest speaker to the Bombay Rotary Club, I spoke of those two schools of thought and pointed out that non-interference was, truly speaking, an impossibility. Even Verrier himself by living among them-still more by marrying among them and raising a happy family-must be profoundly changing their outlook on life. Just by being in their midst, not to mention dosing them with quinine and taking up their cause with officialdom, he was making them interested in a world beyond their own, healthier, more confident-in fact, different.

So far as we in Bombay were concerned, the case of our aboriginals had gone far beyond any question of non-interference. Except for the lucky few in Akrani, they had been allowed to drift downwards to a state of quasi-bondage that cried aloud for interference in a big way.

Happening to be in Bombay one day, I called on B. G. Kher, the Prime Minister, to report progress. I carried in my pocket, to show him, a handful of the wild roots some of the people were forced to eat during part of the year, as an alternative to starvation. Kher was a man of large heart and overflowing compassion. He did not forget what I told him, and in due course his Government made efforts to adopt some of my proposals. But politics, we are told-horrid phrase, and still more horrid idea-is the art of the possible. The ministry was never strong enough to carry through its full intentions in such matters as tenancy and debt legislation either in the Partially Excluded Areas or in the Province as a whole. The pity was, that the old regime had not done what was needed during the decades when action would have been comparatively easy. Of this failure I wrote such apologia as I could:

Since the time of the cession of the Peshwa's territories successive governments have been occupied in the pacification of the country, the creation of a land revenue system, the introduction of civil and criminal codes of law, the development of communications and irrigation, and

other measures for the progress of the province. In the course of such major activities no Government appears to have asked itself, or at any rate to have answered, the question whether the Presidency's large tribal areas required any special treatment.

These areas have not been totally neglected, it is true, but it has hitherto been usually assumed that whatever measures were suitable for the country at large were suitable also for the tribal areas. This assumption is now being queried, and I submit that the conspectus of these areas contained in the following report will show that, in point of fact, the common law of the land is in many respects highly unsuitable for tribal areas, and produces serious oppression and exploitation.

Our introduction of the Bhil to the rule of law instead of the rule of force, previously his real element, has been like trying to teach a child to swim by throwing it in the middle of a pond. The Bhil has not been quite drowned; but he will never learn to swim that way. Meanwhile he is suffering many ill-effects from too long immersion in a strange element. He does not know how to master that element; instead, it masters him.

When it went on to the machinery for putting into effect my proposals, my Report could hardly maintain that there was a case for the Governor to use his special powers under Section 92 of the Constitution Act in order to remedy defects which had developed during the time of British rule. That was not quite the intention of the Act. But I did point out that, whatever its origin, Section 92 offered a very convenient vehicle, from the administrative angle, for carrying out the Government's policy of placing backward classes and backward areas on their feet; in other words, that the Governor could be advised by his ministers to issue the necessary Regulations.

It is hardly necessary to say that this suggestion cut no ice. The very notion of Section 92 and of 'special responsibilities' was too much of a red rag to the Congress Party.

All in all, my inquiry and report did little more than turn a spotlight on to some very murky comers and to prompt those in authority to wish to cure the things they could now see. It received a good Press in all the Indian papers and some of the English, and resulted in much sympathy and some attempt at action. If the

ELECTION AND EXCLUSION action was not as firm as we would have liked, it was probably because the time for firm action, and the opportunity, was long since past.

One thing, however, was done that I recommended, and it had excellent effect. A post of Special Officer was created in the Bhil area to protect the tribal folk s interests; and an exceptionally able young Farsi officer, Purviz Damry, was chosen for the job. At the end of

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1939 he was joined by Maurice Zinkin as Assistant Collector. Maurice, who stayed on in India after Independence as a business man, is now a recognised authority on Indian matters with many books and articles to his credit. Like Hugh Lambrick, he started his career with the advantage of being attached to me for training. Nothing I did during this period interfered in any way with the untrammelled exercise of his native abilities.

These two active young officers did much good work in a practical and direct way, as officers had always done in the rural parts of India. Without the help of any special legislation of the sort I had suggested, they got going in a big way against the exploiters, making intelligent use of those parts of the existing law that dealt with cheating, the passing of proper receipts and the like. Maurice, who

now lives in London, says they used my report 'as a sort of bible to guide us in moneylender chasing and so on.'

Purviz is now Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. He writes that the Bhil is better off than he used to be. Improved agricultural techniques, 'which we never dreamed of in our day', are now commonplace, and his 'marketing procedures are less ruinous'. There is an interesting sidelight on the drink question. Soon after I had reported, a strong teetotal movement developed among the Bhils without any sort of official abetment. 'Absolutely total abstention was brought about throughout the whole of the trans-Tapti area' by the 'almost hypnotic personality and technique' of a certain Goola Maharaj. Unfortunately the untimely death of this prophet was followed by the transmutation of his band of apostles into a gang of robbers!

'This,' writes Purviz, 'eventually culminated in an attempt on my life, and we had to prosecute the gang for attempted murder. The group was broken up after a running battle with the police. . . .'

Of such stuff was the texture of the administrator's life in India. And I have no doubt it still is.

Urbs Prima In Indis

'Four No Trumps'

Equipped only with ink and paper, and not a television camera and sound track, it is hard to give an idea of the wealth of meaning which went into these three words. The caller enunciated them with a telling emphasis on each, and divided them by two distinct pauses not to mention the pregnant silences that came before and after. The latter silence was accompanied with a fierce death-ray from lowered brows, focused on his partner's face and calculated to penetrate to the very depths of his soul.

His opponents, Nitya Deshmukh and myself, had no difficulty in interpreting these manifestations: Mr Divakar was making a 'conventional' bid. Not in the least wishful of playing the hand in No Trumps, he was trying to mesmerise Dr Pereira into making the conventional reply that would disclose the number of aces he held.

The Civil Surgeon and ex-officio Jail Superintendent was a pastmaster in all the permutations of erratic play; but he was exceptionally capricious in his responses to this particular convention. In spite of repeated and detailed instructions about its mechanics, I do not think he believed that it really existed. Now, after an interval of frenzied thought, he called Five Spades, thereby signalling that he held three aces, which ought to have been good news. The look of gloomy despair that it evoked came from the fact that Mr Divakar himself held two more. . . .

However, the Government Pleader's flexible mind did not take long to reach an alternative reading of his partner s bid. The number of Dr Pereira's aces was still a mystery; but surely, surely he must have some Spades? Mr Divakar held his right forefinger in front of his nose in order to focus attention on the dramatic call we were about to be treated to.

'Six Spades!' he announced solemnly, and immediately brought his fist down on the table to close tile bidding like an auctioneer.

Dr Pereira gave one more febrile look at his hand, and stared round the table in fierce defiance.

'Seven Spades!'

Mr Divakar hissed like a punctured tyre. And Nitya, entirely omitting his usual interval of trance-like introspection, doubled. It was, he later told me, on the guiding principle that Dr Pereira could never make seven of anything.

When Dr Pereira re-doubled, his partner's consternation was transmuted into surrender poisoned with cruel sarcasm.

'Go on, Doctor! Cut me up! I am helpless like one of your poor prisoners on your operating-table. It is a rather unfortunate thing for me, though, that I am not under anaesthetic!'

It very soon became apparent that Dr Pereira was going to make his contract with ease. A revoke was our only chance; but Mr Divakar, well aware how real that chance was, remained on unremitting watch. The Grand Slam, vulnerable, re-doubled, was duly made.

'Perhaps you are glad you are not under an anaesthetic, now,' said Dr Pereira equably, as Nitya and I took out our wallets.

Mr Divakar reached his hand across the table in handsome apology. 'But please not to do it like that too often! It is not good for me. After all, you are my doctor also. . . . So-we do not play together again?' He sighed. 'But Mr Halliday is leaving us for very fine promotion, so we must not complain.'

He was referring to the fact that during the last weeks of my special duty I had been posted. I had got orders that in April I was to go to Bombay to relieve Ivon Taunton¹⁰ temporarily as Municipal Commissioner and I was very much looking forward to this somewhat abrupt change of function, which was so typical of our challenging lives in the I.C.S.

The office of chief executive officer to the Bombay Municipality was not only as important and responsible as such appointments in a big city inevitably are, but also in one respect (I believe) unique. By a strange exception to the rule that local government bodies appoint their own officers, the post was filled not by the Corporation,

but by the Provincial Government. The Act which constituted the Bombay Municipality did not even ask the Government to consult the Corporation when making the appointment. The Commissioner could, it is true, be removed by a two-thirds majority of the Corporation; but, so far as I am aware, this Section became a dead letter, which is a tribute to the good sense of past governments, corporations, and commissioners. In point of fact this arrangement was a stroke of genius. It was worth a great deal to the City's efficient management and to its many cadres of officials that the chief executive officer could function free from dependence on the votes of the Councillors. In contrast, the Heads of Departments, who did not enjoy this freedom, had to become extremely flexible in the performance of their duties as the end of their contracts drew near. As one of them said to me: 'In our last three months we have ro run like anything!'

I thanked Mr Divakar for his good wishes and promised to visit Aramragar again as soon as I could, if only to see Dr Pereira make another Grand Slam. By that time, I added, I hoped also to find Mr Divakar installed as President of the Municipality. That was not tactful, perhaps, for the memory of his recent defeat still rankled. Yes indeed, he agreed somewhat savagely, he would be on the lookout next time for the tricks of Shet Gopinath. There would be no more fiddle-faddling with the hands of clocks. By now, he added, I must be knowing how moneylenders went about their business...

'Everyone knows,' I said tersely, 'But it goes on. . . .'

Nitya looked at me with mild solemnity. 'Everyone knows,' he echoed, 'and all must submit; some men suffer in their lives and some cause suffering; that is the law. And it is the law that makes the sin. Your Saint Paul saw that,' he went on, for Nitya could quote the scriptures of many religions. 'But he also saw it was inevitable. Is the law then sin?" he asked, and answered "God forbid!"'

'That's all very well,' I began indignantly, then stopped. There was nothing that was new to my audience that I could say, and if there were, it was not the time to say it.

'In any case,' said Nitya, ending his thoughts on a more pragmatic note, 'Gopinath is not a bad moneylender. He only does what is customary.'

Mr Divakar caught my eye and snorted indignantly, before he changed the subject.

'Mr Halliday, you have now been among our backward and aboriginal tribes for six months?'

I assented.

'And before that you were in charge of our criminal tribes also, for three years?'

'Yes.'

'In that case, you may be ready for Bombay Municipality!'

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

My wife and I were delighted with our house in Bombay. It was not just its size. After all we had lived in larger ones-in King Thibaw's palace, and in the colonnaded residence shaped like a battleship of the Collector of Mirpurkhas. We were delighted because, for the first time in our married life, we found ourselves reclining in long baths instead of folding ourselves into tin tubs, standing under showers and, of all modern marvels, pulling plugs. It was also nice, just for a change, to live in a city and to be driven to parties by a chauffeur in uniform. Many years later, chancing to turn the leaves of an Economist Desk Diary, I came across a comparative table that gave the real values, year by year, taking prices and taxation into account, of monetary incomes in the last few decades. From this I saw, not without chagrin, that I had long ago reached my financial peak, during the time I was Municipal Commissioner. Ever since then I had been getting steadily poorer. Not that we felt specially wealthy even at that time, with two children at school in England and other family expenses. But we did just about fall within the terms of Mr Micawber's dictum: 'Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness.'

Apart from such worldly and carnal satisfactions, and in fact more than them, I enjoyed my job. Bombay was a well-ordered place, and in many ways independent from the rest of the Province and of India. Its climate was not good: humid and hot, or humid and wet. But, except for that, it seemed to me the nearest thing to a Greek City State that the modem world could show. It was not only its beauty, set like a jewel in the surrounding waters of the Indian Ocean, and the wooded beauty of its harbour; it was its internal organisation also that gave the impression. It had its own magistracy; its own sheriff; its own very fine police force, distinctively uniformed in blue with yellow turbans, under a separate Commissioner of Police; its own Port Trust; and its own town services which functioned under the direct control of the Commissioner and under the remoter, policy-making supervision of the Mayor and Corporation.

I found myself more on my own and having more responsibility than ever before, and that in a Service where individual initiative was the order of the day is saying a great deal. There were several high-powered departmental heads to help and guide me: Mr Modak the City Engineer, whose huge department looked after the roads, drains, lighting, sewerage, besides such things as building regulations and permissions; Mr Nadirshah the Hydraulic Engineer, who kept the water-supply going, drawn chiefly from Lake Tansa fifty miles away; Doctor Mhatre the Health Officer, and Mr Coombs the fire chief. The Dean of the Medical College was Dr Jivraj Mehta, who lately came to London as India's High Commissioner. I went to a reception there to welcome him and found it nice to be at once recognised as one who had 'once been his boss'!

The administration of this first-class team formed one half of my duties. The other pertained to my relations with the Council and its Committees. I attended all meetings of the Council and the Standing Committee. Armed with the data and the expert opinions provided by the department heads I found I could advise on items of the agenda. Council meetings began with interpellations, on the parliamentary model except that there was only one person to give all the answers. Good humour prevailed on these occasions as a rule, and concealed the communal tug-of-war that was the mainspring of municipal, as it was of national, politics.

'For whose benefit is the Municipal Commissioner making these proposals ?' a Mahomedan Councillor asked.

It was a question that could not be answered by saying: For the benefit of the poorer residents of E Ward', or anything banal of that sort. What it actually meant was: How many of the new posts to be created would be given to Mahomedans?

I replied tartly that the proposals were not made, in that particular sense, for anyone's 'benefit'. Only after the posts had been sanctioned would the choice of incumbents be considered. That was greeted by applause and laughter from another quarter of the House. But, unfortunately, when my proposals came to the Standing Committee, a quick ad hoc alliance between the followers of Allah, Jehovah and Christ caused them to be thrown out. . . .

However, it did not take long to get accustomed to the basic principles of Corporation thinking, and to act accordingly. A more vicious practice called for stronger action. I discovered that municipal employees themselves, either for their own ends or under outside pressure, would sometimes lobby committee members against my own proposals; and up with that, I decided, I could not put. Having got a clear case I held proceedings and ordered two or three suspensions and demotions. This caused a shock of surprise both among Councillors and in the Press, since the thing had become a matter of everyday occurrence. But it was, I think, in the end conceded on all sides that it was a fair cop.

Perhaps the most interesting event during those months was a formal reception in honour of Subhas Chandra Bose, then President of the Congress. He was given the customary Address enclosed in a silver casket, and I was one of its signatories. Sultan (later Sir Sultan) Chinoy, who incidentally became a close friend of our family, was Mayor that year. He and I comforted each other with the reflection that our signatures were appended too per cent ex-officio, and did not commit us personally to the sentiments we had signed. I fancy that other Councillors felt the same. Subhas Chandra Bose was a stormy petrel even then; later he was to become something a good deal more dangerous-leader of the Japanese-sponsored group of Indian prisoners-of-war whom he had managed to persuade to join him in his anti-Allies activities.

I found it fascinating to study the working of the installations of a great city: to become a connoisseur of sewage, to be privileged to pull a fire alarm and time the arrival of the first engine, to hear the noise of the water-pipes as we followed the six-foot mains to their distant source by rail trolley. Even the refuse dumps, replenished by two train-loads a day, were no t without their magic, when approached

from up-wind. I fear I postponed sine die the visits I doubtless ought to have paid to the abattoirs and to the mortuary, not to mention its attendant incinerator; but our zoo, by contrast, was pure pleasure, and so were the other works of the Gardens Department including the famous Hanging Gardens on Malabar Hill.

The Municipality was among other things the Education Authority. It maintained numerous primary schools at which the compulsory system prevailed, a thing beyond the bounds of possibility elsewhere. It also assisted private institutions, schools, missions, orphanages and the like, with grants.

Among these was the Convent of Santa Clara in a far-distant suburb. I mention it in particular because I am tempted to re-tell a tale about its Sisters, which I think not only has an intrinsic charm but illustrates well the strange and potent ways in which faith can win its ends.

One hot-weather afternoon the Reverend Mother heard voices on the veranda outside her office. As soon as she heard them, she knew something was amiss. It was not only their garrulity and the timbre of fear; it was their association with certain preceding sounds, sounds of wheels and a horse's hoofs. For they were the wrong wheels, and the wrong hoofs.

With a brisk swirl of her white habit she stepped firmly over the veranda and out into the baking sun, in order to find out why Sister Maria and Sister Carlotta had come back from the town in a public tonga, instead of the convent's own trap.

When she heard the reason, all her firmness and briskness disappeared and her heart was suddenly drained of life. Pedro had fallen down in the main street and broken a foreleg!

She took a hold on herself. Was either Sister hurt? No. Was Niaz Ali hurt? No. She drew breath again and pressed her hands together. Here, at least, was cause for thankfulness. Meanwhile Sister Maria was worrying about something different.

'Mother, were we right to hire a tonga? We thought you might be anxious, if we were late. But---the expense . . .? ,

'You were quite right. I would have been angry if you had walked.

She turned to pay the tonga-driver with one of the convent's small store of rupees. The man saluted gravely, and in his manner of taking the coin contrived to convey both sympathy, and deprecation of the high cost of tonga hire. It was a very bad affair, he said.

He had seen the accident, which had been caused by the cobblestones in the street being coated with motor-oil. He paused while he searched his mind for a permissible way of describing those responsible for such a state of things; but in this he failed. Even a mild expression like 'sons of pigs' would be unseemly in such holy company.

'He fell down jo-like a sack of flour. Then, he lay on the ground like this.' With a sweep of the hand he illustrated how poor Pedro had lain, flat as a carpet.

'How badly was he hurt?' asked Reverend Mother. But she knew the answer already.

The tonga-driver turned away his eyes. 'The leg was broken, so ...'

The three nuns turned sadly indoors. The telephone began to ring.

It was a silent gathering in the parlour after vespers, even though this was the hour of relaxation and silence was not enjoined. Two anxieties clouded the minds of all. The first, the sentimental anxiety, related to the sufferings and demise of poor Pedro. The second and more practical anxiety concerned the question of how the Sisters from now on were going to get to their work at the Zenana Mission School.

Reverend Mother announced that she would ask Father Faletta to make a special supplication at compline. Surely .the Lord would not let His work suffer for lack of a pony. .. .

'And please, Mother, ask him to say a prayer for poor Pedro too.' Sister Carlotta, who was very young and very tender-hearted, raised wide, brown, moist eyes towards the Mother Superior, as she made her request.

'But, my dear, did you not hear, when I told you that they had to put poor Pedro to sleep?'

Yes, but even so a prayer-just one little prayer.... I thought...'

What can you have thought, dear? We all loved poor Pedro.

But, when an animal dies . . .'

'You'll be suggesting a requiem mass next,' commented Sister Bursar tartly.

A stunned silence fell over the tea-table. It lasted until it was broken by a little giggle-Sister Carlotta again.

'I'm sorry, Mother. I didn't mean to laugh. ... It was just the idea of the requiem mass. Oh, how sweet!'

