ABSTRACT

INTERVIEWEE NAME:Sir Alec OgilvieCOLLECTION: 4700.0584

IDENTIFICATION: Britons in pre-Independence India

INTERVIEWER: Frank De Caro, Rosan Jordan

PROJECT: British Voices in South Asia

DATES: 3/14/78 FOCUS DATES: 1930s

Tape 854, Side A

a more spacious age, most people who went to India came from families where there would be servants in their home in England; post-war (WWII) was different; his father instructed him not to go into government service in India, but rather business in India, Alec thinks this happened in many families, the tradition of working where one=s father had; he knew what to expect in India; those who went out for the first time went out young, so they adapted well; before WWII, no one in his company thought of marrying before age thirty; in many companies you weren=t allowed to and in many cases you couldn=t afford to marry; story about beginning of his business arrangement, asking for a contract and being looked at with a Afrozen eye@ ; he was told that he would have a Agentleman=s agreement@; he was given a second class passage out to India and told that the next free passage would be when he retired; they had to pay for a sea passage back on leave; his first tour was four years; in 1946, his wife was the first wife to ever receive payment by his company to go to India; in 1948, the governments produced a AUK Citizens Registration/Act@, it caused problems about who could be admitted and who could not; he is thankful that both he and his wife were born in England because otherwise this act would have prevented them from having British passports--his father was born in India, his mother was born in Australia, his wife=s two parents were born in South Africa, and his second son was born in India; the quality of life for businessmen in India before the war was very high; houses were gracious; in the 1940s air-conditioning was introduced; in the 1950s his mother would write his wife wondering why they didn=t take the children to the Hills in the hot weather; they didn=t because of air-conditioning, more frequent home leaves, and the expense of going to Hill Stations; in South India, you can still see older, poorer British who have retired at the Hill Stations--they are Aalmost unaware that independence happened in 1947; memories of going on winter trips from Dehli to Simla as a young child; his English nanny insisted that the only way to survive such a journey was to dose the children with castor oil; a lot of nurses ended up marrying army sergeants in the British Army; he still loves overnight train journeys; when he and his wife left India in 1965, they decided to return to England the Aold way@--by train to Bombay (42 hours) and by ship to Italy; that was the first time they had been by sea in eighteen years because they could get from their house in Calcutta to the airport quickly and the air journey took in less than half the time than it still takes to get from Calcutta to Bombay by train; mail steamers arrived in Bombay on Thursdays (P.M.O. Steamship Company) and departed on Saturdays, therefore, Fridays were the day to eat lunch out of your office; pre-war social life--active club life; dropping calling cards in senior officers= boxes in order to get invited to dinner; sporting life was good in country clubs in Calcutta; there was a long waiting list to get into them and (embarrassingly) most clubs did not admit Indians until after independence; Indians took it quite well, instead of saying, Ayou know what you can do with your club!@; the Saturday Club was in the middle of Calcutta, had tennis and squash courts, a swimming pool, dancing, a resident band; every Monday (in the 1930s) there was a tea dance outdoors; the Saturday Club was a young unmarried person=s club; the older man=s club like the Bengal Club in London (founded in 1827) did not allow women; India was more than just sandy deserts, Calcutta had five golf courses--all with green grass; Alec had a grass tennis court at his home; there was a huge European population in Calcutta to support these clubs; after independence, people said there were more Europeans in India than in pre-independence, but that began to die out in the late 1950s and 60s; reasons for decline of Europeans: A) high taxation, B) nationals should do the job if possible, C) many foreign companies sold out anyway; at one stage, his company had over 200 British people, but declined to 50 by the time he left; now there are none; during the British Empire, most people had relatives in the British Army in India, Malaya, Africa, etc.; now young people only venture to places like Spain; he is sad because the Empire gave the people a much wider world concept; the Anglo-Indian population had the most difficult time during the post-independence period because the Indians aren=t interested in them; his own children are very interested in hearing about India; his older son no works in Hong Kong; national current of guilt about only a handful of people handled an empire; returning to England was not difficult; his friends and relations were always asking how they did without all of their servants--he claims it was absolute bliss; his son returns to England every year; now people can=t afford servants; a young Indian couple would only have one servant; the difference between a young wife going out in the 1930s and one going out after WWII--later, women had different upbringings in Britain than earlier women; post-war women worked in England and upon arriving in India and found that there were no jobs and the housework was done by servants; the most important person to interview when a couple decided to go to India was the wife; pre-war wives didn=t have as many problems; another pre-war aspect of life, the paying guests (PG) [like boarders] helped couples make ends meet; he knew of several cases where the wife ends up marrying the paying guest and the husband stayed on as the paying guest; riding horses; the Calcutta Light Horse Club ; soldiers and ICS members looked down on the business community; Athe box swallow@ is a peddler and became a derogatory term towards businessmen; Alec was looking at an old school report and saw that his headmaster=s last comment was, AI=m sorry this boy is being lost to commerce@; he is now a governor of the same school which is, ironically, kept alive by businessmen; the Indian ICS people (educated in England) were the reasons for smooth transition to independence; an annual Oxford vs. Cambridge boat race; once you went to one company in India, you did not think of switching to another; in India, his business was Managing Agents; it started due to shortage of management; commercial empires manages steamers, jute (fiber) mills, coal mines, tea estates, paper mills, electricity supply companies ; these kind of companies are gone because the government hated their power; patterns of being a managing agent; he traveled more in the Indian Army than he did while working for his company; the Scottish were a very dominating influence; most companies he=s referring to have Scottish backgrounds; there was a conscription of people into the Indian Army during the war, but he joined before conscription; he joined the Second Gurkhas (a military regiment); he was given a booklet with instructions to young officers joining them; one of the solemnly written phrases was Aofficers are encouraged to save money to buy a polo pony instead of poodle faking [socializing] in the Hills@; many words in English have come from the British connection with India such as Apajama@ and Abazaar@; and vice versa, so if you want a match in India, you say Adessoli@ [?] which comes from the old British Army connection so that has become an Indian word, now