LETTERS TO THE EDITOR
[Correspondents are requested to keep their letters as brief as is reasonably possible. The most suitaY length is that of ore of our " News of the Week" paragraphs. Signed letters are given a preference over those bearing a pseudonym.—Ed. THE SPECTATOR.1
HOLLYWOOD AND INDIA
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—As the author of the book from which the film Lives of a Bengal Lancer was made, I have not, perhaps, any particular right to answer Mr. K. S. Shelvankar, for I had nothing to do with the filming. But since your correspondent states that Hollywood has lent " colour and animation to the frozen prejudices of the most reactionary group of British statesmen," I venture to send you my own opinion of the picture. In doing so, however, I am not attempting to defend Hollywood against the charge of being an agent of British Imperialism : I think Hollywood speaks for itself, in quite unmistakable idiom.
Mr. Shelvankar, whom I take by his name to belong to the race that fought its way down into the plains of India, there to found the imperishable culture of Arya-varta, rightly says that the issues between India and England are profoundly complicated. His Aryan ancestors were once aliens in India as much, or as little, as the British now are. Today the Brahmins, by their influence and intellectual integrity, could do much to clarify the questions that divide and agitate the two countries. I am a nationalist myself, and I believe in nationalism for others. I want to see the various races of India administering their own affairs in their own various ways ; but how is this to be achieved, in the near future at any rate, without an Indian Army officered by British officers ? One day the Indian officers may be forthcoming, and perhaps the necessary trained personnel may be found wholly in India, but the plain fact is that it is not yet avail- able. Even when it is available, it will come for many years (to judge by present indications) if not for ever from the martial races of India. To say this is not " romanticism of Empire," or vanity, or sanctimonious bombast, as your correspondent suggests, but just a fact. Why should it exasperate or humiliate the Indian spectator of the film ? The men of the Bengal Lancers with whom I spent my youth were not exasperated or humiliated by being commanded by British officers : there was a real brotherhood in the regiment. A. far better understanding existed between us than exists between the Indian " intellectual " and the " advanced " British politician, such as Mr. Lansbury, whose recent broadcast address seemed to me to be insufferably patronizing towards India.
India can give us as much as we give to her. We each have great need of the other. Without India we should be half ruined. Without the British, India would soon be riven between factions of her own fighting races. If we admit, without evasion or equivocation, these balancing factors in a difficult situation, then surely Mr. Shelvankar will admit that the British officers on the North-West Frontier of his country are engaged in an onerous and delicate task; and one not devoid of romance ? There are many races in India who would grasp the sceptre of Empire if they could. The Pathans, for one, who once ruled at Delhi. And there are Hindus as well as Moslems whose tradition and whose present temper is not less martial than that of the two hundred thousand jolly potential pirates who live in the No-Man's Land between British India and Afghanistan. The Mahrattas and Sikhs would no more consent to be ruled by babus and banias than would the Ghakkars and Tiwanas. Does Mr. Shelvankar suggest that any or all of these people should protect India without the assistance of the British ? If so, he would .find that they claimed a greater share of the control of the central government than the communal award has yet allowed them : indeed, the orators of Congress and the Legislative Assembly would find themselves in a very unenviable plight if they were deprived of British protection.
I agree with Mr. Shelvankar, however, that over-simplifica- tion is dangerous in discussing India ; and I would not myself lay down the law about any of the political issues of the moment ; but I do not think that the film in question does so either. I think, on the contrary, that the picture
Indian ndians of a fine type (of course it is a melodrama, and there is a villainous Indian as well as a traitorous Englishman) who ride and tent-peg and enjoy life like the men amongst whom I had the honour to serve for nearly nineteen years.
For too long the British public has been accustomed to think of the student and politician as the typical product of India. Nothing can be further from the truth. I am glad that the screen has now shown us something of the lives of the mountaineers of the North West. It will do something to dispel the idea—fostered by a well-known American lady writer—that the average Indian is a debauched weakling. There is naturally no one type in a country which is as populous as Europe, but I wish Hollywood would also " give colour and credence " to the yeoman peasants of the Punjab, the Rohillas of the United Provinces, the Rajputs with their long tradition of chivalry, and all the other stalwart races who are today living under the King's peace. I am sure that millions of Indians will enjoy Lives of a Bengal Lancer, and I wish that Hollywood—or better, Indians themselves— would make other films representing the lands of the Indus and Ganges as the sane and virile countries that they are.—
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