Even Reverend Mother could not forbear to smile.

Pedro had been a well-known character in the town, and few people could remember the time when the Little Sisters had not possessed him. By the time of this story his bay coat, which must once have been glossy as silk, had coarsened; his teeth had grown long and yellow, his hoofs splayed and undainty. And his gait, though still chic with arched neck and high-flung forefeet-for he had been well broken in his youth to harness and the bearing-rein- was so slow that bystanders wondered how equine feet could stay suspended in the air so long without being brought to earth by the sheer law of gravitation.

But in spite of the stigmata of the years Pedro remained impressive. Niaz Ali groomed him with devotion, and polished his brass and leathers to a state of refulgence. More than anything else, though, it was his personality that charmed. The expression of his face carried so much worldly-wise benignity that my predecessor told me he had been put in mind of Cicero's essay on the beauties of old age. Mundane cares would melt away at the reassurance of his tranquil gaze; and ugly anxieties would fade before the perfect discretion of his bearing.

His death was a shock to all, for by evening there was hardly a home to which the sad news had not penetrated. Men of all creeds in the little town grieved, and asked themselves how the Sisters would now be able to reach their work.

Towards sunset Niaz Ali arrived at the convent With the trap drawn by a yoke of borrowed bullocks. He was full of distress for Pedro, and also of secret fears for himself: for what could be the future of his portfolio in an establishment now horseless?

But Reverend Mother rallied his spirits. She told him that Father Faletta had been apprised of their predicament, and was going to ask for help. And help, having been asked, would most certainly be vouchsafed by the Master for whom they all worked, Christians and Mahomedans alike. Of that he could be absolutely sure. So Niaz Ali was comforted, and promised that he too would pray for help at his sundown devotions.

Thus it came about that two prayers went up that evening from two separate places. One, wordless and unformed, ascended from Niaz Ali's prayer-mat spread Mecca-wards by the garden gate. The other, embellished with biblical allusions, expanded with a proliferation of relative clauses, and flavoured with difficult inflexions in the second person singular, was spoken on the altar steps of the chapel of Santa Clara. But, however different in presentation both petitions were for the same boon-for the filling of Pedro's empty stable and of the vacant place between the shafts of the convent trap.

Both petitions were destined to be granted with a promptness which even the most faithful might find gratifying, and the less faithful quite surprising. For it was no later than half-past seven next morning that Reverend Mother saw Pedro's successor!

She was leading her little flock from Mass to the refectory, when she saw him. He was a beautiful chestnut of about Pedro's size but finer in the bone; and his coat was ablaze in the glory of the early sun. As was to be expected in the circumstances, he was innocent of headstall, halter, or any other sign of earthly contacts. And, as if realising that he had come to a place of assured welcome, he was already taking a light breakfast of hay that lay near poor Pedro's late residence.

'Do you suppose he ....?' Sister Bursar began.

But she was interrupted by Reverend Mother, to whom all things were clear. Without a moment's hesitation she turned the Sisters back to the chapel to return thanks for the gift granted so speedily in answer to their prayers. .. .

'He is beautiful,' Sister Carlotta conceded an hour later. 'But he doesn't look quite as good as poor Pedro. Of course,' she added-for Sister Carlotta was always ready to find excuses for others---'Of course, he is a little younger; so perhaps in time . . .'

Much younger,' Sister Bursar put in tersely,' and let us hope much faster too.'

'Oh, Sister! How could you?'

Sister Carlotta's gentle heart came very close at that moment to harbouring ill-will. She saved herself by changing the subject.

'Isn't it wonderful that our work is found so-so acceptable? It's as if we weren t intended to waste time walking to the school, even for a day!'

Sister Bursar did not reply. Compared with the others she was very quiet. Look! she exclaimed at last. 'Here comes Niaz Ali with the trap.'

The sisters were on their veranda, waiting to watch Pedro's successor being installed in office. Niaz Ali dragged the trap into position, lowered the shafts to the ground, and went up to the chestnut halter in hand. The latter seemed happy to give himself up. He nuzzled Niaz Ali softly while the headstall was being put on him; then walked sedately in his wake to the place where his harness waited for him in a heap. The Sisters watched eagerly while Niaz Ali invested him with collar, bridle, blinkers and bit. It was of course not a bit surprising that he should be so well-behaved....

It was time now to back him between the shafts.

'Why is the poor fellow shivering?' asked Sister Carlotta. 'Surely he can't be cold.'

But by then he had stopped shivering.

Having got him into position, Niaz Ali stooped to raise the nearside shaft; and as he did so the splashboard came into momentary contact with the horse's rump. Outraged by this liberty, coming as it did on top of the horror of the blinkers, the chestnut seemed suddenly to decide that enough was enough. Standing firm on his forefeet, he lashed out lustily with his heels.

Plonk /

The result was encouraging. A splinter of board sailed through the air. Then he went to it with a will. In a matter of seconds splashboard and box disintegrated, and before Niaz Ali could get him clear, he had started in on the wicker-work of the body.

At that point Pedro's successor became disenchanted with the whole adventure. He jerked free, gave a terrific buck, jumped the wall, and trotted gaily up the road with Pedro s leathers flapping round him, and Niaz Ali in laborious pursuit.

Tile Sisters looked at each other in dismay.

'I shall have a word with Father Faletta,' Reverend Mother announced. Her face had taken an expression both puzzled and stem. A King of Israel might have worn the same look, had he fleetingly suspected Elijah of being a priest of Baal in disguise.

That same evening my predecessor was in a group at the Willing- don Club in Bombay. They were discussing the prospects of the next day's racing.

'Talking about horses,' said His Highness of Ninigarh, 'a funny thing happened this morning to one of mine.'

It seemed that one of the young racehorses from his racing stable had slipped his bridle at exercise that morning and bolted off across country. An hour later he had trotted home to his stable, flapping -of all things!-odd bits of draft-harness round him. Five minutes later he had been followed up by the convent syce, who, when he had got his breath back, had a strange story to tell. His Highness repeated it, and all agreed that it was a funny thing; indeed, the club resounded with shouts of laughter.

'No, he wasn't hurt,' His Highness said in answer to a question. 'So all's well that ends well.' He got up to go home.

My friend remarked that it had not ended so well for the Little Sisters. They had first lost their horse, and now their trap. The other hesitated on his way out. He was looking pensive as he closed the door.

Next morning a shiny buggy behind a sturdy grey pony jingled to a halt at the convent gate. An embossed letter told Reverend Mother that His Highness had been concerned to learn about the convent's loss, especially as it had been caused in part by the negligence of his own servants. He was most anxious that the wonderful work the Sisters were doing should not be hindered; and therefore hoped that they would accept the horse and trap that had brought the letter, as a gift to the convent.

In this way the Little Sisters received a substitute for poor Pedro; and all the world said 'What a bit of luck for them!'

But Reverend Mother did not think it was luck.

Nor, for the matter of that, did Niaz Ali.

Mention of the Willingdon Club in Bombay leads me astray on another digression---the question of clubs in India in general and of exclusive European clubs in particular. Few writers on India have failed to notice those clubs, or to condemn them categorically and castigate out of hand those responsible for them or a party to them.

The very idea of a club with a rigid racial bar on membership is distasteful, whether it is an English club in Calcutta or a non- Jewish club in New York or Johannesburg. It is peculiarly distasteful to those who have spent years of their lives trying to break down barriers of that kind. But in this, as in other things that concern India, easy condemnations and prompt castigations are liable to be wide of the mark. There are at least two sides to most questions, and I shall try to set out a few considerations that I have not seen elsewhere, as an antidote to over-simplification.

Starting with the extent of the practice, one must first take note that the clubs which had a colour-bar were a very small minority of the total number. They were mosdy residential clubs, usually extremely comfortable not to say luxurious, in the big cities, together with a few 'gymkhanas' in some of the same cities. The vast majority of clubs, scattered in district and garrison towns up and down the country, were open to all races. Their exclusiveness was of a different sort: they were generally speaking clubs for officers and senior officials, and as the numbers and proportions of Indians in the services increased so did their membership of the clubs. There was never an absolute rule against non-officials, if they were otherwise eligible; but their numbers were small. This was partly because the members, both Indian and European, liked to spend their evenings (however much shop was talked) away from immediate contacts with the world they had to administer. It was feared, with reason, that non-official members might abuse their position, not so much by actually tackling the officials about current causes and problems in the bar or billiard-room-although that too was not unlikely-as by pretending to their clients outside that they had done so or would do so. There was also the risk that too large an entry of the general public would alter the essential character of the club and make it a less pleasant place for the members-a consideration that operates strongly in any club worth the name all over the world.

In the larger centres, where as I have said exclusive European clubs did exist, there were also non-colour-bar clubs, and these could be in the top flight for amenity and expense. In our Province the Royal Western India Turf Club at Poona and the Willindon Club in Bombay at once come to mind. These great clubs, like the small mofussil ones, provided plenty of scope for social contacts; and many of the jolliest parties and dances took place there.

A further point is that the Europeans were not the only community to have exclusive clubs. There were exclusive Hindu, Maho- medan and Parsi clubs; and the Hindu swimming Bath on Back Bay was quite as big a landmark as the Breach Candy Baths for Europeans. No one thought of upbraiding the other communities about their clubs. The factor that made it a sore point against the British was, in my opinion, that they were at that time the ruling community. Not unnaturally it was galling for Indians to think of members of that community shutting themselves up together in seeming superiority. The rest of the world felt it was 'missing something', that it was excluded not only from the company of Europeans-which after all was nothing so wonderful-but from an important side of life. There was probably a mistaken feeling that club life meant something more vital and important than it actually does.

That there may be something in this view is perhaps borne out by the fact that a number of these exclusively European clubs have still continued as such since Independence. And now, no one minds them! In fact, one Head of State has consented to be Patron to such a club. Like Americans in Madrid or Frenchmen in Ankara, the Europeans in India can at last, as a minority group living far from home, have their clubs without being accused of arrogance. However, to end on a personal note, I still myself dislike the idea of rigid racial barriers either for clubs or for anything else.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

I have lately come across an extract from the Times of India dated July 1938; and, blushing slightly, I reproduce the gist of it. It records that Mr A. P. Sabawala, Chairman of the Standing Committee paid a tribute to me in public. He said I was 'the youngest Commissioner the Corporation had ever had. I had been with the Committee for only a short period, but within that period I had shown remarkable grasp of municipal problems and great tact and ability.' He ended by saying 'he was sure it would not be long before I came back to them as their permanent Municipal Commissioner'.

The earlier part of these remarks I repeat only out of pure conceit, and hope it may be forgiven at a range of thirty years! But the last sentence was founded on certain knowledge. I had lately been summoned by the Chief Secretary and told that Ivon Taunton was being promoted elsewhere and that, if I agreed to postpone my leave, the Ministry had decided to appoint me as the permanent Commissioner. I said I did agree to postpone my leave; and I further agreed with his next proposition, that I was a 'very lucky young man.'

During the weeks I had been acting for Taunton I had acquired a great liking for the job, which I felt I could come to do well, for my colleagues and for the Councillors. I even liked the Municipal Building, a very large and costly Victorian affair, Venetian Gothic in its lower strata and crowned with a Byzantine cupola surrounded with pinnacles. It was a dome as stately as that of Xanadu, and also, some might say happily, a miracle of rare device.

Given good faith and hard work and a modicum of ability, it is probably easier for foreigners to administer a country than for its own nationals, which is largely the reason for the success of the British administration of India. By a.d. 2170 as Bernard Shaw¹¹ has predicted, this concept will be more generally accepted than it is today. In that year Confucius, speaking of England, will say:

'Ever since the public services have been manned by Chinese, the country has been well and honestly governed. What more is needed? Burge-Lubin\'. 'What I can't make out is that China is one of the worst governed countries on earth.'

Confucious: 'No. It was badly governed twenty years ago; but since we forebade any Chinaman to take part in our public services, and imported natives of Scotland for that purpose, we have done well.

On reflection the reader may agree that Shaw had got something there; and when next someone says to him that self-government is better than good govemment-which is a clichd on a par for manifest untruth with 'All power corrupts, etcetera'-I hope he will react with a properly rude noise. So far as Britain is concerned, it might be a good thing if a.d. 2170 were already here.

Any regard for me and my services expressed by Councillors was more than reciprocated by my feelings for them; and my affection extended not only to municipal personalities and affairs, but to Bombay itself. It was the place where my parents lived, where my brother and sister and I were bom, and where my father died. Other family graves must be in Calcutta or elsewhere, but his was here. Our home was Anstey Lodge, Cumballa Hill. I left it at the age of four, but still retain memories going back to that time of bits of the house and garden-of the room over the porch with the telephone, and of the 'howd' (water-point with cement basin) in the garden where I filled my mobile watering-cart before being taken by Ayah for a walk; it was replenished en route as necessary by visits to neighbours' gardens and howds. I now made one or two pilgrimages to the house, which was not far from our new abode, and found it unchanged from the old family snapshots of it. It is a pity that most visitors to Bombay are so afflicted with its sticky hot-house climate and their own prickly-heat, that they cannot appreciate its beauties.

I suppose I must have been guilty of some measure of hubris during those months, for nemesis was lying in wait.

Kher, the Prime Minister, sent for me one day and, not without embarrassment, explained to me that, after all, I could not become the permanent Municipal Commissioner. The claims of another officer, an Indian several years senior to me, had come up for consideration and were now found to be stronger than mine. The Government had changed its mind. I wondered idly if the new orders came from the Congress High Command; but that was only of academic interest. There was nothing to be done but grin and accept. The other man's claim was undoubtedly stronger; but it was at the time a little bitter to have been chosen and then unchosen.

I could not know that, before much time had elapsed, I would be back in Bombay in a role more intimate and vital even than the Municipal Commissioner's. . . .

Meanwhile, as consolation prizes, the Corporation gave me a formal farewell party which, even without Sultan's gentle prompting, I realised was a great honour. And I no longer had to postpone my leave.

After an autumn spent in Devon and France-we bought a brand-new car for less than £150 and motored south to Pau, where I had much fun pursuing bagged foxes and English fox-hounds at high speeds (the foxes were re-bagged at the end and lived to run another day)-we ended the year, which we had begun in the forests of Khandesh, in a house, since demolished, looking out over the snow-bound Parks at Oxford.

Deccan Interlude

'Biri, sigret, matches! Roti! Kibab!\'

The dolorous cries echoing along the roof of the station were the music of the pibroch; the hive-like buzz of the travelling public supplied the drones. The cries told us that smokers could buy cigarettes rolled either in the leaf or in paper and the wherewithal to light them, and that nourishing pancakes and savoury meats fried on skewers could also be had.

'Solapur! Hindu pani!'

That told what everyone knew-that Hindus did not drink the same water as others-and furthermore that we had arrived at our destination.

We had said good-bye to our house on the Parks at Oxford, to my mother and to our small son now at St George's School, Windsor Castle. Respited with the rest of the world from war by Munich, we had been posted to a District in the far Bombay Deccan, Sholapur on the Hyderabad border. After the noisily peaceful seclusion of an overnight train journey in India it was time to face the world, which was heralded by a boarding-party of blue-clad porters. Three minutes later we were following in their wake through the crowds and the swirling eddies of dust, and in our nostrils rose the special smell of an Indian railway station compounded of curry-powder, mangoes and manure. The temperature at 9 a.m. was 90 in the shade, the air stale and baking. The heat reflected from the sundrenched platform hit us like a blow. Everything was up to sample. Our leave was over, and we were home again.

We were met by the outgoing Collector, the same Hugh Lam- brick who once as a supernumerary officer had had the advantage of being initiated by me into the arcana of an Assistant Collector's life. We were garlanded by the Municipal and Local Board Chairmen, the City Magistrate and others in due order: that is to say big garlands on my neck, smaller ones for my wife and smaller still-little more than flower necklaces---for our daughter. Then, liberally sprinkled with rose-water, we drove through the city, past the fine moated fort and the Siddeshwar temple, to our new home.

The Collector's bungalow at Sholapur was so typical of hundreds of official dwellings up and down the land, that it merits description. It was, of course, single-storeyed---the common characteristic which has given rise to the English word 'bungalow', although in point of fact the word simply means a house or residence; homes in India can have two or more storeys or even be on the top floor of a block of flats, and still be bungalows-and it was arranged on a plan sanctified by immemorial custom. In the middle was the living-room, the front part of which was the drawing-room and had a large bow with french windows abutting on the veranda, and the rear part the dining-room. This extended to the back of the house and was connected with the kitchen by a roofed pathway.

On either side was a large bedroom, and each bedroom had two bathrooms, for Him and Her. The word bathroom in this context does not connote an aseptic grotto with tiled walls, low-level suite, bidet and porcelain bath (h. & c.), all in matching shades. It was a subfusc cell smelling of wet stone, furnished exclusively with a large sink that occupied a third of the floor-space and drained through a hole in the wall into the garden. In the sink stood a tin tub and a wooden grille to stand on. A further, smaller, section of the apartment contained the commode and (if it was His) a pisspot on a tall stand, presumably to spare Him the fatigue of raising the vessel by hand. This smaller room had a door giving direct on to the garden, through which, preceded by a tactful cough, would enter the sweeper on his way to discharge the duties imposed by his dharma.

No furniture of any sort was provided by Government. A few derelict cupboards and crazy side-tables might perhaps be taken over from one's predecessor at a valuation. Otherwise the whole of our domestic belongings went about with us on trains, lorries, boats, and bullock-carts at risk from accident and shipwreck.

The house was raised on a plinth four or five feet high, and a wide veranda guarded by a wooden bulwark stretched along the length of the front and followed the bow of the drawing-room. The roof was high and steep-pitched. In our day it was tiled; but when the house was first built and occupied by Meadows Taylor and other famous predecessors, it was probably thatched.

At one end of the house an extra room had been added as an office, and here, when in headquarters, I would do most of my routine work. By a humane dispensation which I think did not apply in most Provinces, the Bombay Collectors worked in their own bungalows; the more spacious and dignified offices allotted to them in the Government buildings (kacheri) were only used on special occasions. At fixed times every day the Collector was at home to visitors, to pleaders, to his own clerks, and to applicants. All of the last would be heard in person in the informal surroundings of the Collector's private veranda.

A large acreage of arid Deccan around the bungalow was contained by a low, broken wall of sun-dried brick to form our 'compound'. In front of the house itself there were a few trees, two or three clumps of bamboo, a lawn which grew grass only in the monsoon, and some beds of zinnias and cannas. Apart from these hostages to the rain-god the vast area was uncultivated and lay open to the burning sky and to the daily swirl of dust-storms. But it was not unused. Hugh Lambrick had installed a nine-hole golf course. That is to say nine small patches of India were covered with sand, with a hole in the middle of each; and an equal number of teeing-grounds were marked off with stones. The only hazards were the house itself and a large disused step-well full of cactus, the reputed home of innumerable cobras. I added to the amenities by making a jumpingcourse for our ponies. By such devices an otherwise forbidding abode was made into a jolly place to live in.

