The Colonial Legacy of British Rule over Indians

          The British were known bad colonizers. They brought happiness whenever they left. The colonised, too weak to throw the British out through an armed struggle, exhibited different, and at times innovative, methods of showing their displeasure. The Americans for example, stopped keeping moustache which was the hallmark of the British. This also gave the Americans a more relaxed upper lip, much to the dislike of the colonisers who prided themselves in the stiffness of this limb. However, these aberrations the British could tolerate though not without considerable discomfiture. What they found blasphemous was the liberty the Americans took with the most treasured and unique symbol of the Empire; the English language. How could the Yankees dare to introduce in that intricate and often inexplicable language a modicum of simplicity! The civil war that followed is history and merits no recounting. The British would rather leave with a bloody nose than accept, for example, the word ‘programme’ spelt as ‘program’, irrespective of the fact that it is more user-friendly and sounds the same.
The Indians expressed their dissent differently. One was the way in which they dressed. The history records how Mahatma Gandhi travelled to London to attend the famed Round Table Conference dressed in his loin cloth. The British could not comprehend how a man, whose throat was not encumbered by a strangulating neck tie, could think in strategic terms. A considerable time was also spent by the guardians of the Empire wondering how the loin cloth was held up without a belt or buckle. Some expected it to drop from the sage’s skeletal frame and could not take their eyes off for performing the official work. The conference expectedly failed.
The Indians also took liberty with the English language, though their efforts were at variance with those of the Americans. While not putting a cloak of phonetics on the language, they took to freedom with the spellings. The natives continued to write Kanpur instead of Cawnpore (pronounced like ‘downpore’) and Jalandhar instead of Jullunder. In fact the fervour was so strong that anyone who wrote the Queen’s language correct was considered a traitor by the natives. The grammatical modification differed from region to region and left the colonisers frustrated and desperate.
In August 1942, when the Indians launched the Quit India Movement, an unrecorded incident amply explains the problems of the linguistic limitations on the one hand and the linguistic loyalties on the other. A young British Captain, tasked to stop the protest, had to bear the wrath of the mob and was mortally wounded by the hurl of a hand-launched stone missile. As he lay bleeding, his Colonel came over, knelt (The Americans would ask why not ‘nelt’) beside, and asked the young officer if he had any last message for his kin. Schooled at Oxford and a die-hard Briton, the Captain nodded affirmatively and said in a meek voice, “Sir even after over two hundred years of guiding them, we have failed to reform the natives”. The Colonel raised an enquiring eyebrow. Even more feebly, the Captain continued his lament, “You will notice, and no doubt will have it corrected sir, that one of the protest banners reads ‘kwit India’ ”. Crossing his heart, the brave Captain breathed out, with his last words, ‘…not acceptable…’ barely audible.
Modesty prevents me from openly announcing that I am a staunch patriot. I display it indirectly in various forms. Although I do not wear a loin cloth, a neck tie is not one of my favourite apparels. My main manifestation of the national esteem comes in spellings. I invariably compose my words differently from the Queen’s s English. My patriotism recently showed when I thanked all for wishing us well on our weeding anniversary. Some recipients believed that I was actually referring to it as weeding. They were not too wide off the mark. Because, after the festive lights are switched off and the band boys have gone home, that is what a wedding is reduced to.

Sunday Musings by Lt. Gen. (R) Raj Kadyan