DIARY
Whatever may be the public events I see in England or India in these days, or whatever the questions I read and hear being discussed, they do not remain what they primarily are — that is, political, economic, social or cultural — but become psychological problems for me. I shall illustrate this with a few of my latest experiences. Let me begin with the quarrel between the government of India and the government of this country over cricket. I would emphasise that it is a dispute be- tween the two governments, and not be- tween the Indian government and the authorities regulating cricket in Britain. That alone makes it a psychological prob- lem. And the history of cricket in India shows it as a problem arising out of an abnormal psychological situation. When we Indians had genuine hatred for the British people due to our political subjec- tion to them, it had no effect on our love for English cricket. But what a primary hatred for Britain could not do is now being done by a secondary hatred, i.e., hatred for South Africa, which for Indians has no practical significance at all. The psychological problem presented by this situation becomes a greater puzzle if one considers our past love for English cricket. I grew up in the era of the nationalist agitation in India in its most active form. Yet in 1913, even in my ancestral home in a village of East Bengal, which was 20 miles from the nearest railway station, I read, think of it, Tom Brown's Schooldays. In it was the following passage on cricket: [Arthur:] 'I'm beginning to understand the game scientifically. What a noble game it is, too!'
[Tom:] 'Isn't it? But it is more than a game. It's an institution.'
[Arthur:] 'Yes, the birthright of British boys old and young as habeas corpus and trial by jury are of British men.'
That was the Victorian mystique of cricket, and even in that backwater of East Bengal we imbibed it, and we wanted cricket as much as we wanted habeas corpus and trial by jury. We could keep English institutions and British rule in India apart.
In addition to the mystique of cricket, we also went wholeheartedly for the material adjuncts of cricket. We were then not only discarding but even burning our clothing of English manufacture out of nationalistic anger. But in the little town of East Bengal in which I was born and brought up, the school cricket team always bought bats, balls, stumps, bails, leg-guards, gloves, etc, of English make. Some of the boys even went into white flannel, and the wicket- keeper, as I heard him often do, growled in English, 'How's that!' We knew the name and fame of Grace, and the best known
NIRAD C. CHAUDHURI
Bengali cricketer of the Nineties of the last century kept a long beard like Grace. He was a friend of my father. We gloried in the exploits of Ranji, and no one in India even dreamt of taking objection to his playing with English cricketers, who were of the same race as our hated rulers, or for that matter his playing in matches against Aus- tralia, although that country practised the most thoroughgoing racial discrimination against us. In fact, the British community in India enforced as complete an apartheid in respect of us as the South African whites are doing now. We did not let that influ- ence our attitude to cricket. What then has brought about the present quarrel? I know the answer. But on this occasion I shall not let the cat out of the bag, and only ask Englishmen to ponder this psychological problem.
The next psychological problem for me has been created by the postal strike. But it is not the stoppage here which has set the problem. It is no problem to me, because I have been aware for a long time that the British nation is now permanently divided into two by class hatred, and strikes such as these by the postmen have nothing to do with the material interests of the workmen, but are only manifestations of their ran- cour. Constitutional Labour leadership cannot control that. In any case, the postal strike has been a passing irritation. But I remain in a permanent state of irritation at the problem presented by the present state of postal communications with India. Be- tween 1919 and 1939, to take a stable period, the mails to India went by train to Dover, by ferry to Calais, by train to Marseilles, by P & 0 boat to Bombay, and, last of all, by train from Bombay to Calcutta. The service was indeed weekly, but it was regular. The period of transit was 17 days, and within five hours the letters were delivered. The time of delivery was announced in the newspapers. I lived in Calcutta in those days, and never did I see any irregularity. Now the letters go by non-stop jet planes from Heathrow to New Delhi and vice versa in eight hours. But never do I get my letters sent by this method from New Delhi, where my son lives, in less than eight days, and more often in 13 days. So, the interval between the time of transit and the time of delivery has lengthened from five hours to anything between seven days 16 hours and 12 days 16 hours. It is the human element involved which is responsible for it. And it is not simply the difference between the capacity of the machines and the capacity of the men who handle them which creates the delay. I feel that if the old method of sending mail to India was resumed, it would take another 17 days to be deli- vered. Here is the problem; very discon- certing, because it seems to be insoluble.
Icome last of all to my third problem of the week. It is raised by the fuss over the shooting of the IRA terrorists in Gibraltar. It has made me believe that those who are on trial are those who are charged with the duty of suppressing terrorism, and the terrorists are the injured party. It was utterly different in India as long as British rule lasted there. I went through the entire period of revolutionary activity against it. In fact, the first political murders in India took place in 1897, the year of my birth. But those two murders were isolated events, unconnected with any organised nationalist agitation. That sort of revolu- tionary outrage began in 1907 and con- tinued till 1932, for 25 years in all. But the actual killings over these years were no- thing compared with those seen now. In all, about ten persons of British birth and about 15 Indians were killed. But the feeling and the outcry against the revolu- tionary activity were continuous and loudly vocal. The measures, too, were firm and effectual, although never unreasonable. That resulted in the total absence of revolutionary outrages during the last 15 years of British rule. There is no such effectual indignation against terrorism among the British people today. On the contrary, there is a very vocal group of do-gooders who are acting as the apologists of the terrorists. In India, even the nationalist leaders denounced terrorism, and it was their condemnation no less than the official measures which eliminated terrorism from Indian nationalism. Even the revolutionaries themselves never squealed because of the internments, transportations, and even hangings. As secretary to an Indian nationalist leader, I had to meet some hundreds of the revolu- tionists when they were released in 1937. I never found them taking up any attitude which was other than that of soldiers who think that they are not guilty of killing because they are also prepared to be killed. No cowardice is worse than that which refuses to take the consequences of actions deliberately carried out.
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