Letters to the Editor
[In view of the length of many of the letters which we receive, we would again remind correspondents that we often cannot give space for long letters and that short ones are generally read with snore attention. The length which we consider most suitable is about that of one of our paragraphs on " News of the Week."—Ed. SPECTATOR.] THE COLOUR BAR
" [To the Editor of the SrEcrvrort.]
Si a,—May I in one letter take up so much of your space as is required for comments on two letters in your issues of March 14 and 21 ? First, as to the " colour feeling," whether it is instinctive or artificially cultivated, the answer probably is,
Both." The discussion of the subject by the American philosopher, Josiah Royce, in his book, Race Questions (1908), has always seemed to me the soundest. The germ of the feeling, lie maintains, is instinctive, in so far as a child shrinks in the first instance from any peculiarity in another person to which it is unaccustomed—a hare-lip, for instance. Whilst, however, in the case of other peculiarities education trains a man not to notice them, till, as a matter of fact, we overlook them without effort, in the case of the colour feeling wrong education, by drawing attention to a colour difference, making it a sub- ject of discussion, works precisely the other way. The instinc- tive germ is fostered till the feeling of discomfort in the presence of a colour difference becomes really strong. No doubt in some persons the feeling, even if largely a product of continual suggestion, does actually become a feeling which cannot be altogether banished by an act of will, a feeling which seems like a dominant instinct. Other people, like myself, do not have it at all. As the feeling exists in the world, it seems to be widespread only where there is a fear of political or economic antagonism. Two instances indicate this : one is the absence of colour feeling in the United States in regard to Red Indians, contrasted with the strong colour feeling in regard to negroes. The negroes are a danger, and the Red Indians are not. Another is the absence of the feeling in New Zealand in regard to Maoris : of course, the Maoris are a particularly fine brown race, but it is also to be noted that the relative smallness of their numbers prevents their ever being a danger to the white New Zealanders.
What your correspondent, Mr. Ramanujam, says about Indians feeling a fair complexion repulsive, like " white leprosy," is something I have heard repeatedly stated by Englishmen who have lived in India, but enquiries amongst my Indian friends have convinced me that it is quite untrue of the great bulk of Indians. And there is every reason why it should be untrue ; for, whereas a brown complexion is something strange to a European, a fair complexion is not strange in many parts of India. The range of eolour amongst Indians is far greater than the range of colour in Europe ; whilst some Indians arc as dark as negroes, many are quite as fair as Europeans. Certainly Indians may have colour feeling as well as Europeans. I once knew a young Rajput who was as fair as an Englishman : he told me that his family had always been particular in the choice of wives, and the thought of marrying a dark-skinned woman was horrible to him. Another Indian friend of mine told me that the first time he shook hands with a negro, a fellow-student in London, lie experienced a distinct physical shrinking : he refused to give way to it, and ultimately suppressed it, but the feeling was there at the outset.
Of course, when "colour feeling" is spoken of, what is often meant is not any shrinking from a particular complexion in a literal sense, but an attitude of antipathy or contempt towards men of. another race or community, such as the attitude of anti-Semites in some European countries towards Jews—a case in which there is no colour difference. But it is a mistake to confuse a shrinking from close intercourse with a person of a different race, colour, community, and a regarding of such a person as inferior. So:netimes the two things go together, but not always. A man may shrink from close contact with a being whom he feels unlike, even if he does not consider him unequal. For some kinds of human association more is required than mere equality. In marriage, for instance, what is mainly required is not equality but similarity, and if anyone thinks Marriages between persons of white and dark races, as a rule, undesirable, it may be not on grounds of inequality but of dissitnilarity.
This applies to social intercourse generally, and hence it is that questions of clubs and boarding-houses are so difficult ; for the trouble would not be removed if complete equality were recognized : dissimilarity would remain. No kind of government regulation can well prescribe to purely voluntary groups of people, like clubs or boarding-houses, whom they are to admit, for they are just groups of people who come together because they feel each other more or less congenial. Every human society is apt to resist the entrance of people of a different sort. On the other hand, there are two forces which counteract this natural cliquishness. One force is right education, which extends a man's interest beyond his immediate group and makes hint discover what is common under external differences; the other force is Christianity, which makes men ask rather what service they can do to a stranger than what pleasure for themselves they can get. It is humiliating that so many of the English middle-class people who congregate in boarding-houses should be unwilling to have an Indian in their company, but I am afraid that the only hope of things im- proving in this respect is from the extension of right education or the extension of Christianity or both. To be fair one should recognize that the proprietor of a boarding-house who refuses admAtance to an Indian may not himself be narrow-minded, nor the people actually resident in the house. As the proverb says that the weakness of a chain is the weakness of its one weak link, so the practice of boarding-houses is lowered in this matter to the level of the most narrow-minded. In the com- petition between boarding-houses to secure inmates, each proprietor has (for his pocket's sake) to think not only what his actual boarders object to, but what might be a handicap in securing future boarders. If he knows that some people object to having a non-European in their company, that is enough to make him refuse one admittance.
In the matter of European clubs in India, I think that Indians, if they considered, would make great allowance. It is perfectly understandable that people of one race living in a foreign environment should find it more complete relaxation and refreshment in their off times to be just with each other talking to each other with the knowledge that fragmentary phrases about their common interests needed no explanations and, above all, without any need to be polite to each other. A nice Englishman in India would almost always try to be polite to an Indian ; it is for many Englishmen a relief to be with people they know so well that they need not be polite. Similar principles apply to Indians in England. When I lived in London before the War, some of the Sindis I knew had a little club of their own, all Sindis, where they could get together and talk about the things at home. It would have been unreason- able if I had pressed them to admit English members to their club.
I am afraid that your correspondent D. P. R. in your issue of March 21st, has been misled by the book of Lt.-Colonel Osburn, which he actually believes to be a true account of things. It is one thing to state unpleasant truths and another thing grossly to exaggerate and misrepresent. It is fantastic- ally untrue that the older Civil Servants as a rule taught their juniors to "detest the Indian." There have, no doubt, in the past been many individual acts of rudeness done by English people in India to Indians. I remember before the War an Indian friend of mine saying to me that, so far as he had been able to observe, every case of embittered nationalism was traceable to some personal experience of rudeness from an Englishman. I saw the same friend again last autumn, after seventeen years, and was delighted to hear him say spon- taneously, " With regard to individual rude treatment of Indians by Englishmen, that is quite a thing of the past : you may rule that quite out of the present situation ; one never hears of such things now." Of course, India is a large place, and outside the range of my friend's observation the experience of others may be less happy ; but the field over which my friend's observation extends is a pretty large one.—I am, Sir,
&c., . ED WYN BEVAN. - The Athenaeum, Pall Mall, S.W.1.
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