* *
The 50 million untouchables, outcastes, those belonging to the “depressed classes,” were not an organized political force. But they had a politically active champion who had risen from their shared degradation to membership on the Viceroy’s Council. He was Dr. Bhimrao Ambedkar, paunchy, bespectacled and prosaic.
Ambedkar wanted independence for India, but only if it meant a better life for the depressed classes. He did not believe in the Congress party’s protestations that its enlightened policies already guaranteed fair treatment of the untouchables. The party had failed, he maintained, to work earnestly for the betterment of the outcastes’ lot. Furthermore, conservative members of Congress had no wish to remove the disabilities (including indenture of unborn children to lifetime service in payment of a loan) that made the untouchables so useful to upper caste Hindus.
The suggestion that the depressed classes might find an acceptable place in a Congress-League coalition did not appeal to Ambedkar. It would mean, he said, rule by three groups: “the Brahmin, who is a rascal; the Bania (the trading caste to which Gandhi belonged), who is a cheat; and the Muslim, who is a fool.” No, he would wait until after the war and then if there was to be a transfer of power, the position of the untouchables should be negotiated with deliberate care among the British and the Indian factions.
This matter-of-fact, unprepossessing, canny politician inspired veneration among the untouchables. On the walls of their rooms his picture hung bedecked with garlands. American missionaries who had seen both Gandhi and Ambedkar amidst their respective followings said that the emotion welling out to Ambedkar was the greater. Untouchables would surge toward him to press their faces to his feet.
A young British officer, six months out of England and assigned to a regiment of untouchables, told me in December 1942, that these soldiers worshiped Ambedkar, actually prayed to him. After our conversation I noted, “During the recent riots they were stationed in Nagpur. The troops seemed to relish shooting Brahmins. In fact, the zeal of three or four of the untouchable soldiers was such that their rifles had to be taken away from them.”
Was there friction between the untouchable troops and other Indian units? Yes. Particularly, in his experience, with the Sikhs.
The untouchable soldiers were, to the lieutenant, an interesting contrast to the skeptical Tommies. They had complete faith in their British officers. He felt it rather pathetic that these Indian lads should march down the road singing with great assurance, “And when the German soldiers see the British flag they will all run away.” “The poor blokes haven’t the slightest idea what it’s all about.”
Like the untouchables, the princes were not an organized political force. But they had no need of a champion. They did very well on their own, thank you. Financially speaking, they were comfortably off; the Nisam of Hyderabad was reputed to be one of the richest men in the world. And as for being highborn, the Maharajah of Udaipur was a descendant of the moon and had never been to Delhi to pay homage to the British raj because no Maharajah of Udaipur could go to Delhi save as a conqueror.
Going to Delhi, or precisely going to the ball at the Viceroy’s House, did have drawbacks for princes. The young playboy Maharajah of Cooch Behar, who liked Americans, attended a viceregal party in white tie and tails and was enjoying himself dancing with pretty girls when the Viceroy spotted him. Cooch Behar was sent packing, told to change into his satins and jewels and return to sit in ornate display with the other princes below the viceregal throne, which he did.
Another high-spirited young maharajah was Jaipur. Jai was good-looking, engaging and a first-class polo player. In conformity with tradition he had contracted two dynastic marriages—a princess and her niece from the ruling house of Jodhpur. Then asserting his individuality, he sought to take as his third wife Cooch Behar’s beauteous, very bright, and emancipated sister, Ayesha. In the ensuing negotiations, Ayesha made her conditions plain—Jai must undertake to remain faithful to her for five (5) years. So alluring she was that Jai capitulated to her demand—an unprecedented humiliation for a maharajah. The princely set was properly scandalized. But Jai survived the traumatic five years and when my wife Patricia (whom I shall introduce later) and I knew them not long thereafter, Ayesha and he seemed to be unscarred by the experience.
As a footnote, Ayesha became active in national politics after India was granted independence. She was a prominent member of the legislature. In 1975 she got into trouble with the executive arm of the government that discovered that she had not turned in all of her treasure.
“Educate a woman and you place a knife in the hand of a monkey.” So went an unchivalrous Hindu aphorism. An educated Hindu woman observed to me that among enlightened Indians, the women tended to be (a) more radical and realistic, and (b) less hysterical than the men. Be that as it may, I was impressed by the poise and silken strength of some of the Indian women I met. In mind and mettle they were unsurpassed by any of the men.
In another society supposedly dominated by males—the traditional Chinese—the same was true. In force of character and intelligence Chinese women were easily equal to the men. Again and again in Chinese history women of humble origins worked and intrigued their way into positions of great power. They were simply smarter, tougher and more determined than the men from whom they seized and held power.
* * *
Beginning an exploratory tour of southern India in November 1942, I took the Madras Mail from Calcutta southward. At one of the stops I fell into conversation with the train-driver, a toothless Anglo-Indian gaffer. Typical then of these people of mixed British and Indian blood, he welcomed being treated as an equal, for the Anglo-Indians were not fully accepted by either of the societies from which they stemmed. My friend said that he had retired some years earlier, but with the war he had been called back. Would I care to ride with him to the next station? Indeed I would.
Just look at this engine, he exclaimed. Patchwork. No new engines for years. The inspector had said that it was a scandal to have such an engine on a mail train. As I wrote in my journal,
We started out with some huffing and chuffing dignity—the old man at the controls, the fireman-wallah very business-like. But as we gained speed and the locomotive shuddered and twisted, and as I found myself pitted with ashes, the greater was the crew’s nonchalance. At what seemed to me the pitch of the crisis, old ironsides leaned over and croaked, “We’re doing 60.” I groaned appreciatively. When it was all over and I was marveling that the front of the engine wasn’t plastered with sirloins and spare ribs, I asked, “Do you kill many cows?” “Oh yes, and many humans, too. They try to beat you across the track. Now when I was a young engineer in 1908 I killed one, and if it hadn’t been for some missionaries who happened to be along, I’d have been in a bad way.” I still haven’t found out whether it was a sacred cow that he killed or only a human.
In the evening the engineers were changed. The new one too was an Anglo-Indian, but younger. He was worried about an accession to power by Indian nationalists: “We’ve been having the cream of it in this country and they know it (skim milk masquerading as cream). The British pretend to be worried about the fate of the small democracies after the war—what about us (the Anglo-Indians) whose very existence they are responsible for? I hope they give us Burma if they grant Congress its demands!”
A wise Swiss doctor, Dr. H. H. Gass, whom I met a few days later, spoke sympathetically of the plight of the Anglo-Indians but they treated the Indians worse than the British did. It was a case of over-compensation and a desire to associate themselves with the master-race.
An English friend had told me that Madras had a seventeenth-century flavor. Indeed, its atmosphere was placid old colonial—low venerable buildings, no concrete and glass cubes, wide quiet streets, shade trees. People