Here we installed ourselves and got ready for the hot weather, which was just beginning. And here within a very few weeks we were embroiled in some vicious communal rioting. But before I tell of this I ought first to say something about the District and its inhabitants.

It is an area of the central plateau devoid of features and of precarious rainfall. One south-west monsoon in three is poor, and some parts depend chiefly on the winter (rabi) crops planted with the chancy help of the return monsoon in October. The people are

patient, tough, brave, and in my opinion the salt of the earth. They are mostly Marathas and allied castes, with Lingayats growing steadily in numbers towards the south, in the direction of Biiapur. Since I knew both Marathi and Kannada, I was at home with both elements.

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When rain falls seasonably much cotton and ground-nuts are grown in the northern parts. I expect the area has been much developed in recent years, but even in my time several market-towns had cotton ginning and pressing factories, which helped to feed the big mill industry of Sholapur. They were cheerful little centres with municipalities, markets, law-courts and administrative offices. One of them, a town of nearly fifty thousand inhabitants, had lately

become the home of a young bachelor relation of mine, George Rawlings. A newly-qualified mechanical engineer, he had lately taken on the job of building and equipping a new factory for the Barsiwadi Ginning and Pressing Company.

By the time I reached Barsiwadi in the course of a preliminary tour of the District it had already become fashionable to greet George with the inquiry: 'How's your drainpipe?' George was by way of being a raconteur, and the story of his drainpipe was currently in strong demand. Since it reflects some features of the Indian scene which cannot truthfully be omitted, I have obtained his consent to re-tell it here, however unworthily.

An important character in the tale is the boy Shankar; and I will begin with George's account of how Shankar came into his life.

Although he had not been in the country many weeks before meeting Shankar, George was already, he told us, well on the way to attaining a nirvana of oriental resignation. The floor, walls and roof of his factory were in position, and had been so for some time; but a few things were missing before his contribution to the gross national product could begin. For example, all his machines were lying in the Bombay docks awaiting a strangely delayed clearance; his water and electricity connections were mysteriously held up; and his frequent applications to the Labour Bureau for workmen either semi-skilled or capable of becoming so, had fallen on seemingly deaf ears. On the credit side, however, he had got Bachan Singh.

Bachan Singh had once been a P.W.D. mistri, a word that may be loosely rendered as 'artisan' but is also applicable to a cook. Although recruited by George in the notional grade of foreman, he enjoyed working with his own hands, a thing utterly taboo to foremen in the West; and George's new garden gave plenty of scope for indulging that forbidden taste pending the arrival of the labour-force which he would one day command. Totting up his balance-sheet George concluded that the shell of a factory, a house, and Bachan Singh, together amounted to a good start; for the rest-well, the shooting season was now at hand....

One day Bachan Singh, who had been pouring concrete surrounds for a flower-bed, straightened up when George drove in at the gate and came over to speak to him.

'Sahib, four men have come.'

'Good, where are they?'

'They are asleep.'

'I will see them.... Better wake them up first, though.'

Bachan Singh's beard wagged in amusement as he went off to rouse the recruits from their slumbers. Three old-seeming men and a boy of fifteen shambled out of the shade of a mango-tree. They were peasants, with dhotis girt high between bare and skinny legs, loose shirts, and grey turbans tied loosely on their heads. Saluting politely, they sank to their haunches in a row and registered respectful expectation.

'These are they,' said the man from the Punjab, carefully eliminating any trace of scorn from his voice.

George asked if they had come from the Labour Exchange, and the looks of respectful expectation were replaced by embarrassed non-comprehension. Bachan Singh sighed. George tried again.

'Who sent you here?'

'The Government.'

'Good. That means the Labour Exchange. I asked for men who can lay bricks or rig a block and tackle or mix concrete. Can you do any of these things?'

The visitors exchanged looks of peevish bewilderment.

'Can you lay bricks or work with concrete?'

'How can we know if we can do it? We have never done such things. We are workmen.'

'What work can you do?'

'The work of labour.'

'What kind of labour?'

'All kinds of labour-whatever order your honour gives.'

'What kind of work have you done before?'

'Labouring work.'

'You mean digging?'

Smiles and chuckles of relief. Here at last was a word they knew. They and the sahib were on common ground after all. Yes, of course-digging. Hoping against hope, George asked Bachan Singh if he could use them.

'I can teach the boy. The others are too old.

'It is true,' conceded the spokesman, 'we are too old.'

George nodded to the boy. 'What is your name?'

'Shankar.'

'All right, Shankar. You can start tomorrow.'

Poked smartly in the ribs by his neighbour, Shankar got to his feet and salaamed.

'Sahib, I want a month's pay in advance. . . .'

There was much thunder and furious rain that night, a typical storm marking the end of the rainy season. In the morning the cistern which was supposed to hold the rain-water from the roof, had overflowed. The overflow had scoured a breach across the drive and gone on to swamp the new-made flower-beds and lawn. George's oriental resignation did not extend to damage to his property; all the reserves of wrath and resolution of the British householder at bay in his garden were summoned up by the desolate scene. As soon as he had expressed himself sufficiently on the subjects of the country, its architects, builders, and climate, he set about making plans.

He decided that what was needed was a large overflow pipe attached to the cistern and led through the garden wall to empty itself into the roadside ditch outside. And he must have it at once, before it rained again. Shankar was sent running with a summons to Ruttonji, a near-plumber (sc. a mistrt) also known as the Barsiwadi Sanitary Engineering Company.

'Can you do it, Mr Ruttonji?'

Mr Ruttonji pushed his Parsi hat---round, braided, Churchillian, but brimless-to the back of his head and smiled condescendingly. It was, he said, a very simple task for a firm like his.

'How long will it take?'

'Five hours-perhaps seven.... I will send my mistri,' he finished grandly.

'How much will it cost?'

Mr Ruttonji raised his shoulders in deprecation of such trifling thoughts.

Let us say---fifty rupees.'

George glanced up at the overcast sky, and decided not to haggle.

'All right. Can you do it today?'

DECCAN INTERLUDE

'My firm is always very prompt, sir.'

Mr Ruttonji smiled again, this time expressing warm reassurance, and went on his way.

It was a very long time before George saw him again; and he never met his mistri at all. That night it rained again....

At breakfast George's mood was the same as the day before, only more so. He was diverted from his hot brooding by the arrival of a visiting-card.

Mr Ali Bakhsh Gurbakhsh,' he read. 'Section Engineer, Roads and Drainage, Municipality of Barsiwadi.'

The Mahomedans of India are often of athletic build, with hawklike eyes and martial bearing; but many too are shaped more on the lines of Humpty-Dumpty, and Ali Bakhsh was one of these. He was short, round, and plainly happy in his work. Over a pink shirt he wore a grey cotton coat, unbuttoned so as to reveal the startling waist-line of his khaki shorts. A big fez worn at a jaunty angle surmounted two plump cheeks and a wide smile. He bowed sauvely. Was it correct, he asked, that Mr Rawlings desired to connect the drainage of his garden with the municipal storm-water drainage system?

George said well, er, yes. He had not actually thought of it quite in that way, but he now rather supposed that that was what he did desire.

Mr Ali Bakhsh laughed with pleasure. In that case, ... He produced a printed paper and presented it to George with another bow.

'This, sir, is application form for licence to make connection. I have already filled up all answers on your honour s behalf. It describes exact positioning of cross-pipe and of down-pipe also on external eastern wall of your property. Attached to it also is sketchplan of the work provided by your contractors all in order as prescribed by regulations. You simply and solely must sign your name at the bottom, sir.'

George signed his name at the bottom.

'Well, that's that. Can Ruttonji start now? He didn't tell me he had to get your permission.'

Mr Ali Bakhsh laughed some more.

'It is not my permission, sir. I am only humble sectional engineer. It is municipal permission, and it is very necessary. Any person who connects private drain to municipal system without licence,' he intoned, 'is liable to prosecution; and the work may be dismantled forthwith also, at sole discretion of Town Engineer.'

'I see. Well, if everything's in order now, we'll go ahead.'

The other made a sharp hissing noise. 'Oh no, sir; it is not permissible to commence any works in anticipation of licence. Naturally, sir, as soon as licence receives sanction, at once we will send it automatically to your honour's contractors, and they may then begin the work immediately. But first licence must have approval from municipal President on a recommendation from Chairman of Roads Committee. And before that Chairman of Roads Committee must have received technical approval from Town Engineer. The Town Engineer,' he ended coyly, 'gives his approval after receiving Initial Report and O.K. from Yours Truly!'

'Good Heavens!... So Ruttonji can't do the job today either?'

Mr Ali Bakhsh raised his shoulders sadly. 'Such are regulations; we are helpless.... But I will try my uttermost to expedite for your honour's sake.'

'Yes, please do! How long do you think . . .?'

'There is licence-fee also, sir.'

George, by now punch-drunk, agreed that naturally there must be a licence-fee, and asked how much it was.

'Ten rupees, sir,' was the sombre reply.

When George got out his wallet and handed over a ten-rupee note, Mr Ali Bakhsh smiled whimsically. 'Oh, but sir, fee is not payable until licence is issued, and then only it must be paid within three days thereafter.'

'Oh? . . . Oh well, that isn't the licence-fee then; I'll pay that when I get the bill. Meanwhile you just, er, hang on to that Do you understand?'

Mr Ali Bakhsh evidently did understand, for the note had already disappeared. 'I will make all haste then, sir. You see,' he went on as he turned to go, 'I am family man. I have eight children and my wife is carrying again. Salary is small, sir-but income must be large.'

A week passed, and the only developments were two more

thunderstorms. At the end of it Ruttonji, whose whole attitude George found distressingly phlegmatic, confirmed that no licence had come; so George went to see the Town Engineer.

Two pattewallahs were camped on his front veranda, smoking biris and chatting murmurously as doves. When George came up the steps, one of them got laboriously to his feet and scanned him with lack-lustre eye.

Is Mr Patil in?'

The man grunted and looked at his colleague. 'Is Patil Sahib inside?'

The question was clearly both unanswerable and boring.

'Who knows?'

The first pattewallah took up the responses.

'Perhaps he is out on inspection.'

'Perhaps. Who knows?'

'If not, he must be busy.'

'He is always busy.'

George rattled some coins and was handed a printed slip.

'Write your name on this. I will make inquiries.'

Two pieces of silver changed hands. The pattewallah opened the door behind him and, calling out 'A sahib has come', motioned George to go in.

Mr Patil wore European clothes. Dapper and erect, he sat beneath an electric fan and in front of a table piled high with papers.

'Mr Rawlings! I am so pleased! Pray sit down. I expect you have some query relating to your factory; just tell me what I can do to help you. But first---I hope you had no difficulty in coming in? These pattewallahs, I am afraid, sometimes ... you understand?'

'No special difficulty.'

'Tell me confidentially. Did they ask you for baksheesh? Did you tip them? ... I have to know these things, you see.'

'Well, er . . .'

'Ah, ah. What was it? One rupee? Two rupees?'

George nodded, and Mr Patil jotted down the figure with a sad shake of the head.

'I must apologise to you; these things are difficult to control.

Now, sir, what can I do for you? Is it about the branch main to your site?'

George explained the humble and domestic nature of his needs, and Mr Patil beamed on him kindly. 'Ah, ah, now I understand. It is simply a question of drainage connection under Rule 37 (c). Now let me see what I can do to help you. Let us find the Section Engineer's report.'

He worked his way down a foot-high pile of folders and extracted the one next to the bottom.

'Here it is! You see the pressure of work we have? All these applications awaiting technical approval-how can I make the time to visit all these sites? The Section Engineers, you see, are not always reliable. Which one came to you? Ah, ah, Ali Bakhsh-a Musulman-not very reliable. Did he by any chance, Mr Rawlings, ask for anything?'

'No.'

Mr Patil frowned, but whether in displeasure or disbelief George could not guess. 'Did you not give him anything? I fear some of these men have the habit of expecting presents.'

'He didn't ask for anything. But I did give him... perhaps I ought not to have....'

'Ah, ah, so you gave him something! You are right of course; it is not permitted. I think you gave him . . . five rupees?'

'Ten.'

\'Ten rupees.' He jotted down another note, shaking his head even more sadly than before. 'No, Ali Bakhsh is not reliable.'

He picked up George's folder. 'Well, Mr Rawlings, now to your business. And, to show how I appreciate your co-operation, see this!' He dropped the folder dramatically on top of the pile. 'You see? Your case will now have the very first priority!'

'Thanks. When can I go ahead with my drainpipe?'

'Very soon, let us hope. I must first obtain for you the recommendation of the Roads Committee. That is not difficult-but sometimes there are delays.'

Mr Patil sighed and went on sorrowfully to explain that the Committee clerk had a pile of pending applications twice as big as his own. But it might be possible, with luck, to induce him to hurry

thing^5^ up. Reluctantly he disclosed that his modus operandi was not always strictly honest. He often forgot pending cases, unless for some reason he wanted to oblige the applicants.

Can you make him want to oblige me?' asked George.

For you, Mr Rawlings, I might be able to ascertain that. If you oblige him, he may oblige you. It is possible....'

George took out his wallet and held up a five-rupee note. 'Is that enough?'

Mr Patil pursed his lips. 'For the clerk himself, maybe-but there are others. . . .'

George went on pulling out five rupee notes.

When he reached the fourth, Mr Patil shook his head comically from side to side and raised his hand.

It was three days later that Shankar's part in this history began.

From the day on which he had drawn his advance of pay and become the first recruit to Bachan Singh's establishment Shankar began to take George under his wing. Pitying his simplicity, he had run his errands, kept undesirable strangers from his gates, made the cook punctual, washed his car, and introduced him to a troupe of jugglers and acrobats. In his free time, moreover, he had mastered the art of setting bricks and working in cement. And it was in pursuit of this skill that he now propounded his scheme.

'Those rascals in the municipality are giving you trouble,' he began.

'Yes.'

'You have paid the little engineer and the big engineer, and still no licence has come.'

'It is true.'

Shankar, one of the authentic breed that knows everything, had the situation at his finger-tips. He now paused dramatically.

'Sahib, we do not require this drainpipe at all!

'But the water must be drained off when it rains.

Hopping from one foot to the other in his eagerness, Shankar urged George in the direction of the cistern. Arrived there, he explained his idea. Instead of taking the drainpipe through the eastern wall and discharging it into the roadside ditch, he, Shankar, would

construct an open channel lined with cement and make it run downhill to the foot of the garden and escape through a hole in the wall on to the waste land which adjoined George's garden on the south side. The cement would cost only a fraction of Ruttonji's estimate; and, Bachan Singh being away on leave, Shankar would carry out the entire project by himself!

It took just four days to finish.

On the evening of the fourth day, after loading his mentor with rewards, George telephoned to Ruttonji and cancelled the order for his drainpipe.

Ruttonji seemed to take the disappointment calmly. But as George was on the point of putting down the receiver, the conversation re-started.

'Yes, Mr Ruttonji? .. The plans, did you say? Oh I see, yes-the drawing you made to go with the application. You're going to charge me...? Well, er, yes, of course, if you ... Only a nominal charge? Thanks. Ten rupees, did you say? Oh Lord! Well-all right.'

The whole episode, George concluded, had been a lesson to him- an expensive one, certainly, for it had cost him over forty rupees not to have a drainpipe worth fifty, but he had learned it. Never, never again would he have any truck with the Barsiwadi Municipality and its officials!

When a visiting-card was brought in at breakfast next day, he laughed gaily to himself, as one who hears of some disease from which he is now immune; and got ready to put the bearer of it in his place.

Mr Ali Bakhsh came up the steps aglow with joie de vivre and carrying a long buff envelope.

'Your licence, Mr Rawlings!' he called. 'I am bringing it to your honour personally because Ruttonji refused to take it.'

'That' s right. I've cancelled the drainpipe.'

There was more than a touch of theatre in the Section Engineer's surprise. 'Cancelled! Oh my! So now what to do?'

'Don't do anything. Just take the licence back to your head clerk, and tell him to ... tell him it's not wanted.'

Mr Ali Bakhsh looked grave. Taking a flimsy slip out of the

DECCAN INTERLUDE envelope, he said: 'As you wish, sir. ... But there is still this. It is the bill for the licence-fee. Ten rupees.'

'Mr Ali Bakhsh, perhaps you did not hear me. Listen. I do not want to connect my drainpipe to the municipal system. Therefore, I do not require a licence to do it!'

'Oh, but sir, fee is payable all the same, and within three days of issue also. If your honour is not wishful of utilising licence, that is for you to decide. But fee must necessarily be paid, which is simply and solely sufficient to cover costs of issuing procedures. See what is printed here, sir! When such costs are once incurred, then fee is payable willy-nilly; furthermore it can be recovered by distraint, just like rates and taxes, sir!'

With the suavity of a trapped wolf George remarked that it was extremely fishy that, after weeks of extortion and delay, the licence arrived the very next day after he had said he did not want it!

Mr Ali Bakhsh was grieved. He gazed at George widi doe-like eyes full of hurt.

'But, sir, did I not promise I would use my best endeavours to hasten it, for your honour's sake?'

Once again George reached for his wallet....

The following morning, however, brought a measure of consolation. It had again rained during the night, and Shankar's hydraulic installation had proved itself completely efficient. George sat on his veranda after breakfast revelling in the cool rain-scented air and in the spectacle of his garden lying safe and sound in the sun. Not a drop of surface water was in sight. Even the arrival of an untimely visitor's card did not disturb his complacency, until he saw the name on it. . . .

When he came up the well-known steps once more Mr Ali Bakhsh seemed plumper and jollier than ever before. As he bade George a polite good morning, his face was alight with the mild joy of the pure in heart.

'Your honour has got new water-channel, I think, sir, discharging water on to waste land on south of garden?

'Yes-but not connected to your drains.

Mr Ali Bakhsh bowed.

'That is correct, sir. But to discharge water or sewage on to open space vesting in municipality requires licence under Rule 37 (p). Otherwise it must be stopped up forthwith.'

He searched in a breast-pocket and drew out a paper.

'I have brought an application form for your honour. And I have filled in all necessary answers also. . . . Your honour needs simply and solely to sign his name at the bottom.'

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

George's sufferings illustrate the way of life in India. As in many other countries there has always been bribery and corruption; and nowadays I gather it is worse than it used to be. For in those days the unrelenting pressure exercised by senior officials did, generally speaking, confine it to the lower levels of the administration, to the Ali Bakhshes and the subordinate ranks of the police and P.W.D. and so on; whereas now the disease has crept higher and paralyses the effectiveness of heads of departments and even Ministers. We were always on the look-out for it, and a sizeable part of our time was allotted to its prevention or detection.

To supplement the over-all effort the central Government at about this time set up a special anti-corruption squad to purify the ethics of the departments which were under its own control, such as the income-tax and customs departments and the railways. In case any innocent reader should be unaware of how a railway can be run corruptly, I will explain the commonest way in which this was managed. Every railway station of any importance had its goods sidings, where empty trucks were parked after unloading and allocated in due course to carry new consignments of goods. This allocation was done by the station-master. And consignors, if they did not want their goods to languish indefinitely in the sheds, uncomplainingly made the customary approach to the station-master. An officer of the anti-corruption squad told me that they would sometimes boost their quota of detected cases with a few stationmasters. It was, however, thought to be a little unsporting, too much like shooting a sitting bird.

