" DIVERSIONS OF AN INDIAN POLITICAL "
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
SIR,—While thanking you for the kind review of my Diversions of an Indian Political, in your issue of December 2nd, may I be allowed to say that I think the writer has been a little less than fair about the chapter " Indian Rule and Rulers," which was intended to depict the disastrous effects that would follow the grant to India of complete independence ? Professor Thompson concludes his criticism with an exclama- tion ; that I had added a " cool " postscript to my paper to the effect that it was written six years ago and that I thought apparently that no revision was called for in 1932 I The fact is that no revision is called for. Nothing has occurred in the past six years to render the prospect of an independent India more tolerable. This idea is indeed inherent in the " safeguards " which—extremists excepted— everybody regards as essential. Certainly in this postscript I refer to the steps already taacen as " hasty and ill-advised," a point of view which Professor Thompson, " compendiously " as he calls it—I think also contemptuously—labels " Anglo- Indian." Anyhow it is the point of view of most Englishmen who have served in India, and the tag coelum non animum mutant—is too often forgotten. I made no attempt to justify the adjectives used in what after all was a short postscript, but preferred rather, for the sake of brevity and force, to quote verbatim from the writings of men whose opinions really do carry weight. Of these I think mention should have been made in the review if it was necessary to refer to the postscript at all.—I am, Sir, &c.,
Tullecombe, Rogate, Petersfield. R. L. KE:smois.
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