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problems saw two great engines at work. One was the British Government, ruling the country according
to its own canons of what would be best for the people. Its system of education in Western science and
thought was shaking the old beliefs and social traditions. By securing justice and enforcing peace, it had
set men's minds free to speculate and criticize. For India's future it had no definite plan; its ambitions, to
all outward seeming, were confined to a steady growth of administrative efficiency. The other engine was
the awakening of a national consciousness. It was feeding on the Western ideas provided by the British
Government and the noble army of Christian missionaries, adapting them to its own purposes, and
building on them a rising demand that the people should be given a larger share in their own destiny. Our
observer could not help being impressed by how far the two engines were from working in parallel.
There was friction and a general feeling of unsettlement. In 1908 a cautious measure of political advance
had been offered when Lord Minto was Viceroy and Lord Morley was his "opposite number" in
Whitehall. It was tainted, however, with an air of unreality which disquieted the officials and irritated the
Indian politician. The cry grew loud for more rapid progress, "colonial self-government" was the slogan,
and the professional classes (chiefly the lawyers) with an English education were busy in a wide-spread
movement for a change in the methods of government. As in all nationalist movements, there was an
extreme wing, which leaned to direct action, rather than the slower constitutional modes of agitation. In
Eastern hyperbole they wrote and harangued about British tyranny and the duty of patriots to rise and
become martyrs for freedom. What they thus conceived in poetic frenzy was translated into sinister prose
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by others. Anarchists are never lacking in any crowded population, especially when hunger is the
bedfellow of so many. In India the section of violence had got into touch with revolutionary camps in
Europe and the United States, and sporadic outbursts from 1907 onwards, including attempts on the life
of two Viceroys and a Lieutenant-Governor, indicated the existence of subterranean conspiracy. Public
opinion condemned it, but did little to check vehemence of language which continued to inflame weak
minds. The whole position was one of anxiety. Would it ever be possible to reconcile the two forces
which were rapidly moving towards conflict?
THE DOMINIONS AND DEPENDENCIES OF THE EMPIRE
India by the Rt. Hon. Lord Meston, KCSI, LLD. Collins, 1924.
-There! That's more like it, Kadi Ah! Better! Better! Now you're moving!
Karl bucks and bounces, gasps and groans. His muscles ache, but he forces his body to make dramatic
responses to every tiny stimulus. The black man cheers him on, yelling with delight.
-Ah! sings Karl. Oh! Ah! Oh!
Up and down and from side to side, whinnying like a proud stallion, he carries the black man round the
hotel room on his back. His back is wet, but not from sperm or sweat, for, in spite of all his shouts of
pleasure, the black man has not had an orgasm as jar as Karl can tell. His back is wet with just a drop or
two of blood.
- Now you're moving! Now you're moving! shouts the black man again. - Hurrah!
Karl is twelve. An orphan. Half-German, half-Indian. In Calcutta. In 1911.
- Faster! Faster! The black man has produced a riding crop and with it he flicks Karl's bouncing
buttocks. - Faster!
When Karl was fifteen, he left home to become a great painter. He returned home three months later.
He had been turned down by the Art School. His mother had been very sympathetic. She could afford to
be.
-Faster! That's it! You're learning, Karl! Karl is twelve. The red sun rises over red ships. Calcutta ... The
riding crop cracks harder and Karl gallops on.
KARL WAS TWELVE. His mother was dead. His father was dead. His two sisters were sixteen and
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seventeen and he did not often see them. He embarrassed them. Karl was in business for himself and, all
things considered, he was doing pretty well.
He worked the docks along the Hooghly. He described himself as an Agent. If something was wanted
by the sailors or the passengers off the ships, he would either get it for them or take them somewhere
where they might obtain it. He did better than the other boys in the same trade, for he was quite
light-skinned and he wore a European suit. He spoke English and German perfectly and was fairly fluent
in most other languages, including a fair number of Indian dialects. Because he knew when to be honest
and who to bribe, he was popular both with customers and suppliers and people coming from the big red
steamers would ask after him when they landed, having been recommended to him by friends. Because [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]