But bribery and corruption were a peccadillo. The deadly sin of India---the sin that has since tom the country apart and still poisons the lives of the separate parts with unabated virulence-was the

mutual hatred of the communities. If we spent much of our endeavours in containing corruption, we spent still more in preventing Hindus and Mahomedans from murdering each other.

At that time, happily for everyone, the horrid phenomenon was a characteristic of the cities only and not of the villages, and hence of only a small minority of the population. It was not until the wicked days just before and after Independence that we saw the smoke rise from villages where men of different faiths had lived amicably together for generations....

By the Spring of 1939 the Congress had been in office throughout most of India for two years, and during that time inter-communal feeling had grown more and more bitter. There had been riots in five of the Congress Provinces before our turn came in Sholapur. When it came, it was, as so often, in the hot weather. Soon after we arrived Arya Samaj (Hindu) pilgrim groups had begun to pass through Sholapur on their way to take the micky out of the Maho- medan administration of Hyderabad State. By the middle of April they had also managed to get at loggerheads with our local Mahomedans; and rioting flared up. Luckily for the inhabitants of Sholapur there was a first-class police force, whose hand I could strengthen by magisterial orders of various kinds. I.C.S. officers were expected to use their initiative in dealing with all kinds of untoward events; but they were provided with comprehensive means for coping with the commoner contingencies. If trouble took the form of a smallpox or cholera epidemic, for instance, the machinery necessary for dealing with it was there; true it might need adaptation, and determination in using it, but it did not have to be improvised ab ovo. The same was true of famine and scarcity conditions, of the control of processions and the like at religious festivals, and---most commonly needed of all-of communal disorders.

It was open to me at once to prohibit the carrying of weapons and the formation of roving bands in the streets, and to put on a curfew order. When these did not produce quick enough improvement, I could telephone to Poona for troops to come to us and stand by in case things got worse.

These things I did in consultation with the leaders of both communities. The Tommies arrived-always British troops for communal

A SPECIAL INDIA rioting-encamped in the local high school, and were soon playing football with local sides. They did not have to be called out. Their presence on the football field alone ended our trouble with a casualty list of only six dead and fifty wounded. It is of the essence to act quickly to put out fires and to stop riots.

I only mention this affair because it was typical of untold scores of similar incidents, when major trouble was, as a matter of routine, checked at the outset by precautionary measures. The general success of this time-honoured routine can be judged from the casualty roll at this period-a period when, it should be noted, Congress Governments were in office in most of the country. Professor Coupland in his Indian. Politics, 1936-1942, records that in the two years from the 1st October 1937, there were fifty-seven serious riots in the Congress Provinces, in which there were 1,700 casualties, 130 fatal. The figures testify to the capacity of the Congress Home Ministers, in our case K. M. Munshi, and to their willingness to support local officers in keeping order as they had always done. Compare these figures with the holocaust of 1947, when control had been lost. Then the dead alone, never counted, were estimated in hundreds of thousands.

Both in Sholapur and in Bombay the year before I got full and impartial support from Munshi in carrying out my duties, and I think all other officers had the same experience. He was at one time a little inclined to raise his eyebrows at precautionary orders. He once asked me why we could not wait till things really started, and then give the trouble-makers 'a good hammering'. Later I think he came round to the view that waiting too long could be dangerous and that giving people a good hammering might be a thing as well avoided.

The monsoon rains came, cooling men's tempers and drawing their minds to the work of the fields. Towards the end of them our third child, the sweetest little girl in the world, was born to us. And here I will go ahead of my story and write at once that she could only remain with us for a little more than eighteen months. Then, like so many parents Indian and British we too suffered an irreparable loss from the illnesses endemic in the country; and one more small grave in the soil of India was added to those of our fathers and

DECCAN INTERLUDE forefathers. Meanwhile, when the fortunes of Britain and her Allies were at their nadir, we cabled for our nine-year-old son to leave his prep school and join us, so that whatever might befall we would be together. Thus it could happen that, alas only for a few months, my wife and I and our three children were united.

The outbreak of war brought about the resignation of all the Congress Governments in the country. It was a protest partly against the Allies war aims, still more against India's automatic involvement, and most of all against the Constitution which caused that involvement without consultation with the political parties. Much has been written to the effect that the Central Government should have gone through some form of consultation before declaring war; but in my opinion such criticism is wide of the mark. In any crisis those who have the responsibility must exercise it; no one else can, and pretences can only be dangerous. No one would have been sharper in making this clear than the Congress, if an attempt to shuffle off or share its responsibility had been made by the Government of India. Furthermore the critics should remember that if Gandhi and the Congress had behaved more realistically and responsibly during the preceding ten years, India would in effect have been a self-governing dominion before 1939.

When the Congress ministries, commanding as they did overwhelming majorities in their legislatures, resigned and refused to function, the British authorities were forced to fall back on the reserve powers provided in the Constitution and to decree direct rule by the Governors of the Provinces guided by the remote control of the British Parliament.

After two years of successful if unspectacular rule the Congress reverted to its old function of agitation and obstruction. In the early months of the war this took the form of a succession of small processions demonstrating against help towards the war effort. Volunteers were allocated their day of sacrifice. When it dawned they began to walk round the streets with slogans and banners that said; 'Not a man! Not a rupee!' In due course a police-officer would go out and collect them; and later, after refusing to pay a fine in lieu of imprisonment, they were haled oft for a few weeks in jail. It was ■ a rite which the sensible Congressman could not afford to miss,

A SPECIAL INDIA irrespective of his views about the war. His future career depended on languishing for a proper time in a 'British prison'.

This phase of agitation had no appreciable effect, and in justice to the Congress High Command it must be allowed that it was not intended to do so. During the ensuing period India began to build up that magnificent volunteer army, of which Churchill wrote:

But all this is only the background upon which the glorious heroism and martial qualities of the Indian troops who fought in the Middle East, who defended Egypt, who liberated Abyssinia, who played a grand part in Italy, and who, side by side with their British comrades, expelled the Japanese from Burma, stand forth in brilliant light. The loyalty of the Indian Army to the King-Emperor, the proud fidelity to their treaties of the Indian Princes, the unsurpassed bravery of Indian soldiers and officers, both Moslem and Hindu, shine for ever in the annals of war.

On the home front industry both for warlike and peaceful purposes and agriculture flourished as never before or since. Indeed the war years paradoxically were, except for one brief time, the quietest and most prosperous that India has enjoyed in this century.

As a dramatic move the resignation of the Congress ministries was a flop. The Muslim League promptly announced a Day of Thanksgiving. And the rest of the country sank back restfully into the old ways which it understood. It was immediately and not unexpectedly obvious that the general public, when its elected representatives declined to rule, had not the least objection to being governed by the I.C.S. They knew from experience that it was upright, efficient, more alive to the facts of life than the Congress, and probably more sensitive to public opinion. It was in the habit of ascertaining what people thought, instead of dictating what they ought to think.

It was at about this time, in the early months of the war, that the demand for Pakistan was first made aloud. It seemed then no more than a political ploy, a wordy threat meant to blackmail Gandhi into a reasonable accommodation with the League. We could hardly bring ourselves to take it seriously, so axiomatic had become the

unity of Hindustan. I could not in this book even try to analyse the root causes of the disaster that took place eight years later. Gandhi's intransigeance, the strange notions of the United States Government derived from the superficial readings of its nationals in India, the influence of Punjab I.C.S. officers, the interplay of these and probably many other factors all contributed to the final result, quite apart from the darkling ambitions of Mr Jinnah.

We remained a little more than two years in Sholapur. After five years of special duty it was a huge relief to go back to district life---to feel oneself, along with five hundred other heads of Districts, at the heart of India, to pitch camp again beneath the mango-trees near the canal, to ride out on village inspections, to control the machine which had been forged long ago and perfected over the centuries to cope with the varying hazards of life.

The next hazard after our communal upset was a period of scarcity following a partial failure of the south-west monsoon. We put in hand the construction of certain roads and dams as 'scarcity works', and got ready to apply the Famine Code in full should that become necessary. Happily the situation was retrieved by good rainfall in the reverse monsoon, and life returned to normal. The war was not only remote, but seemed hardly real. Certain things, however, we were able to do about it.

Each District set up a non-official War Purposes Committee to propagate the war effort in general, and in particular to help in recruiting, in raising a voluntary War Gifts Fund, and in fostering a volunteer force of Civic Guards. The Congress Party members naturally refused to join, but everyone else did. Indeed the sulking of the Congress in its tents had one good result in that the old, natural leaders who had built up the country in the past but had been shunted on to sidelines under the Congress, could now return in full force to stand by India and her self-respect during the years of war. ...

Army recruiting was organised throughout Maharashtra by the military authorities, but we could help with local meetings and the provision of various facilities. The tough, independent farmers of the Deccan, the descendants of Shivaji and his men, gave some of the best soldiers that India had. The Civic Guards were of course our

local responsibility. Christopher Cookson, who managed two big cotton-mills in Sholapur, became Commandant and organised them very efficiendy. In the event, like the Home Guard in Britain, they were not called on for active service; but their keenness and eagerness for recruitment and training were symptoms of a healthy attitude.

The War Gifts Fund nearly altered my life. Feeling it incumbent on me to head the subscription list with a sizeable donation, which I had to borrow from the Bank, I found I could only repay my debt by forswearing the use of alcoholic liquor. For three months I subsisted on water, with occasional pegs of a weird fluid extracted from the cola tree. It was claimed to be both non-alcoholic and stimulating, and the former claim was certainly true. Its stimulating qualities were less apparent, and my character became so changed that my wife in the end beseeched me to return to the habits of a lifetime. When this prayer was reinforced by a complaint from the club secretary that the club was going bankrupt owing to the falling-off in bar receipts, I allowed myself to be persuaded.

Most up-country clubs were jolly spots; and the 'worse' the District, the jollier they were likely to be. Sholapur was a 'bad' District: that is to say it was outwardly grim, bare, dusty, with a precarious rainfall and a thermometer that climbed high above i io°. The city was afflicted with frequent sand-storms and a reputation for riotous conduct. Per contra the club, which like most mofussil clubs had no colour-bar, was a happy resort. Every year it promoted a Golf Week during the short rainy season. The golf links-situated on a stony plain between the police range and a pungent tannery- then became a scene of untrammelled gaiety of a sort never seen at St Andrews, or even at Gleneagles. The golf course had fourteen holes with greens of windswept sand. The hazards though plentiful were mostly natural. An exception was a new bunker at the eighth, which had already become famous. Subscribed for as part of George the Fifth s Jubilee celebrations, it was known and feared far and wide as the Jubilee Bunker. During Golf Week, however, the agonies of its patrons were alleviated by the attendance of a mobile bar.

A prominent member of the club in those days was Maurice

Zinkin. This successful business man, now a recognised authority on things Indian in the modern world, had just arrived in India as an I. C.S. cadet under training. He already gave promise of the brilliance of mind that has always distinguished him. Striding up and down in ceaseless argument he would strive valiantly to explain his own ideas and to clarify ours. Once, when he was ill with fever and helpless, I spent an evening proving to him that God did not exist. Being a young man of devout habits of thought, he was troubled; and, weakened by ague and argument, his faith almost wavered. So much so that, when I got up to go and promised to come back next day and prove that God did exist, he could only be shocked at my levity.

He who writes about life in an Indian District is like the schoolboy writing home. There is either nothing to say, or everything. It is his whole world, a thing too great to be set down on paper and so better not attempted. India had, and presumably still has, its pennyweights of bad news that is news and makes the headlines, and its tons of good news that is not news at all. In Sholapur, as in 95 per cent of the whole land and in rural communities the world over, the quiet pulse of life beats steadily on in immemorial fashion. Men had their land, their homes, their crops meagre but enough, a highly organised society to regulate their actions, and a Faith to assuage their souls. Their quietness and confidence could not be disturbed by any distant drum; and the efforts of their 'leaders' to incite them met with small success.

During our time there we had the usual things: riots, scarcity, a plague epidemic. But these were only small and transient ripples on the surface. Broadly and truthfully speaking I can only record, in the schoolboy's words, that 'nothing special happened'. I hope and believe that it is still happening.

When I think now of Sholapur, two pictures in particular come into my mind.

Our first October had drawn to its longed-for end. One early morning the weight of cloud, lowering and uncondensed, that had for weeks oppressed us, had gone. All at once the air was strangely fresh; a hint of dew shone on leaf and grass-blade; a partridge was calling in the fields. The cold weather had come.

With it, to herald the change, there came too the most joyful of Hindu festivals, Divali, the feast of lights. Indian towns that are happy at the time of Divali glow to the skies with multitudes of lamps ranged on windows, wall-tops, the edges of roofs. Thousands and tens of thousands of tiny clay dishes, each with its open wick burning in oil, are set out by loving hands in honour of the end of the year and of Lakshmi, goddess of prosperity. Jewels are brought out and cleaned; pots and pans are burnished and set in order in their place; the year's account-books are made up and honoured; the forecourt of the house is fresh plastered with cow dung and decorated with swastika patterns in coloured powders; and on the last night householders are at home to the world, with refreshments and entertainments laid on.

When times are prosperous and people are happy, there is no festival in the world gayer or more beautiful. But in times of anxiety there is not the spirit to celebrate fully; and in really bad times there are no lights, and Lakshmi is worshipped privately, more in hope than gratitude. From the things I hear and read, I fear that nowadays Divali is not often celebrated with a whole heart. Discouragement and hunger have cast a shadow on the land, and the unclouded moon of Asvina serves only to make the shadow deeper....

But that far-off season in Sholapur was cheerful. The war was too distant to think of, and the late rains had given a good planting of the rabi crop. The display of lights was more than average. A good many folk were giving parties; and after dinner my wife and I found ourselves on our way to the house of Mr Jamnachand Sethna, millowner.

When we reached his gate we were taken in tow by a young relative and guided into a long room, where music was going on. At one end were chairs for the guests who preferred chairs; the rest were ranged round the walls sitting on one set of fat, white cushions, and leaning against another. The concert-party was at the far end, setting everyone's head nodding and feet tapping with the compulsive rhythms of its songs of harvest, of love, of Spring, of Krishna and, above all, of Lakshmi and her consort. The air was heavy with incense and the scent of sandalwood.

We were led to a table where Shinde, the District Judge, was already sitting with his wife. Servants brought saucers of hot spiced fritters and cigarettes and a tray of fizzy mineral waters of varied hues.

'Take the one nearest to you/ Shinde advised. 'It is the best.'

Obediently I took an effervescent glass the colour of strong tea, and sipped it cautiously. It was a very fine specimen of a whisky- and-soda. We settled down to enjoy ourselves.

'We have an understanding host/ said the judge.

We were soon joined by Dr Heblikar, most militant of the local Congress leaders: too militant, some said, for in the 1930 'movement' his non-violent counsels (as I have mentioned in an earlier chapter) had led to arson and murder. I had myself had many dealings with him, and found him to be somewhat sobered by his earlier experiences.

When the exchange of greetings proper to the festival had been exchanged, and I had expressed the hope that Lakshmi would dwell in his house in the new year, he allowed an enigmatic smile to envelop his smooth, rather fat face, and drew me aside for private speech.

'I was coming to see you tomorrow/ he said, 'but as we are meeting now, perhaps I may say a word?'

'Of course, doctor. You sound very mysterious?'

'Sir, tomorrow afternoon I must go to jail!'

So it was his turn to offer satyagraha.... I said I was sorry to hear it, and why not give the thing a miss?

He shook his head in smiling reproof. 'We are soldiers, sir, we must obey orders. I am helpless.'

'Oh-well-if you must.... So what did you want to say to me?'

'Oh sir, I was simply wishing to take leave of your honour, before

I go.'

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

Another picture that lives in my memory is Pandharpur and its great pilgrimage.

Pandharpur is a holy city on the banks of the sacred river Bhima. Here the river makes a great arc and so is called Chandrubhaga, the crescent-shaped. Within the limits of the city it has the property of cleansing from sin. There are a hundred temples in Pandharpur and the greatest is that of Vithoba; and it is his cult that has the supreme attraction for the peasants of the Bombay Deccan. Indeed, it has a message for all. For Vithoba is the god of the poor and the lowly. His initiates forswear the pursuit of riches, and come to be possessed by a consuming love for the godhead alone. 'Sell all thou hast' and be poor is their commandment. What faith could have a more powerful appeal to men who already live close to poverty and next to nature?

And so at the time of the Ashadhi pilgrimage nigh on a quarter of a million devotees gather from far and wide to take darshan, of the god-to see him and worship.

Colonel Dabholkar of the Indian Medical Service, who was in charge of the elaborate health measures such a gathering requires, stood with me. We were on a vantage point from which we could see the river and steps leading down to it. And later we would be taken to the temple roof and allowed to look down through an opening at the scene in the shrine below.

Meanwhile, far below us, a dense crowd swarmed hither and thither in the river-bed and immersed itself with happy devotion in the holy stream. After bathing they would dip their pilgrims' banners in the water, and then scoop up a mouthful and drink. Their sins fell away, and they turned with joyful intent to their next duties.

The ritual bath completed, they would join the endless queue which already stretched uphill from the bank and wound its way in and out of the streets of the old town till it reached the precincts of the great temple a quarter of a mile away. On the road the pilgrims would have the choice of a hundred shops and stalls from which to buy garlands, scents, joss-sticks, sugar-candy and ochre powder to help their worship. For the tired and hungry there would be refreshments. Mangos and oranges, roasted gram, sweetmeats, savoury fritters of pea-flour and onion and coloured drinks would be at hand to sustain their snail-like progress. There would be toys too for children young and old. Cows and donkeys and miniature grindstones and cooking-pots, moulded in clay and painted with heartening blues and yellows and reds, would be available for coppers; while those ready to draw on their reserves of silver could buy gay figures from the pantheon: Krishna with his flute, the dancing Shiva, Hanuman the monkey and beloved Ganesh with his elephant's trunk, all in lively poses and ablaze with gold and silver.

At last the pilgrim would reach the head of the queue, the gateway into the temple courtyard. There, finally, he would file in aromatic and smoky darkness through to the inner shrine. In rapt adoration before the divine presence he would wait his turn to embrace the age-old image, to lay his head on the worn feet of stone, to garland the shoulders, to light a thin stick of incense, to make his offering of a coconut, sugar, a copper coin .. . and then to join the happy band outside, men and women whose faces were alight with joy because they had been with God.

Civil Defence and Uncivil Disobedience

'You have been posted as 4.R.P. Controller Bombay. Report immediately.'

When I got this telegram in May 1941, my first reaction was perplexity: what the devil did 'A.R.P.' stand for?

