ABSTRACT

INTERVIEWEE NAME: F.M. Innes, Pelly COLLECTION: 4700.0 578

IDENTIFICATION: Britons in pre-Independence India

INTERVIEWER: Frank De Caro, Rosan Jordan

PROJECT: British Voices in South Asia

DATES: 2/14/78, 2/15/78 FOCUS DATES: 1930s

Tape 844, Side A

keeping in touch with friends around India, socializing; relatives who served in India; social rank very important, seniority; social rank extended to wives; his cohorts in Punjab felt like brothers; Madras traditions; attitude about being in India Civil Service; differences between serving in different provinces; local traditions of different provinces; book A Special India by James Halliday, other reading suggestions; Past Imperative by Edward Wakefield; transferring jobs in India; Foreign Political Service made of civilians who weren=t working and soldiers who weren=t fighting; social mixing of different services, rivalry, perceptions of rival services; social obligation to attend club; got along well with Indian police service; cohesion of Anglo Indians; heat in the Punjab; camaraderie among men; industrial development of India; became joint secretary of commerce department in Delhi; his father had been member of viceroy=s council in charge of commerce, industry and railways; Acow dung mentality@ of Indians; Indian Army steel bill, which protected British steel interests; opposition to bill, lacked support of viceroy; Indians were against foreign investment; father=s bill passed by only one vote; industrial development craze following war; British created environment in which private industry could flourish; stayed on in Pakistan for a few years after Independence; problems with Pakistan; British women=s adjustment, problems, in India; servants; competence of Englishmen in India; competence of Indian Army; recruitment of men for various services, examinations; training of Indian police; notable eccentrics C judge in Madras who was Tamil scholar; eccentrics in PunjabC lazy drunkard, man who walked on all-fours; anecdote about drunken eccentric=s treatment of servant; court cases he tried or heard about; ill deputy commissioner who found out his coffin had been made already; John Lawrence, who recovered from near-fatal illness by drinking bottle of burgundy; other case where alcohol cured fever; few Britons took enough interest in Indian culture; got Sunday newspaper mailed to him, read it three weeks late; British interested in human side of India, people and customs; feeling far away from England.

charcoal burners; every province had different revenue system; sent out to work settlement of his own south of Kashmir; outbreak of bubonic plague; training in judicial work; canals in southern Punjab; his job was to help people settle around canals; feelings about canals; people in area were formerly nomadic; working with tribal people, judicial work; wanted to go to Persian Gulf; protocol; military parades, viceroy=s balls, men far more attractively dressed than the women; stationed at Hindu post in western India; lions near this post, strict orders to kill lions; few Europeans at his post; educated Indians joining service then; social life amongst Europeans; investigating a suicide; cliques within European social life; club life C tennis, polo, visiting, drinking, reading, playing bridge; Britons also met in church; Achicar@?, game known as AEnglishman=s pride@; types of meat eaten, cooking methods; some English at home horrified by luxury of life in India; climate in Himalayas; working in atmosphere of royalty, higher rank; shooting, duck hunting, viceroy would shoot first; hunting partridges in cotton fields, thinks the birds died of exhaustion; enjoyed touring around India; importance of precedence, rank, complex distinctions; British Marine=s take on precedence; formality of society in India; Indian Army more hierarchical than British; manners of addressing officers; how junior people learned the rules in India; sometimes best to do nothing, not interfere with orders; perceptions of maharajahs as eccentric; maharajah=s son who was interested in dissecting human corpses.