Then I remembered all the news items from England. 'Air Raid Precautions', of course! But-zzz Bombay? I soon learned that the anxiety was the same as it had been a century and a half earlier. A hostile dictator was trying to make himself master of Egypt; and if he succeeded, he might advance rapidly through Arabia and Persia and be able to attack India.

It says a great deal for the versatility and self-reliance taught in the I.C.S that while I could wonder what 'A.R.P.' might be, it did not occur to me to question the rightness of putting me in charge of the thing, whatever it was. If I had simultaneously been made Postmaster-General and Chief Inspector of Smoke Nuisances, I might have thought I would have rather a lot to do, but that would have been my only objection.

So, within the week, we found ourselves back again in Bombay, my favourite city. But instead of the dignified residence we had last occupied there, we found ourselves in the chopped-off end of a High Court bungalow. The conversion, if it could be called that, had been conceived and carried out by the P.W.D. in cavalier and pragmatic style. A wall had simply been inserted from front to back of the old house, separating for our use a bit of the Judge's veranda as a drawing-room, a bit of his drawing-room as our dining-room, and a bit of his 'usual offices' as our bedroom. Here we lived for two years, while I wrestled with the problems of the Home Department in general, and civil defence in particular. For it transpired that beside being A.R.P. Controller for the city of Bombay I was also the

CIVIL DEFENCE, UNCIVIL DISOBEDIENCE Secretariat officer in charge of civil defence for the whole Province. Later I became Secretary of the Department.

I was glad to find that there were people in Bombay who knew a lot about the British A.R.P. set-up. Not only that, but they had laid sound foundations for our own organisation. The city had been divided into A.R.P. Divisions, the recruitment and training of an army of volunteer wardens had been put in hand, the beginnings of an auxiliary fire service had been grafted on to Bombay's excellent fire-brigade, and a rescue service on to the Salvage Corps; and other auxiliary services had been started. There was a well-equipped control-room and an air-raid warning system.

To work up from these beginnings was the most stimulating job I ever had, simply because people of all political parties and all shades of colour and religious belief joined in it whole-heartedly. It was so refreshing to see the Congress and the Muslim League, neither of which would help in the war effort, take a realistic view of the need for a combined endeavour to make ourselves efficient in defending the population from air attack. I was happy too to be again working in collaboration with my old colleagues, the heads of the municipal departments, not to mention my friends on the Corporation. Many of these became senior or divisional wardens in the areas of their special influence, and Hindus, Mahomedans, Parsis and Christians alike cheerfully underwent the rigorous warden-training we provided, and worked together as a team.

It was at this time that I first met Rashid Baig. Rashid has, I believe, just retired from the diplomatic service after reaching ambassadorial rank. At that time he was a business executive in Bombay, and had just been appointed Sheriff for the year. In this capacity he called together a Sheriff's Meeting, a thing only done at times of public emergency, in order to concert an all-out effort in civil defence. The chair was taken by Bhulabhai Desai, one of the most influential of the Congress leaders, and speeches were made by the leaders of all the communities. A great deal of enthusiasm resulted, which helped me much in my task.

Rashid and Tara Baig became our close friends, and we had many cheerful parties together in our off-duty hours. Bombay was always a pleasantly sophisticated place with an air of cosmopolitan gaiety;

and it did not change much during the war. People worked hard, and at times experienced heavy anxieties, but they remained outwardly confident and lively. The public war effort was centred in the Provincial War Purposes Committee, with Sir Rustomji Masani in the chair. It had a very influential membership of business men and political leaders outside the two main parties. These men, like our old family friend Sir Purshotamdas Thakurdas, had for decades been the source of the most constructive thinking in India; but regrettably constructive thinkers do not often appeal to the masses. Now they came into their own and provided effective leadership. They were men who were in love with the honour and freedom of their country just as deeply as Gandhi, Nehru and Jinnah. But they did not believe that intransigeance, communal mistrust, and bombast furnished the means of achieving their ideal.

The Communist Party was not powerful in terms of votes, but it had great authority among industrial workers, and thus a greater potentiality for damaging the war effort than the Congress. Happily for us all, Hitler attacked Russia; and that caused the Communist Party to perceive something that had hitherto escaped it-that this was a People's War. After that, the Comrades had a stabilising effect, and helped the war effort a great deal.

As for civil defence, it was as I have said a popular cause. After the Sheriff's Meeting recruitment went ahead more vigorously than ever, and the keenness to help in every way was magnificent. A leader in The Evening News of India at the time said:

Brilliant progress has been made in A.R.P. organisation during the past nine months in Bombay, which now has 11,500 wardens, 323 wardens* posts, 1,229 first-aid workers, 39 first-aid stations in addition to the casualty departments of eleven hospitals, a well-manned rescue service and an auxiliary fire-fighting force of more than 800 men. Other details are equally impressive.

During 1941 our work had followed closely the blue-print used for cities in Britain. But from the beginning I had felt doubts whether such an organisation would in practice be able to work in an eastern city under aerial attack. Panic could so easily obstruct or even

CIVIL DEFENCE, UNCIVIL DISOBEDIENCE nullify the nicely-planned functioning of the A.R.P. services. And panic could only too easily be engendered in the tight-packed wards of Bombay. Not only might the A.R.P. services be made ineffective, but, I feared, the population might stampede northwards to get off the island by the only two land routes available; and if that should happen, God only knew what terrible disaster might follow. So, when the first air-raids on Rangoon began during Christmas week 1941, it seemed a good idea to go to Burma and see what was happening there.

I shall never forget the vision from the air of the Shwe Dagon pagoda, as its solitary and unearthly beauty arose from the dawn mist. Higher than the dome of St Paul's the stupa, sheathed in pure gold, belonged to another world, a world of peace and entranced devotion. Looking on it, and then recollecting my mission in Rangoon, I felt both hope and despair.

The docks were idle as the launch took us ashore; and on the way to Government House, where the Dorman-Smiths kindly made me their guest, we passed by empty streets littered with garbage. The things that I had feared might happen in Bombay had already happened here.

To begin with, I was told, the people of Rangoon, heedless of warnings, had turned out in huge numbers at the first raid to watch aerial combats and the effect of anti-aircraft fire. All at once heavy casualties began to be inflicted by anti-personnel bombs. Shooting splinters all around them in the middle of the crowds, they caused terrible injuries, mostly below the waist. Naturally, panic ensued and a large-scale exodus of the population took place, which carried with it many of the essential services.

I stayed four or five days, during which air-raids continued. Government House, fenced with barbed-wire and sandbagged, functioned on an emergency footing, with frequent visits to the airraid shelter. But I spent most of my time with de Graffe Hunter, the A.R.P. Controller. Since the attacks were currently on military objectives outside the town, and since in any case there were few potential victims of Japanese raids left inside it, there was little for the ordinary A.R.P. services to do. We spent a lot of time in the warning centre, where the approach of enemy aircraft was efficiently plotted from phone and telegraph messages received from the watching stations. At Government House constant confabulations went on between H.E. and the Army and Air Force; these I later understood must have been concerned with problems of evacuation. At the time-for Singapore had not fallen and the layman did not expect it would-in common with other civilians I could not guess how badly things were going.

Rangoon never functioned normally again till after the war. Two months after my visit it was occupied by the Japanese. On the day I left, our seaplane's departure was delayed and I spent the night in the usually luxurious Strand Hotel. The manager let me in himself, and permitted me to sleep in a room without towels sheets or blankets, on condition I did not expect any food.

I brought back important lessons which at once changed our approach to the civil defence of Bombay. Although we continued to develop the A.R.P. services proper, we placed ahead of that certain more basic priorities that Rangoon had taught us. The maintenance of food and water supplies and other public services under attack, and the reassurance of the general public, became our main concern. We built up the arcades in the streets with blast walls and elsewhere distributed sandbags in vast quantities, with instructions on their use. Much effort was centred on schooling the public to take shelter, and keep in shelter, during a raid. A strict curfew during warningperiods was enforced. We began to hold these practice warnings more often, and everyone was made to keep under cover until the All Clear. We organised dummy 'incidents' complete with explosions and the concomitant noises, so as to get everyone used to loud bangs and die sounds of whistles, fire-engines, rescue squads and ambulances. In a short time people got into the habit of automatically taking cover when the sirens went, and we could feel confident that our public would at least not be caught out in the open like the unfortunates of Rangoon.

Special provisions were made to ensure the safety and steadiness of all the essential services. A system of Government food-shops was held in readiness, and we opened all the old wells of Bombay to provide drinking-water in case our pipe-lines were temporarily put out of action; while for fire-fighting there were static tanks all over

CIVIL DEFENCE, UNCIVIL DISOBEDIENCE the place. The hospitals were equipped with extra wards and supplies and a volunteer nursing service, in organising which Lady Rama Rau played a big part. We also devised and gave legal status to a 'Bombay Emergency Code' which in the event of enemy attack provided a centralised control of all the public services, police, municipal and A.R.P. in addition to other extensive powers.

Evelyn Wood of J. Walter Thompson and Company helped us with an excellent set of pictorial leaflets of advice in several languages, issued as supplements to the local newspapers. The public was urged to cut these out and collect them and so to provide itself with a free householders' handbook on air raid precautions. I recollect that the propaganda in aid of the stirrup-pump was specially stimulating. The script gave a glowing account of the varied uses to which this instrument could be put: watering gardens, hosing down floors, washing cars, etcetera etcetera. Why not, I asked, add that it could if necessary also be used for putting out fires?

We took over a separate building as our civil defence headquarters; and there a team of extremely able assistants (too numerous to mention by name, though I should like to) and myself spent our days in feverish activity. One of the bugbears of the ordinary administrator used to be the Finance Department. This department seemed to us to be little more than an asylum for ghosdy and imbecile misers who gibbered over our shoulders in reproof whenever we wanted to spend any money. For every single proposal that involved any expenditure had as a matter of rule to be 'referred to F.D.'. So adept had they become over the years, that they thought nothing of holding up an irrigation scheme over the pensioncontribution of a pattewallah-, and at the outset I had reason to fear that they would find it child's play to bring Bombay's civil defence to a grinding halt on the price of buckles or the allocation of the cost of petrol used in an exercise.

Luckily we thought of a way of curing this particular danger. We got the Finance Department to agree-in view of the undoubted fact that a war was going on and that quick decisions might therefore sometimes be desirable---to depute one of its officers to bring himself and his staff over to our A.R.P. headquarters. He was, as it were, to be in the position of a plenipotentiary accredited by a

foreign, not to say neutral, state, with authority to approve of our expenditure. I was delighted with this success, for I was sure that, without other indoctrination, this officer would appreciate the needs of the situation as soon as he escaped from the hushed, Gothic aisles of the Secretariat and pitched his camp in the middle of our hectic atmosphere.

I was still more delighted at the choice of the F.D. officer. B. Venkatappiah was a young I.C.S. officer who was endowed with vast common sense as well as a brilliant mind. He is now, having been in succession Finance Secretary in Bombay and Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank, one of the planning commissioners in the Government of India. It is good to know that he, like so many of my juniors of the old days, has reached the peaks of our profession. When he first entered the Service he was attached to me for a few weeks, when I was Assistant Collector in a distant part of the Dharwar District. At the end he won my heart by a remark which I am sure he will have forgotten. We were on our way back to camp from the usual evening walk, during which we had chatted with everyone we met. 'You know, I like this,' he suddenly confided. 'Like what?' 'I like the districts, and this life.' Coming from a young Indian with an urban background, I felt this was an accolade.

When he joined us in 1941, he proved to be a tower of strength. Not only did he pass our expenditure without fuss; he also put our requisitions for funds into proper form and did our budget for us, not to mention arranging with the powers that be for the provision of the large sums we needed. Another assistant I got for the Secretariat side of my job was Maurice Zinkin. He had by then done two years in Khandesh chasing sowcars. I made a special request for him, as I knew he would take a real load off my shoulders. This, of course, he did. Into the bargain he enlisted as an auxiliary fireman and went through the full training, including jumping off the tower into a sheet. I fear it would take a real blaze to make me do that.

On the whole perhaps our civil defence preparations were not too bad; but we were far from complacent about them at the time. My responsibilities weighed heavily on me, and after working long hours all day and at night I got into the habit of lying awake in the

CIVIL DEFENCE, UNCIVIL DISOBEDIENCE\ small hours and getting the horrors over all the things that might\ happen, if we were really attacked. It is a habit I have never got out\ of, although the cause for it disappeared a quarter of a century ago.

As it fortunately turned out, none of the horrors came true, and none of our precautions were actually put to the test. We suffered no enemy attack. Our only Alert was when the Duke of Gloucester paid us an official visitation; it was caused by one of his escorting planes failing to give a proper recognition signal. And the nearest thing to an enemy attack-and more damaging than any one such attack could have been-was at the time (two years later) when the Bombay docks were blown up by the Government of India....

After the battle of El Alamein the threat from the West faded out. And by then the Japanese tide of conquest had also turned.

We put our A.R.P. on a care and maintenance footing, and I was promoted to be Secretary, Home Department.

By the time I gave up A.R.P.¹² and became Secretary in the Home Department Gandhi's 'open rebellion' had begun and ended. It had been contained even in Bihar, where alone it lasted more than two or three weeks. It had, however, left behind it an aftermath of sporadic attempts at terrorism; and, of course, it had left Gandhi and Sarojini Naidu confined in the Poona 'palace' of the Aga Khan and the rest of the Congress Working Committee, including Jawaharlal Nehru, in the old fort at Ahmadnagar. Both of these spots had been notified as temporary prisons. As Secretary of the department responsible for law and order, including prisons, in the Province I would ordinarily have been let in for another period of anxiety alarms and excursions. For the care of these important prisoners, quite apart from anything that might be happening outside, was by itself the cause of a good many headaches, especially when Gandhi felt impelled to undertake one of his twenty-one day fasts.

Luckily for me I found H. V. R. lengar already in charge of all these political matters as Joint Secretary. lengar and I belonged to the same year in the I.C.S., but he was a couple of places below me on the list. This accounted for my succeeding to the slightly more senior title of Secretary, while he remained as Joint Secretary and continued to do all the dirty work. That struck me as being a most equitable arrangement.

lengar was perhaps the brightest star in our galaxy of LC.S. officers. He later went on to fill the most exalted posts such as Secretary to the Constituent Assembly, Principal Secretary to Nehru, and Governor of the Reserve Bank of India. At die time of which I write we and our families became very good friends, and our two small sons keen co-fliers of kites. He was extremely valuable to Government not only by reason of his ability, but also because of the personal link he was able to make between die Secretariat and informed opinion outside.

. He had trying times, for example at the beginning of the 'Quit India' movement and later when Gandhi did his fast early in 1943. The Viceroy (Linlithgow) resisted all pressures to release him, and he duly survived his self-imposed ordeal. But meanwhile some delicate questions had arisen: if he did not survive, at what point of time should his death be announced to the world? And what about arrangements for the funeral? Private or public? And where? One of the questions propounded by Delhi showed a truly British sensibility: should the flags on Government buildings be flown at half- mast?

lengar dealt with these and a hundred other niceties (and nastinesses) with good-humoured efficiency. A real delegation of duties, combined with whole-hearted reliance on one's colleagues, was axiomatic for us. If you made a good job of what you were doing, that was what was to be expected. If you made a mess of it, someone senior would help you out of it even if it meant shouldering some of the blame.

The 'Quit India' campaign produced a quantity of rather pointless recrimination about the violence it engendered. The official contention was that the sanctioning of a mass movement by the All India Congress Committee on the 8th August 1942 was the signal for the disturbances that were then attempted, and justified the arrest of the Congress leaders. The Congress maintained that the arrest of the leaders deprived the public of guidance, and so it was Government's fault that non-violence was so completely forgotten. Whether or not the official contention was ever fully proved, the

CIVIL DEFENCE, UNCIVIL DISOBEDIENCE

Congress argument was rather beside the point. For the resolution of the 8th August, whether itself a signal or not, was to be the authority for a rising intended to bring British rule to an immediate end, after which the Japanese threat was to be dealt with either by negotiation or non-violent resistance. Obviously the British Government had to prevent such a rising from getting under way quite irrespective of whether it was, or was supposed to be, non-violent or violent. It might be added that from past experience no one expected that it would be non-violent.

Gandhi himself undoubtedly believed completely in nonviolence. But the very intensity of his thinking on the subject could bring conflicting answers. Generally speaking he accepted Christ's teaching: offer the other cheek for a second blow, and if thine enemy take thy coat give him thy cloak also. But then, like many genuine people, he would add riders and glosses to his own accepted doctrine. 'If a man fights with his sword against a horde of robbers armed to the teeth,' he once wrote, 'I should say he is fighting non- violently. . . . Supposing a mouse tried to resist the cat with his sharp teeth, would you call that mouse violent? In the same way, for the Poles to stand bravely against the German hordes vasdy superior in numbers, military equipment and strength, was almost non-violence.'

Such thinking can hardly fail to win over even the most hard- boiled! No one insincere would jeopardise his case with such insouciance. The first sentence, about the man fighting with his sword, is definitely damaging. But after that the Mahatma's mind begins perceptibly to swing back in its accustomed direction: he goes on to approve of a woman using 'nails and teeth and even a dagger in defence of her honour'-and who could disapprove of that? Then he speaks whimsically of the mouse biting the cat-a thing they don't really do---and finally says that the Poles, in resisting the German hordes, were 'almost' non-violent. Does that enigmatic phrase make them right or wrong?

No wonder such a human saint won the love of millions. And no wonder he so often drove his lieutenants round the bend.

Unfortunately he wrote something equally ambiguous about the 'Quit India' movement specifically.

'I do not want rioting as a direct result. If in spite of precautions rioting does take place, it cannot be helped.' This, taken in conjunction with another recent utterance, 'after all, this is open rebellion' and his final slogan 'do or die', was not likely to make the rebel- liously-minded too squeamish in their methods. Nor were they. Obviously concerted attacks were simultaneously made by riotous mobs on 250 railway stations, 550 post offices and 155 police stations together with other Government buildings, many of which were burned down. More than thirty policemen and revenue officers were murdered.

But there was no general support from the public; in fact rather the reverse. And except in Bihar and some adjoining districts of the United Provinces the campaign was quickly brought to an end.

The entire project was the outcome of a misreading of the situation by Gandhi and the other leaders. First, it was thought that the Allies were going to lose the war, and could not save India from invasion. This view of the war outlook was perhaps understandable. Indeed the United States and U.K. Governments probably contributed to it by their own nervousness. What other reason could be supposed for the Cripps Mission? Light was later thrown on the background of this fateful and disastrous offer by Churchill in the fourth volume (chapter twelve) of his war memoirs.¹³ He has here recorded considerable correspondence between the Former Naval Person and the President, which gives an indication of the pressure exerted on the U.K. Government. In fact, even after the offer had been turned down, Roosevelt, seemingly hypnotised by what had been done in 1783 in the American colonies, urged that an ad hoc all-party Government should be set up to rule India for the rest of the war. 'I was thankful,' writes Churchill, 'that events had already made such an act of madness impossible.' He might have added that, apart from the march of events, the mutual antagonisms of the political parties would alone have made the formation of such a Government impossible, as indeed Wavell found it to be after the war.

Another facet of this correspondence gives an inkling of the reasoning behind the warrant for partition contained in the Cripps

CIVIL DEFENCE, UNCIVIL DISOBEDIENCE proposals. Emphasis was given to a belief that an offer of self- determination which omitted this element, might disturb the loyalty of the Muslim soldiers in our army. My personal opinion is that this was a bit of special pleading. In 1942 I doubt if the Muslim troops were in the least interested in the idea of Pakistan, still less in Jinnah, the protagonist of Pakistan, who in their eyes must have been a poor kind of Muslim-one who spoke Gujarathi and could not say his prayers properly. Besides, the Muslim League was far from being in the ascendant in the Mahomedan Provinces of the north-west or in East Bengal. It was the British who as time went on, gave it its ascendancy by their continued deference to Jinnah.

When the offer became public my old acquaintance, V. D. Savarkar, who twelve years earlier used to call on me in Ratnagiri when he lived there on ticket-of-leave, came out strongly against it. At liberty once more he was again a leading figure in politics as President of the Hindu Mahasabha, a political party designed to represent Hindu interests in the same way as the League avowedly represented Mahomedan interests. He announced tersely that 'India was one and indivisible'. It was a sentiment with which, up to that very moment, almost all would have agreed. But from that same moment India's indivisibility was irrevocably doomed.

Before passing on from this digression and returning to events three months later I must quote one more saying about the Cripps offer. It came from that winning and sensible Congress leader, C. Rajagopalachari, universally known as Rajaji. He thought the offer should have been accepted, and added 'India cannot succeed by drifting from non-co-operation with Britain to non-co-operation with the whole world'.

The second mistake that Gandhi and the Congress made in August 1942 was less excusable: they seemed really to imagine that the rebellion could succeed! Whereas anyone truly apprised of the state of feeling in the country could have told them it would be a flop.

To begin with both the Muslim League and the Communists were actively opposed to it, a fact that might have given pause to anyone not afflicted with ihefolie de grandeur of the 'nationalist politician. Not only that, but the bulk of the population at large, even

supposing it might have shown more interest in such a project in 1939, when the Congress ministries were still in office (which is doubtful), were at all events not feeling at all rebellious by 1942. By that date, as the Congress would say, they had been crushed by three years of undiluted imperialistic rule; or, to express it differently, they had enjoyed three years of internal peace and good order and were less inclined than ever to join in a campaign of mayhem. But, whatever the viewpoint, it is clear that the Congress high command made a grievous miscalculation. By 'do or die', it was explicitly stated, they meant that either they would drive the British from power, or the Congress itself would go out of existence. Neither of these things came within the remotest possibility of actually happening.

One other utterance of Gandhi at that time repeated in even more forthright terms the same devastating error, which I mentioned in my chapter on the 1930 movement.¹⁴ 'We shall get our freedom by fighting,' he said, 'it cannot fall from the skies.' Considering that Britain had for years been striving to get the Indian communities to agree to any sort of accommodation, in order itself to retreat from power in an orderly way as soon as possible, this comment had little to do with reality. In the event freedom came-without fighting. It fell from the skies-like a thunderbolt. But it did not come in an orderly way.

In the weeks after 8th August there was, for the only time I remember, a deliberate if temporary cooling-off in the usual friendliness between Indians and Britishers. It was an artificial phenomenon, and did not last long. While it did last, it was combined with a falling-off from customary standards of mural exhortation. The routine 'Quit India' and 'Do Or Die' were too often followed up with 'Kick them up the arse' in brisk Hindi. This was very unIndian and made me feel that the lessons from the West were not always good.

On the evening before the arrest of the Congress leaders our dear Sarojini happened to be having dinner with my wife and me in our sawn-off end of the judge's bungalow. We knew what to give her from long experience-roast duck and champagne; and her

CIVIL DEFENCE, UNCIVIL DISOBEDIENCE enjoyment of both was well up to standard. If I had been Secretary Home Department at the time (instead of still being A.R.P. Controller) I would have known the secret that she had not many hours of freedom left. As it was, it was she who revealed the secret to us!

'But I've got my suitcase all ready,' she reassured us. Sarojini always said she enjoyed her spells in prison; she had a comfortable room and such a lovely rest. But this time it was not so nice. She and Gandhi went to the Aga Khan's palace in Poona, and I don't think she liked being there as much as with her old friends in the Yeravda Central Prison. Having her 'old man' there was also a heavy responsibility, even without his fast. She herself became very ill in the next year and was unconditionally released. Among several of her letters my wife has found one written from Hyderabad (Deccan), her home town, on 22nd December

1943. I will quote it nearly in full, as it gives a slant both on the character of the author, and on the times we lived in.

Dear Little Anne,

This is a line to send you and David^1^ and the children my greetings for Christmas and my sincere good wishes for a new year full of deep and secure personal happiness in the midst of all the unspeakable world suffering and tumult. I hope that the new year may bring some measure of peace to troubled humanity at large but very specially to all our friends of every race.

I am only now beginning to become human again after months and months of being terribly ill. For the first few months after I had been brought home on a stretcher I was not allowed to see anyone or move or do anything normal. The cat and the golden retriever puppy were my only constant companions, and even my family were only allowed to peep at me more or less for a few moments. It was as our American friends would put it Some Illness! I went out for the first time two days ago - after all these months!

And what news of die Governor's Secretary^1^ and his charming wife Anne? When I was in die Aga Khan's 'palace' (so-called!) I used to speak of you and David constantly, as so many of the official visitors

knew you - Civil Surgeons, Collectors, and of course Mr. Irwin.^1^ The Inspector-General of Prisons^{15 16} was quite scandalised when he had to give me your love received over the phone. He thought I was a 'wrong 'un' to be behind bars and yet receive love from my superior jailors!

Padmaja¹⁷ and Leelamani are very well and very busy with local public problems. I don't know when I can get to Bombay. But if I possibly can wangle permission I want to step into Poona to see poor little Mrs Gandhi, who I fear is at the end of her strength. She is so frail but so lion-hearted!

Love to you, dear Anne, from your loving friend,

Sarojini Naidu.

Mrs Kasturba Gandhi, whose illness Sarojini referred to, died in February 1944 and was universally mourned. 'We were a couple out of the ordinary,' Gandhi wrote to the Viceroy in reply to his letter of sympathy; and to her indeed the marriage must certainly have seemed out of the ordinary. Apart from her husband's unusually high-minded view of the marriage tie, they lived on different mental planes. Though literate in their mother tongue of Gujarathi, she did not know English and her progress in other branches of knowledge was not great. She is recorded as having once put forward the proposition that Lahore was the capital of Calcutta. . ..

Meanwhile, my period of comparative repose as Secretary, Home Department, had not lasted long. Boyd Irwin, the Governor's Secretary, was translated aloft as a Secretary to the Government of India; and in August, 1943, I heard that the new Governor of Bombay, Sir John Colville (later Lord Clydesmuir) had appointed me to take his place. I was highly delighted at the news. Once more I was going to do an important job and take part in the epoch- making events of the time. Another recent happening had also given me great pleasure. On the King's birthday I received a letter to say I had been made a C.I.E. This was a great surprise.

How Amiable a Dwelling

There was something special about those old Government Houses. I do not mean the humbler specimens in ex-colonial territories which had to get by with a single A.D.C. and a lady housekeeper; they were painstaking but not enlivening, and even the cooking wasn't always good; I mean the full-blooded ones that I knew, the Viceroy's House and the Government Houses of the three old Presidencies at Calcutta, Madras and Bombay-particularly of course the last. Here, whatever difficult and anxious things went on behind the scenes in H.E.'s study and his private secretariat, the public life of the inmates was conducted in an ambience of privilege and comfort with the added savour of court etiquette.

The Governor was the monarch's personal legate in his Province. We bowed the head on entering or leaving his presence, and 'ascertained his wishes' instead of asking what he wanted. Luncheon and dinner guests, no matter how well known to him already, were drawn up in a circle for a round of formal introductions and bowed or curtseyed in a well-conducted way as he and Her Excellency made their circumambulation. When King Edward the Eighth stayed in Government House, Bombay, as Prince of Wales, he said that he now understood for the first time what royalty really was.

Guests were given luxurious rooms, marble baths, delicious meals, and cheerful gossip in the A.D.C.s' Room with their short drinks. If athletically inclined they could, in the proper seasons, enjoy cricket, bathing, sailing, golf, tennis and hunting. Besides the house guests, who were always with us, there were guests to meals every day of the week, and an unrelenting procession of formal dinner parties, garden parties, receptions, investitures, dances. In peace time these could be, and certainly were, described as brilliant, 'colourful', even 'glamorous'. In the war they were less brilliant, chiefly because full-dress uniform was replaced by blues or khaki, and complete evening rig with decorations for civilians by dinnerjackets, which might even be worn with what Jeeves called 'soft- bosomed' shirts.

The nature of the parties also changed, for die emphasis now was on entertainment for Allied soldiers, sailors and airmen of all ranks and races. But nevertheless the parties went on, with the utmost good cheer, all the time. One evening H.E., having said good night to his guests, noticed a cupboard-door ajar and moving. When the Military Secretary briskly pulled the door open, a sleeping Tommy fell out on to the carpet. He had been hastily stowed there by his officers in case he might otherwise mar the formal leave-taking.

The Governor was assisted on the domestic and ceremonial side of his life by a Military Secretary, a band, a Commandant of the Bodyguard, a Surgeon and Assistant Surgeon, four A.D.C.s and a submerged host of stewards, housekeepers, over-servants and under-servants. Every day the Court Circulars in the newspapers reported what the Governors and Viceroy had been doing, by whom they were accompanied, by whom attended, and by whom received. The arrivals and departures of all house-guests was also recorded. On one happy day the Viceroy's household at Delhi told the world:

'Sir Godfrey Collins has left.

Their Excellencies attended a thanksgiving service at St Thomas's Cathedral?

I fear some readers may think that this account betokens an unjustifiable expense in a country where the average income is so low. They should also remember that rich and extravagant courts had been standard practice in India since immemorial times; and that the establishments of the Governor-General and Presidency Governors dated back to the early days, when it would not have been thought seemly for the Company's proconsuls to have maintained a state noticeably inferior to the nawabs wazirs and sardars from whom they inherited their rule. Nevertheless, looking back at it all after a quarter of a century, it does seem to me to have been a tiny bit extravagant....

The Governor of Bombay, his Cabinet (if any) and the Secretaries

of Departments spent the rainy months from June to October in Poona. During those months the Governor and his entire staff moved to Government House, Ganeshkhind, a Victorian-Italianate country house set in spectacular gardens and a park of 300 acres,

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which contained a litter of staff bungalows (including ours), offices, servants' quarters, and the bodyguard lines and stables. Again, there may be readers who think that two separate Government Houses were an unwarranted excess. These will be relieved to learn that the third, at Mahabaleshwar in the hills, had been given up in the interests of economy.

While the Military Secretary and his staff were busy producing that atmosphere of light-hearted country-house hospitality which made Government House such a genial place to stay in, my own side of the house occupied itself with the more basic part of the Governor's functions, such as the government of the Province....

Senior in status, Stephen Garvin (Assistant Governor's Secretary) and I stood a little aloof from the social junketings. Although always on call for what are now called 'working luncheons' and 'working dinners', we were exempted from the routine round of entertainment. Nevertheless it was pleasant to be able to go along to the A.D.C.s' Room in our spare moments for a drink or a cup of coffee, and to listen-in to the cheerful chatter that never seemed to cease there. By 1943 the A.D.C.s were wounded or disabled officers enjoying a spell of convalescence, in many cases before returning to active service. A very well-known and popular character at Government House in the early days of the war and before it was Tony Shuttleworth. He was a plump young man, who in spite of a disability later went on to important military work behind the scenes. Tony was a terrific raconteur, chiefly of tales told against himself; and his stories of the hazards of an A.D.C.'s life were renowned.

When Number One Car, the beflagged Rolls of regal size, arrived at a big function, the drill was as follows: first, the motor-car was skilfully manoeuvred and gently halted so that its door was exactly opposite the end of the red carpet, beyond which a nervous line of self-conscious individuals waited to be presented. On the leading edge of tlte carpet had been carefully parked the personage who was to receive the Governor and his lady and to make the presentations.

As soon as the car was motionless a footman jumped out from beside the chauffeur, nipped round, and opened the door. First the A.D.C. on duty got out, then the private secretary. Simultaneously the guard of honour sloped arms preparatory to the present, and the band-sergeant raised his baton. When H.E. descended followed by Her Excellency, the A.D.C. saluted, the private secretary took off his hat, the personage bowed and shook hands, the guard of honour presented arms, the band-sergeant dipped his baton, and everyone stood still while the band played God Save the King.

It will be observed that the business part of this programme could only take place after the A.D.C. had got out of the car. On one particular day, however, the A.D.C. on duty was Tony.

The chauffeur positioned the car beautifully, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly straightened his wig and got his smile fixed, the guard of honour sloped arms, the band-sergeant raised his baton, the footman nipped round and opened the door, and Tony's lower half was seen by the crowd to descend backwards. At that point the tableau froze....

With unparalleled originality Tony had contrived, when rising from his seat, to get the spike of his helmet firmly embedded in the roof of the car. Time stood still for two full minutes during which speaker and spectators alike were treated to an unsurpassed posterior view of Tony's fight with his helmet. At last he won it, and the show could go on.

Tony saluted, H.E. got out, the Speaker, whose smile had slipped a bit, got it working again, and the over-loud applause from the crowd was drowned by the sonorities of the Royal Salute.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

Tony at first found the strain of his duties almost unbearable. 'How do you stand the life?' he would ask Peter Bowling, the private secretary. 'It's too awful-all this saluting and holding doors open and wearing this ghastly uniform; and these terrible meals, with the most weird guests! What do you think I ought to do, to get a transfer?'

'Oh, nothing special, Tony. Just carry on, exactly as you're doing now.'

Peter's duties included the writing of H.E.'s speeches, on material supplied by the Secretariat. He had decided at the very outset of his tenure of office that, during his time, they were going to conform strictly with age-old precedent; and as a result they all bore a strong family resemblance both to their predecessors and to each other.

In the opening paragraphs came the Governor's enthusiastic delight at achieving a life-long ambition by paying his first (or second, or possibly third) visit to the spot concerned. This was closely followed by a reference to the beauty of the scenery through which they had passed since crossing the District boundary, or

A SPECIAL INDIA alternatively (if that would sound like an ill-judged attempt at humour) to the flourishing state of the crops (not very popular this) or at any rate to the heartening evidences of industrious husbandry. There might be a mention of the good state of the roads, if the P.W.D. had done its stuff for the visit, or to schemes for their improvement if it hadn't.

Next would come compliments on the enlightened administration of the local authority (omitted if its suspension for incompetence was in the air), and a review of the several requests that were ventilated in the Address of Welcome. Each one was mentioned separately-the need for a bigger high-school, for a new water- supply, for a drainage scheme, for wider powers of local self- government, for an all-round (downward) revision of taxes; and on each one of them an assurance was given that it was the subject of consideration, both urgent and prolonged, by the department concerned.

To end up, there would be a proper measure of heart-warming comment in respect of any political upheaval, world war, or influenza epidemic which might be causing a ripple of anxiety in our hinterland.

Tony came one morning to Peter's office to collect the Kardhar speech-the reply to the District Local Board's Address of Welcome.

'Now,' Peter explained, as he handed it over, 'All youve got to do is to see you don't lose the thing before we reach Kardhar tomorrow. What are you going to do about that?'

Tony looked worried. The pockets of his uniform jacket were not big enough. He had once put a speech into them, and the Military Secretary had made insulting remarks about his unsoldierly appearance. Where could he put it, he asked.

Peter did not answer.

T know!' he went on. 'I suppose this affair happens indoors?' Peter nodded. 'Then I'll put it in my helmet! I'll have it under my arm inside, and I can slip the speech out without anyone noticing.'

Peter congratulated him on his ingenuity and added unkindly that the only thing left for him to take care of was to make sure he

did not leave the helmet, complete with speech, stuck in the roof of the motor-car.

The first item on the programme at Kardhar was a visit to the Shn Thakur Girls' Middle School. Here the headmistress was to make her annual speech, and the Governor's wife was to give away the prizes. The school dramatic society was afterwards billed to render a scene from As You Like It.

When the first part of the agenda was ended, and Rosalind and Celia had got to Arden in their disguises, Tony slipped out to see if the motor-car and escort were standing by; for in a few minutes the Governor was due to leave for a ceremonial police parade which was to be followed by the function, including H.E.'s speech, at the Local Board Office. Meanwhile the rest of the party were enjoying the drollery of a pillow-fat Touchstone.

'Well,' exclaimed Rosalind in due course, 'this is the forest of Arden!'

'Ay,' Touchstone replied, 'now I am in Arden, the more fool I. When I was at home, I was in a better place! But travellers must be content.'

'Ay, be so, good Touchstone. Look you, who comes here; a young... [arre bapr£!']{.smallcaps}

The last two words of idiomatic shock were pitched in a piercing squeak; and Rosalind was fated never to finish her cue-line.

Tony had beaten her to it.

A door at the back of the stage had burst open; and Tony, in full uniform and sword, advanced three rapid paces towards the footlights, pulled up sharply, cried 'Oh my God! Where am I?' in a loud voice, tripped over his sword and stumbled into the wings.

'Poor Tony!' commented Her Excellency on the way to the parade. 'What a shock it must have been for you!'

'It was certainly a shock for me,' die Governor said. Tn all my time I've never seen one of my A.D.C.s come on to the stage at a girls' school to entertain us. It's been worth staying on for that alone.... Well, Tony,' he finished fondly, 'nothing you can do can surprise me again. I'm immune.'

It was a windy day. The flags and bunting at the parade ground crackled horizontally and dust was whipped up underfoot and swirled away in eddies across the field. But the wind did not spoil the excellence of the drill. The usual evolutions were gone through as if the armed police were guardsmen: general salute, inspection, march-past in column of platoons in slow and quick time, advance in review order. Then, formation into a three-sided square and the investiture of two constables and an officer with medals for gallantry. Only one item remained-the traditional calling for cheers for the Governor.

'Three cheers for His Excellency. Hip hip-/zurra/t. . . Hip hip- hurrahh'

Cheer succeeded cheer, the men waving their head-dress in strict time at each repeat. The Governor acknowledged the compliment with a gracious smile, which changed to a look of puzzlement.

'What the devil's all that?' he asked Peter out of the corner of his mouth. 'Are they laying on a paper-chase?'

Something that looked like a stream of waste paper began to dance across the parade ground, whirling in the wind and scattering as it went. Peter caught a glimpse of Tony replacing his helmet; doubtless it was devotion to his chief that had caused him to join in the cheering.

'I-I'm afraid that's your speech, sir.'

'My speech?' snapped H.E., puzzlement rapidly giving place to blanched panic. 'What the devil d'you mean?'

'Tony had it in his hat.'

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

Government House in Bombay was a very different affair from Ganeshkhind. It was probably unique among G.H.s in drat it was not one house but a collection of several. Since the time when Bombay first came to the British Crown as part of Charles IPs dowry from the Infanta Catherine of Portugal, her long line of Governors had lived in various residences. They were at first in the old Fort, later in a vast Georgian house in Parel. Parel is now an industrial area and the house itself is occupied by the Haffkine Institute, which supplies India with antidotes for all sorts of human ailments including snake-bite.

But the attractions of Malabar Point, the promontory which encloses Back Bay on the western side of the main island, were already well known. Even before the Parel house came into use the Governor (Elphinstone) had built 'Marine Villa' there as a sort of picnic resort. Bishop Heber described it as 'a very pretty cottage in a beautiful situation on a rocky and woody promontory and actually washed by sea spray'. I can personally vouch for all that including the spray, which would blow in at my office window, not to mention the constant roar of the Indian Ocean on the rocks below.

Gradually more buildings were put up and in 1885 it finally became the official residence; and Parel was given up. The site was incomparable. The long tip of the peninsula, rugged and steep on the ocean side but with a sandy beach on Back Bay, was covered with a dense growth of trees. Amongst these were set the Governor's lawns and gardens, and at various vantage points on the bluffs were scattered the separate buildings, private apartments, banqueting- hall, ball-room, guest quarters, staff quarters, and offices which together added up to G.H.

It would have been an ideal site for a Temple of Poseidon, or a colossal chryselephantine goddess beckoning the sailor from afar into her kindly anchorage. Failing those, its cluster of red-tiled bungalows among lawns and shrubberies was the next best thing.

Our own house was outside the gates and on one of the precipitous roads that fell from the ridge of Malabar Hill to the sea in a cascade of wistaria, hibiscus and bougainvillea flowing over stucco garden walls. One gets glimpses of such roads in old San Remo or Estoril. As a house it was a distinct change from our old butt-end of the High Court bungalow; it had a pretty garden, wide verandas on both storeys, a pillared drawing-room and (after the war) air-conditioning on the bedroom floor. This radiant dwelling, which rightly should have been consecrated solely to Arcadian delights, became the setting for the anxieties and sleepless nights of the last months of the raj.

Our next-door neighbour was Jinnail, who received me two or three times in a cold official way, when I called on business. Our private contacts were limited to a complaint on his part that our dhobi (washerman) made an unconscionable amount of noise by his ceaseless smiting of wet garments against lais slab. It was specially bad, he said, when we were absent in Poona and there should have therefore been no noise at all. At those times, he asserted, the noise went on both by day and by night without stopping! Investigation proved the complaint to be well-founded. I discovered that my dhobi had turned himself into a laundry company in my absence, and entered into a contract with die Royal Indian Navy to wash its ratings' shirts. This was done with my metered water-supply, and probably my soap too. And that was not his only enterprise; for we had a visit from the police with a search-warrent. Our dhobi, we learned, had been blackening our face by using our premises to run an illicit still. . . .

From the time I joined Sir John Colville as Governor's Secretary onwards, the war news grew steadily better. The invasion of Italy, the Italian surrender, the drive northwards into Europe, D Day, Normandy, the liberation of France, the rolling back of the Japanese tide, the whole embattled procession of events which brought the world, exhausted, out of its nightmare, brought its measure of relief to India too.

In India, however, relief was mixed with an increasing anxiety. The end of the war, everyone saw, would mean the beginning of Freedom. So far, so good. But gradually the realisation was coming home to the people of India that their politicians, and ours, had between them made such a botch of things that the Freedom they had long dreamed of was no longer possible....

In Bombay we were out of the main stream of the Pakistan controversy; and, thanks in some degree to the personality of our Governor, a calm atmosphere prevailed for the most part. Sir John Colville, besides being a good-humoured and engaging man, was a seasoned politician who had already reached the rank of a Secretary of State before coming to India. He had a flair for remaining unruffled in adverse circumstances and for winning the affection and adherence of all kinds of men. Consequently he was able to keep the Province's war efforts, including continuous recruiting, well up to the mark until V.J. Day was achieved. When the war was over, and our Congress ministers returned to office, he at once made a hit with them; and they continued in harmony until the end, so much so that they asked him, and he agreed, to remain as Governor after Independence. He was, of course, like all the Governors, involved in the over-all Indian picture; and I went with him to the Governors' conferences which the Viceroy called from time to time to assess the deteriorating position, and helped as well as I could in the formulation of the Bombay position.

It is not, however, my purpose to attempt a blow-by-blow reconstruction of the endless talks, conferences, missions and flyings to and fro by V.I.P.s, which went on for the next four years. Other writers^1^ better qualified than I have done this, some of them with success so far as the dry bones of polemics are concerned. To me it is a saddening and fruitless thing to recall those frantic but pathetic efforts to retrieve the notion of a free and united India.

The protagonists were as helpless in the drift to disaster as the characters in a Greek tragedy. It is a sort of helplessness that has so many parallels in history that one comes to feel it is the rule and not the exception. Tolstoy expressed the idea, when he tried to analyse the causes of the Napoleonic wars with Russia in War and Peace. The conclusion he reached-after a vast deal of extremely tedious repetition-was that the parties were driven forward against all reason by the mysterious forces of fate. I cannot think of any more rational explanation of the terrible events that began to develop in India, as it gradually dawned on the country that the British, their exasperating but established rulers, did actually intend to chuck the whole thing up.

I can only record that, whereas we used to worry ourselves to death if a communal riot caused half a dozen casualties, the numbers of victims now rapidly went into hundreds and then into thousands and scores of thousands. Horrible massacres took place in Bengal, Bihar and elsewhere. Bombay City had always been a bad place for inter-communal rioting; and at this time its daily tale of stabbings and hackings became a regular thing, and increasingly heavy. But we were spared the overflow of the poison into the villages which blackened the name of some other Provinces. In one of our Districts a campaign against the Mahomedan minorities did begin in a few

'E.g. Hugh Tinker's Experiment with Freedom (Chatham House, 1967) is the latest.

villages, with the suspected connivance of a Hindu police superintendent. But our Ministry stamped it out firmly. Our ministers, be it said, were men of real conscience.

Elsewhere horror piled on horror, leading up to the peak of killing and desolation at the time of partition about which there has been much verbiage, but little repentance. Moreover, even that did not mean the end of the disastrous antagonism, which I fear is not yet in sight. Mentioning only major instances, there have been fresh massacres in 1950, when India and Pakistan it is said nearly went to war over the treatment of minorities; there has been actual fighting between troops over Kashmir and in the Rann of Cutch; there were wicked riots in 1963, in which 15,000 Mahomedans are believed to have been killed in India, and nearly as many Hindus in East Pakistan.

As a treatment for India's most grievous disease partition has been an aggravant rather than a cure. And both countries still waste their substance, not to mention their standing in the world, in watching each other jealously across artificial frontiers. One day it may come to be accepted that the British scheme for Indian Independence formulated in the Government of India Acts of 1919 and 1935 was, when all is said and done, the best.

But it is not only in India that the de-colonisation process has left a legacy of trouble; the same has happened all over the world. I expect others, like myself, were angered by one of The Times's many leaders about Rhodesia which appeared in August, 1966. Speaking of Britain it ended with the words: 'Her imperial record will be judged by the last chapter just as much by the first.' Leaving aside the point that we would scarcely like to be judged by the first chapters of our imperial record, that bit about 'the last chapter' made me rather hot under the collar: it seemed pretentious and dishonest. I wrote to ask the editor to consider the factual record of our last chapters in various dependent territories.

We laboured in the field, I wrote, and left it when for reasons of greater or lesser respectability the time seemed ripe for us to do so. But what of the manner of our demission of office? And what of die results of that demission?

Lacking the ability to solve her problems in a better way, we left India partitioned-and with the then easy question of Kashmir over- looked-and in the throes of a barbarous slaughter. The legacy here of two unfriendly states ruining themselves in fratricidal belligerency is paralleled by the results of our contribution to the freedom and peace of Cyprus and Palestine. In Africa, Ghana was the first away. It has so far had to suffer a ruthless and cruel dictatorship, bankruptcy, and a coup d'dtat. Nigeria was the prize alumnus of our school of democracy-and no more need be said. The three East African states have had troubles ranging from army mutinies to communist infiltration, near-civil war, financial non-viability and chronic unemployment. The hackneyed and dreary recital suggests that the last chapters of our imperial record, the circumstances and results of withdrawal from rule, unlike the fine achievements of that rule itself, while they may have been well-intentioned or unavoidable or both, have been neither particularly honourable nor at all successful.

I could have extended my argument further afield and pointed to the even more cataclysmic aftermath of over-hasty withdrawal of colonial power in, for instance, Indonesia, the Congo, and French Indo-China. It is widely suspected that the withdrawal was hastened by the pressure of American ideals, jealousies, and ambitions. If so, it must be allowed that she is now making bitter atonement for her error.

Can anyone honestly aver that from the viewpoint of the common man the ex-colonial world is a better place to live in than it used to be? To ask such a question is of course to invite the quick accusation that one is 'an imperialist', a creature both dangerous and extinct But if the word means one who favours empire for the benefit of the imperial power, it will have to be conceded that the I.C.S. were not imperialists. We must make Winston Churchill our pleader.¹⁸ British government officials in India,' he complained, 'were wont to consider it a point of honour to champion the particular interest of India against those of Great Britain, whenever a divergence occurred.

I am sure that a similar loyalty to the people among whom they lived, was felt by other overseas officers too, whether British, French, Dutch or Belgian; and that they made better watchdogs of the interests of the common man than the corrupt politicians who now either rule the roost, or preside over chaos.

Some years after leaving India I found myself in Central Africa; and there I was eye-witness to the fact that the doctrine of decolonisation had become an article of blind dogma, if not of true faith. It is a creed of which the basic words have, in Africa, taken on the meaning of their antonyms. 'Democracy' means dictatorship; 'Freedom' means regimentation; 'Majority Rule' a relapse into tribalism; 'Adult Franchise' that no one has a vote any more; while 'Independence' itself connotes reliance on foreign administrators, foreign traders, foreign craftsmen, foreign money and, in the last resort, foreign soldiers.

Other contradictions are equally surprising. When the unsuspecting listen to Mr Wilson and his lieutenants, they are liable to get the idea that whereas in Rhodesia, under Mr Smith, the African is a second-class citizen rigorously segregated and denied the education necessary to improve himself, the Colonial Office's policy has always been absolute equality of status and opportunity.

The facts, however, are different. When I went to Northern Rhodesia, the Colonial Office was governing there, and had been so for half a century. Yet I found that Africans were not allowed into post-offices or banks or shops or cinemas along with Europeans. They had separate poky little cells, or serving-hatches out of sight, and separate entertainments, if any. It was not until Federation came (the Federation which the British Government later disbanded) that these practices were abandoned, under the government of Sir Roy Welensky; and I can recall the relief my wife and I felt when the horrid atmosphere of segregation was to some extent dissipated. As for education, although the Copperbelt was the biggest industrial agglomeration of Africans between Khartoum and Johannesburg, there was not one secondary school there for African boys and girls; and I doubt if there was a Northern Rhodesian African graduate in the country. In the political field Africans had actually to get themselves naturalised as British subjects before they could vote.

The Southern Rhodesian Government has always done far better in the field of African education than the Colonial Office in Northern

Rhodesia; and both the Federal and the Rhodesian Governments have gone much further in integrating the African into political and social life than the Colonial Office ever did during its rule over its territories.

If more instead of less segregation unfortunately should come about in Rhodesia the fault will lie with our doctrinaire politicians, who have so suddenly and conveniently become converted to the new creed and now threaten the Rhodesian with complete African domination. And the same is true mutatis mutandis, in South Africa. It is sad that the world's leaders do not see the harm that is done by fools who rush in and try to force sudden and fundamental changes on others. Not only are the opposing extremists thereby strengthened, but the death-roll goes up. However much we dislike the notion of racial segregation on Southern Africa-and most of us do dislike it-it costs less in blood and fire than integration in the United States. And although the idea of a Wind of Change blowing down through Africa may be striking and true, it has to be admitted that, so far, the wind has not brought with it the fresh, salt breezes of Nordic liberty, but rather a whiff of death and corruption from the Equator.

⁎  ⁎  ⁎

But at the time of which I am writing (when not astray on side tracks) these strange happenings still lay in the dark of the future. The present was far from unpleasant, especially when one turned from high politics to the job in hand; for whatever was going on in the world outside during the last years of war and the first of peace, the Province still had to be governed; and since there was no ministry in office until 1946 this task threw a great burden of responsibility and labour on the Governor and his advisers.

The advisers were three in number, all senior members of the I.C.S. It was a joy to work in collaboration with them, and to get things done quickly and without fuss. Hard work and responsibility were what they and I had been brought up on, and in combination with Colville's political awareness and flair for public relations they made a strong team. At the end of their tenure of office they were able to hand back to the ministry a peaceful Province, relatively unruffled after six years of world warfare, a full treasury, and efficient

and loyal Civil Services and police ready to carry their new masters forward into the difficult world of Independence.

But the advisers' regime did not limit itself to the negative tasks of economic consolidation and keeping the peace. It had to its credit pieces of solid construction, the good effects of which have been lasting. For instance much of the future Development Planning was begun as early as the Spring of 1944. A well-founded fifteen-year scheme emerged, called 'Planning for the Future of Bombay's Countryside'. Thus much of the spade-work for future Five-Year Plans was finished well in advance. Again, it was Sir Henry Knight who first proved to the world, contrary to widely-held belief (including my own), that it was possible to introduce food-rationing among the nameless multitudes of the cities of India. This discovery, and its efficient implementation, have been of incalculable value to India ever since.

The need for rationing arose from the shortage of food-grains, especially rice, caused by the loss of Burma and the difficulties of shipping. Those who depended on cereals for their staple diet were unfortunately the worst off, while those who followed Western eating habits suffered little scarcity of meat, fish, eggs and vegetables. We used to turn over our wheat or bread rations to others who needed them more, and managed well enough without them.

The only other deprivation we suffered-and it was one that afflicted many thousands of all races in Bombay-was a painful shortage of whisky and gin. Here again the I.C.S., in the person of our Excise Commissioner, proved the flexibility of its talents. He had under his control a large plant at Nasik known as the Government Central Distillery. In this malodorous factory the flowers of the mhowra tree, brought from the forests in vast bulk, were mushed up and converted into spirits for sale in the official liquor-shops all over the Province. When rendered down to legal proof it became an only slightly loathsome stimulant not altogether unlike weak rum.

Now, at our time of direst need, and to its own great profit, the Central Distillery came into its own. It was found that a judicious admixture of various flavouring essences at the right stage of the distillation process could make the juice of the mhowra-flower into a fluid reminiscent in taste either of London gin, or (to a lesser extent) of Scotch whisky. The former, we found, could easily be made into the heart of an extremely effective cocktail. The whisky, which used to mature on the goods train between Nasik and Bombay, was more of a problem.

Bombay was at all times a sophisticated city that would not let fear or depression interfere outwardly with its civilised enjoyments; we kept such dark things between ourselves and our pillows. The races at Mahalaxmi---a spectacle of colour and gaiety not easily forgotten-regattas, golf tournaments, tennis, dances and dinnerparties went on in spite of shortages and in disregard of the blastwalls in the streets. My wife and I knew practically everyone and made scores of new friends besides all our old ones. But we were very far from being free of troubles.

In April 1944 we suffered our worst disaster. A cargo steamer, the Fort Stikine, had come out to India loaded among other tilings with nearly 1,500 tons of explosives and ammunition, including I believe 300 depth-charges, consigned to the Ordnance in Bombay. On her way she called at Karachi, where some of her non-lethal cargo was off-loaded and replaced-with a criminal negligence-by cotton, oil and timber. When she arrived alongside in the docks at Bombay, she developed a fire in her holds. The Bombay Fire Brigade, not unused to putting out fires in ships including ammunition-ships, went to work with its accustomed courage. But-this time-the fire could not be put out....

At about four in the afternoon G.H. was shaken to its foundations by what seemed to be an earthquake; presumably the shock-waves transmitted under Back Bay from the docks 3I miles away. A mushroom-topped column of smoke came into view as the telephones began to ring. Half an hour later-during which period the Fort Stikine, or part of her, miraculously stayed afloat-a second, worse, explosion shook the town, to be followed for hours afterwards by smaller ones. Besides the destruction from blast, pieces of red-hot ship and cargo flew around in a radius of half a mile, starting fires in warehouses, other docks, other ships, ammunition stores and in the city itself. A Parsi gentleman was disturbed on his veranda by an object that fell through the roof on to his floor; it was a bar of gold belonging to the vessel's cargo.

When tile Governor and I got down to the docks, a scene of destruction and confusion met us, as desperate efforts were being made to clear the roads and control the fires which began to be reported from all directions. In the Victoria Dock I saw a mediumsized cargo steamer, which had been berthed ahead of the Fort Stikine, lying at right angles across the quay-side with her back broken; she had been blown high out of the water, slewed round, and dropped. Other ships were drifting in the dock, some on fire. Everywhere there was smoke and the stench of burning. I saw the Fort Stikine s forward gun-turret, complete with gun, lying on the far side of the main docks road (Frere Road), half a mile distant from the ship's berth. So far as I recall the loss of life was never fully computed; but die records show that over seven hundred injured were admitted into Bombay's hospitals, and that the Fire Services alone lost sixty-six killed, including diree officers, and eighty-three injured. Plans were made that evening, at a meeting taken by the Governor, for blasting a huge fire-break through the residential area nearest the docks. But luckily a providential change in the direction of the wind made that desperate measure unnecessary.

All Bombay rallied magnificently in the face of the disaster. Sir Shantidas Askuran, the Sheriff, called a public meeting to start a relief fund and other measures, and busied himself ceaselessly. Immediately help was given to surviving victims and those made homeless by fires. The Sappers got busy at once and made a first- class job of getting order into the chaos and minimising the interruption to shipping. The Viceroy was on the scene as soon as he was sure that a vice-regal visit, the second as it happened in three months, would not encumber relief work; and the Government of India accepted liability for all claims. Bombay was left to lick its wounds.

At one stroke, we had inflicted on ourselves and our own war effort a blow that could hardly have been equalled in severity by a week's bombing. . . .

During his term of office Colville acted for Wavell no fewer than four times. Later, at his home in Lanarkshire, he showed me his four warrants of appointment as Viceroy, which I feel sure must be a record. The need arose chiefly from the visits, often prolonged, which the Viceroy had to pay to London, to confer with the Cabinet. As the senior Governor Colville invariably took his place during these absences; but his own place in Bombay was never taken twice by the same person. I thus had to serve as Governor's Secretary to four different Governors besides Colville himself. The gayest of them was Sir Homi Mody, one of Bombay's leading figures, whose ideas of hospitality were generous. Years later, meeting him in London, I told him how enjoyable everyone had found his time as Governor. Yes, he agreed promptly; and how enjoyable it must have been he had only realised afterwards, when the bills came home to him to roost! In 1945 Sir Henry Knight was Governor for three or four months. 'H.F.' was one of the dearest, quietest, and most effective officers in the Service. Fifteen years earlier he had been Collector of Sholapur at the time of the arson and murders that derived from the non-violent civil disobedience. But we had no such disturbing events during his time as Governor, and H.F. managed to get in a lot of sketching. Peace in Europe was at hand, and he was able confidently to announce in March that his Budget 'would be the last Budget under Section 93'. He later went on to be Governor of Assam (later still, of Burma too); so when the next vacancy as Governor arose, we got someone else.

At the end of the year I went to England on leave, and got home in time to spend Christmas with my family in a house we rented from friends near Bognor.

During my leave I missed the Royal Indian Navy mutiny, and the more important event of the resumption of office by the Congress ministry. I found that in my absence my job had grown much lighter, and far less important. The decisions that until then had come up to the Governor were now made by someone else in the Secretariat. And although, at this stage in affairs, he still presided at Cabinet meetings and interviewed Ministers and Heads of Departments, these things were now largely formalities. An Indian biographer of Gandhi, writing about this period, says: It must be stated, however, that, whatever their difficulties, the morale of the majority of British officers in India was high, and that they had not lost confidence in their ability to govern India for many years to come.'

This was both true and complimentary. But although we had not

lost our confidence in our ability to govern, we had already ceased to do so, and knew we would never do so again, in the Provinces.

And soon after the turn of the year came tire announcement that British rule at the Centre also was to end on a fixed date. The date was June 1948, later brought forward to August 1947. At the same time we heard that Wavell was to be replaced as Viceroy by Mountbatten.

We got ready to await the end.

This waiting time, at any rate in Bombay where everything was under control and Partition was but a subject for pained surmise and ugly rumours, was a time of friendliness and dignity. Relations between the Congress Government and the Services were more than that: they were cordial. All were saddened and increasingly fearful over the news from the North; but that served to harden everyone's resolve that in our Province good order and decency must be preserved.

In the fullness of time we found ourselves, representatives of the old order and of the new, together at a ceremony when the Union Jack was lowered for the last time and the new flag of India was left flying alone.

It was a moment charged with emotion-surprisingly similar emotion-for all. And when the thing was done, we looked at each other with incredulity, and relief.

Envoi

‘Perpetual Benediction’

The sun was near the sea when the tugs cast off with two sad toots apiece and circled tightly round their washes to go home.

Independence Year, 1947, was nearly over. Colville had been asked to stay on as free Bombay's first Governor, and I had stayed on with him in case the change might cause difficulty. But there was none. The Governor simply became a figurehead, treated with respect but no longer consulted, and not even kept very adequately informed. For my part, I had found little enough to do during the fag-end of the old constitution. Now, I had almost literally no work. I could read novels for long empty hours and think of my wife and children far away-think, too, of what I should do with the rest of my life, after India!

I would look for some other work, that was certain; but-after India-what sort of work would have meaning? And would not all the best jobs be gone by the time I got to England? Horrid thought! In the end the Governor was sympathetic. He agreed to let me go- he still had an I.C.S. Assistant Secretary to look after him-to begin making my new start in life. There were farewell parties, including afternoon tea with the Cabinet, and nice things were said-and I was on my way. . . .

Independence had been ushered in with enormous endiusiasm. When Mountbatten came to us in Bombay on the 17th of August, the cheering crowds on the streets were far larger than any seen before or afterwards. Three-quarters of a million was the official count. The streets and open spaces all the way from G.H. to the Taj Mahal Hotel, where a function was held, were packed out widt people crying Jai Hind! England ki jail (Long Live India! Long Live England!) It was a moving experience.

But the behaviour of crowds is usually volatile and irrational. It was not perceived by the cheering multitudes that Mountbatten, the 'gifted amateur' and ex-Commander of small ships, had carried out the Labour Government's orders to get rid of India with a crude thoroughness that failed to do justice to the needs of the case. He had partitioned India as if he were ramming an enemy submarine, without thought as to what might happen to the two halves.

Mahatma Gandhi took no part in any of the celebrations. It is recorded that he 'spent the day in a Calcutta slum, fasting, spinning, and praying'. While others had been rushing in final desperation at the big issues and reaching snap decisions on them in the midst of turmoil, he had been on a long sad pilgrimage to the areas of bitterest tension and most brutal killing. He had been to Bihar, East Bengal, Calcutta, Kashmir, the Punjab, Delhi, preaching and fasting against the fratricidal strife; and had he not done so, things would have been even worse than they were. When he saw the way in which his beloved goal of Freedom had been won, he felt no elation. Mr B. R. Nanda, one of his biographers,¹⁹ says: 'When the Diwali, the festival of lights, came he said he could not celebrate it when the light of love had gone out of the hearts of men.'

He continued to work and pray for communal peace until his death-the death of a true martyr in witness of a true cause.

As I leaned on the rail and watched India disappear, my thoughts went back to the excited young man who had got up in the dark twenty-one years before so as not to miss his magic dawn. Foolish and fond he might have been, his heart aglow with the enthusiasm of inexperience and his head hardly working at all; but his mood, I thought, was more enviable than my own mood now.

I looked at my watch; I was expected soon to join a game of cards. That put me in mind of my old bridge-playing friends at Aramnagar, Rajaram Dinkarrao Divakar and Dr Pereira, and I felt a little cheered. For, by a stroke of good fortune, I had met them again only a week before. My final task as Governor's Secretary had been to accompany H.E. on a visit to my old stamping-ground of Khandesh.

The visit had been conducted in accordance with the time- honoured routine. We had been met at the station by the Collector, successor to my religious friend, Nitya Deshmukh, by Shet Gopi-

nath, who had retained triumphantly his place as President of the Municipality, and by Rajaji, who had slaked his ambition by becoming President of the District Local Board instead. We had attended, without any mishap, a dramatic performance at the High School, a ceremonial parade of armed police, and an official luncheon at the Collector's house.

In the afternoon there was a large gathering in the Council Chamber at the Town Hall, which I have already told you belonged to the P.W.D. Ecclesiastical style of architecture. Addresses of Welcome were to be read out on behalf of the Municipality, the Local Board, and one or two minor bodies representing particular sections of the community. H.E. was thereafter going to make a joint reply. His speech was safe in my pocket, and all was well.

The long, vaulted room had been provided with a dais at one end for the nobs; and the long teakwood table had been removed to make room for hundreds of chairs. The McBain clock, whose figures of Atlas and Night had now become part of the new mythology of democracy, ticked away solemnly as ever in the centre of the long wall opposite the windows. Its hands stood at a quarter to four.

Shet Gopinath had presented H.E. with a chased silver cylinder containing the Municipal Address printed on silk; and Rajaji had presented a teakwood casket with brass mounts containing the Local Board's Address inscribed on vellum. The Addresses had testified at length to the donors' boundless joy at having their guest with them, and more fleetingly to the odd fact that the authors now belonged to an independent country, before getting down to business. A bigger High School was an absolute necessity, as soon as budget provision could be made; the sewerage plant was quite inadequate, and in fact did not exist; a scheme for street lighting was even now held up waiting for its grant-in-aid; and the roads were in a bad way for lack of funds. At the same time the countryside was groaning under the weight of taxation; and it was a matter of the utmost urgency for all taxes to be revised in a downward direction.

H.E. bowed his head benignly as each point was made, and the reader responded with a beaming smile before going on to the next one.

The next personage to take the floor was the Chairman of the Bhoi Community Preservation Society. The Bhois, as I may have told you before, were a tribe of transportation workers who had the monopoly of carrying goods on their donkeys to and from the hundreds of hill villages that could not be reached by road. From what I could gather from the Chairman's unscripted speech they had some grievance, the nature of which was not immediately apparent.

'Your Excellency,' he began, 'we Bhois are very much poor and oppressed sort of people. We do not get proper fooding, for we are working all the time with our asses. Our houses fall down in the rainy season and we cannot put them up because we are too poor. We are for ever in troubles. For many years we have needed a helper in so many ways; but there has been none to help us; and now this new oppression is come upon us. Your Excellency, for so long we are looking for a saviour to come to help us. So, when we learned Your Excellency was coming to our district, we were too happy altogether. At last, we said, our saviour is coming for us.' At this point the Chairman gazed winningly at H.E. before clinching his point. 'And now-now that we see Your Excellency before us with our very eyes-we are filled with merriment.'

A pause ensued, during which the Chairman got ready with his main point and H.E. looked my way with that expression of serene content which only long training can impart.

'Your Excellency,' the speaker continued, 'a new king of oppression has now come upon us. It is this. Whenever our asses reach up to the town of Turangadh, which is too high, they must be unloaded and do double journeys. That is a great hardship to us. Moreover, when asses have climbed up many steep tracks from bottom of ghat, of what use then to remove their burdens? We are asking . ..'

'What on earth is he talking about?' I whispered to Rajaji, who was sitting next to me.

'Sir, it is Miss Tomlinson!'

'Ah, ah, I thought it might be. So the old lady's still active at Turangadh?'

Miss Tomlinson was one of those missionaries whose very names are by-words. Aged now about seventy-five, she had been running a clinic in the little hill town of Turangadh for half a century. Throughout that time she had waged fierce and unremitting warfare against disease, dirt, ignorance, cruelty, and anything she happened to think anti-social.

'What,' I asked, 'is she doing to the Bhois' donkeys?'

'Oh my, she is chairman of Turangadh Prevention of Cruelty to Animals Society, and she is Honorary Magistrate also. She is for ever prosecuting these Bhois if their donkeys are over-loaded; and then she tries them herself and sentences them to fines!'

'I see. So these donkeys carry their loads to a height of 3,000 feet- and, when they get to the top, Miss Tomlinson says they are overloaded, and makes the Bhois unload them?'

'Exactly! Their loads must be halved at the boundary of the town; and then each donkey is made to do two journeys from there to the market. I tell you, sir, I am too sorry for those donkeys!'

'Miss Tomlinson is still a very forceful person, it seems.'

Here Dr Pereira, Civil Surgeon and ex-officio Jail Superintendent, chipped in from my other side.

'She certainly is. I have to keep the sub-jail there supplied with prisoners whether I want to or not, to work in the public gardens for her, and to keep the town clean.'

'And when our pleaders have finished work in the local court,' added Rajaji,' she makes them go and listen to the complaints of her patients, for nothing!'

'I promise you,' said Dr Pereira, 'when she gives us orders, we have to run like anything!'

Rajaji summed the matter up in a sentence.

'When you British made our country free, sir,' he said, 'someone forgot to tell Miss Tomlinson.'

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Thought strayed from Aramnagar to other scenes and friends; and with my small, lonely voice I wished a benison on each: on Nawab- zada, who knew the vital answer-'nothing urgent can come from the Secretariat. It is here, here in the districts, that things happen.' On dear old Jenkins and his English base-words as the cure for all inefficiency. On Hanmant Naik-'You should not have listened to me; but you are a still a very new sahib.'

I thought of the Harijans-the children of God-and wondered when they would freely get water to drink.

I remembered all poor, victimised forest-dwellers, submissive and but seldom pugnacious under the hob-nailed boot of the exploiter. My Crims; might they 'walk straight' and give up house-breaking and highway robbery-and become patient wage-earners like the rest of us! I thought of the pilgrims of Pandharpur; might the monsoons be good, so that they could afford to flock to take darshan of their darling Vithoba and depart with faces shining with happiness. I thought of all Indians; might the light of love be kindled again in the hearts of men, and the lights of Diwali shine bright again.

Last, as the southward coast receded in the night, I thought of Ratnagiri and my old teacher, Mr Chiplunkar. May Laxmi ever dwell in the neat house of laterite ashlar under the palms of the waterfront!

I recalled that to say farewell politely I must place the hands palm to palm, bow over them in a graceful way, and say 'I am coming'.

I wished it were true.

Appendix

A note by the author on political changes between 1326 and 1943.

I. In 1926 the Montague-Chelmsford constitution held the field, named after the Secretary of State for India and the Viceroy who designed it. It came into force in 1919, and was the first recognition by the British Government of the need for parliamentary government in India. In it was embodied the novel idea of 'dyarchy' or dual authority. By dyarchy responsibility for certain fields of administration was 'transferred' to ministers responsible to the Provincial legislatures---the system was introduced in the Provinces only, not in the Central Government at Delhi-while responsibility over the rest of the field was kept by the Governors and the Members of Council appointed to help them. These remained, as before, answerable through the Governor-General to the British Parliament. The Governors thus had composite cabinets consisting partly of 'Ministers' and partly of 'Members of Council'. The main intention was to provide experience in parliamentary government to the electors, the legislators, and the ministers alike, as a prior step towards further advance at a later date. The system was not a federal one; it was rather a phase of devolution of power in a limited field.

II. The 1919 Act provided that after ten years there should be an Inquiry by a Parliamentary Commission, to be followed by a review. The intervening period, intended to be one of experiment and progress, was productive rather of altercation and doubt, and made a happy hunting-ground for the Congress to pursue its obstructionist tactics, while placing respon- vist elements in an embarrassing position.

After the elapse of the ten-year period the Parliamentary Commission, under Sir John Simon, was duly appointed. It was, of course, boycotted and its work hampered as much as possible, by the Congress. In order to surmount these obstacles and also to gather opinion from all quarters, no fewer than three 'round table conferences' were held in London, the first of which was attended by Gandhi. The communal disagreements between Hindus and Muslims, and between caste Hindus and Untouchables, occupied most of their time. No less than six more years had passed before a specific plan could be sorted out of the confusion.

III. Meanwhile the 1919 constitution, considering its inherent limitations and the circumstances in which it had to function, worked surprisingly well; later history has shown that its main intention was largely achieved, in spite of everything. The Congress did not entirely rule the roost in those days. There were many sensible citizens who were prepared to work the constitution for what it was worth, including the then influential Liberal Party.

Before leaving this earlier phase there is one point I ought to make. It should not be supposed that there was any racial, as distinct from political, purpose regulating the devolution of power. The distinction between Members of Council and Ministers does not mean that the latter were Indians and the former exclusively Britishers. There were Indian Members of Council too, and in fact there was an Indian Governor as far back as 1921.

IV. The next landmark is the Government of India Act, 1935, the Act which finally emerged after the she years of argument. It was one of the finest pieces of legislation in the history of the Commonwealth, but fated by human frailty to a large measure of failure. Its main features were:

(i) Complete responsible government in the Provinces, free from control by the Centre.

(ii) Complete responsible government at the federal centre, except for foreign affairs and defence.

(iii) Provision for a Federation of India, to which the Native States could accede, with a federal legislature.

(iv) The rapid elimination of those provisions which remained that derogated from full self-government by the Federation when it should come into being. These were transitional and by usage would become otiose; India would then be as independent as any other member of the Commonwealth.

There was naturally a mass of detailed provisions regulating the composition of the different legislatures, the balance of power between the communities, the protection of the Untouchables and other minorities, voting qualifications and the like. There were also, fortunately as it proved, safeguards to provide for the continuance of administration in the event of a constitutional breakdown.

The Act had two separate claims to distinction. First, it was in itself a model of clear and logical composition and draftmanship. Secondly, it provided in full and workable detail the means by which the eleven 'British-Indian' Provinces and hundreds of Indian States, some of them very large and important, altogether comprising no less than a fifth of the

NOTE ON POLITICAL CHANGES entire human race, could combine into a single federal unit; and, having so combined, would succeed to independence as one integrated State.

Its failure was caused by a renewal of the old wrecking tactics of the Congress, the inability of Hindus and Mahomedans to come to terms, and the slothfulness of the Princes in acceding to the federation although their representatives had earlier agreed to the Bill. In the event, the political and princely leaders argued and jibbed and stipulated for so long, that finally war broke out without the federal part of the constitution ever having been implemented.

V. Although the federal part remained a dead letter, the remainder, which affected the Provinces, did not, All of these became, in effect, self-governing. In four Provinces, in which the Congress did not have majorities, non-Congress ministries took office early in 1937 and stayed in office for their full term of five years.

In the remaining seven Provinces the Congress had won majorities in the legislatures. At first it wished to stick to its habitual policy of non- co-operation with anything and everyone, and accordingly to refuse to take office. The Viceroy and the Governors, however, used all kinds of persuasions and arguments over the months, and in the end found a response from those elements in the party who were not simply agitators and had social policies which they wished to put into effect. Like Byron's Spanish lady who

'A little still she strove, and much repented,

and whispering "I will ne'er consent"-consented.'

they at last consented to take office. That was towards the end of 1937.

For the next two years the whole of British India was governed by autonomous Provincial ministries in a sort of de facto federal-type government. The fact that the Central Government still ran the armed forces and was in charge of things like the railways, posts, income-tax collection and customs, was a convenience rather than a disadvantage. And until the outbreak of war the Provincial Governments knew what it was to be free.

VI. In the autumn of 1939 the Congress ministries resigned, following the declaration of war made by the Viceroy on behalf of the country. In the other Provinces the ministries stayed in office. Wherever the ministries resigned, the Governors took over under their emergency powers²⁰ and governed without benefit of ministers or legislative councils for the whole period of the war. For those areas of India the war was a time of tranquillity and recuperation.

VII. Early in 1942 the U.K. Government was perturbed that, at a time when a Japanese invasion was not thought impossible, the chief political parties were still sulking in their tents. Worse still, the United States Government was still more perturbed and much more ignorant, and put the greatest pressure on Churchill to do something to win over the Congress and the League to the war effort.

Sir Stafford Cripps was accordingly sent out to India and made an offer in essence as follows: in return for full co-operation by the political parties in the war (the rest of the country was already co-operating) India would be free to write and implement her own constitution afterwards. That freedom would extend to the secession of any part from the whole, and also to the secession of any part or the whole from the Commonwealth.

The astounding idea of partition, or even Balkanisation, was thus casually conceded; and it was never allowed to die.

The offer was rejected. So far from the British getting any help from the parties in the war, the only return received in exchange for throwing our trust to the winds was Gandhi's 'open rebellion', which was intended to be the prelude either to treating with the Japanese or to resisting an invasion by non-violent means. But the British side of the bargain was, explicitly, allowed to stand.

VUI. When the war was over the Congress ministries returned again to office, and against that background the British Government began to move as quickly as it could towards the complete demission of power promised by Cripps. Long and heart-breaking negotiations went on for a year in an effort to get the Indian parties to agree on any sort of unitary government to take over control from the British. They failed. Our forces were demobilised, and when the time of crisis came we were helpless. We left India to her fate of bloodshed, partition, and continuing hatred.

IX. The last Indian constitution I served under, for a few months, was the provisional constitution of free India, separated from Pakistan. It was inaugurated in Bombay with enthusiastic ceremonies on 15th August, 1947-

Meanwhile, in the north, the migrations of peoples and the killings and the burnings were getting under way.

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The End