The Inscrutable English
Someday perhaps I shall re-write the colonial history of India with this
thesis : the reason why the English managed to subjugate the Indians for two
hundred years was not because the English were Imperial but because
they were Inscrutable. The Americans may have overtaken the English
today with their imperial high-handedness, but with their fetishization of
Plain English they cannot come even an inch close to the heights that the
English had one reached in their love of Plain Inscrutability. Observe these
snatches of conversation between an Englishman and a Native, with myself in
the thankless role of an interpeter.
(A)
Englishman :
This is not proper at all. No, really, it is not.
Native : 'Sahib, what is not proper? Too much sugar in your tea?
The dog bit Memsahib again?'
Myself : 'The Native is here asking a very improper question. When an
Englishman says that this is not proper, he is in fact referring to everything
in the world. Nothing in the world is ever proper for him. At one time, he had
an unchallenged control over the seas, only to be overtaken by hordes of
barbarians from other nations, and now the natives themselves are fomenting
trouble in the hinterlands. Back at home, it is either the middle-classes in
Manchester, the lower-classes in Dublin, the Greek-classes in Oxford, the
no-classes in Parliament, or the class-less in Moscow. No, nothing is ever
proper to an Englishman. As for an Englishwoman, everything in this world is
proper for her, but that is just because her Englishman says so.'
(B)
Native :
Sahib, last year I read all the novels of Charles
Dickens and Emily Bronte.
Englishman : 'Oh, did you?'
Myself : 'The Englishman is not asking for more information with
that cryptic question. He is simply saying, 'Yes, dear Native, I bet you did.
Go on, go on, what more nonsense shall I have to hear from you now? When my
Cambridge don asked me to go to India and serve King and Country, little did I
know that I would meet an upstart with the refined sensitivity to read Dickens
and Bronte. What a nerve!'
(C)
Native : Sahib, we want freedom from your oppressive regime.
Englishman : 'Brilliant! You couldn't have put it better.'
Myself : 'Is the Englishman agreeing to the native's demand here? Far
from it, he is applying a rhetorical trope which he effectively used on his
demure wife when she had demanded that she should be given the right to vote.
He is saying, 'Very well, now you are finally talking like John Stuart Mill.
But Mill, my dear native, is passe. Haven't you read the London Gazette? My,
what is the world coming to!'
(D)
Native :
Gandhi and Nehru are starting a mass movement against
you. How are we doing on that front?
Englishman : 'Oh, not too bad, not too bad. The wind is picking up
a bit, but London says that the storm will wear itself out very soon. What do
you say, Pickles?' (Pickles is his Doberman.)
Myself : 'This is every Englishman's last line of defence. An
Englishman who utters 'not too bad, not too bad' is usually a sinking one who
is catching on to any straw that comes floating his way. And considering the
fact that one out every two Englishmen (2001 census statistics) mutters this
inanity every morning, it is no wonder that Englishmen keep on complaining
that they have a sinking feeling.'
(E)
Native :
Memsahib, if you so wish, I could take you on a tour
of the Taj Mahal in broad daylight.
Englishwoman : 'Oh, how preposterous! Don't you keep up with the
literature? I mean, haven't you a clue about E.M. Forster? No, thank you very
much, I do not need a passage to the Taj Mahal.'
Myself : 'Not being adept at Freudian psychoanalysis or the
intricacies of post-colonial theory, the Transparent Ironist desists from
making any comments on this one.'
(F)
Native (on August 15, 1947) :
Sahib, err, I mean, Mr.
Churchill, can we shake hands now and forget the past?
Englishman : 'What? Shake hands with a man of straw! An Englishman
will never, ever stoop to such a depth!'
Myself : 'The Englishman here is revelling in his favourite tea-party
game for little children called How To Build a Straw Man (And Then Destroy
Him). He often applies this game to his understanding of international
politics in the valiant hope that people outside his island really are
strawmen. This policy has one great advantage : the next time he gets that
sinking feeling, he can hold on to one of his strawmen and plead with him to
rescue him.'
(G)
Native (on August 16, 1947) :
Oi, you there! Didn't we ask you
to leave sometime back, eh? So shake a leg and get on with it, will you, eh?
Myself : 'Yes, mate, getting along with the job, eh. Just packing
off the last few tins of curries and baltis. Cheers! Care to join me later for
a drink, eh?'
Transparent Ironist : 'Thus the ground was laid for the rise of one
of the greatest civilisations in human history, the Indo-British of which the
Transparent Ironist is himself an inhabitant. He considers himself neither a
Native nor an Englishman; he is that strange hybrid that lives on the
hyphenated middle between the two, and delights in each other's foibles. In
the end, these foibles are also his own, for he is incurably Indo-British. In
this manner, of course, he has exposed himself to fire from both sides : some
will complain that he is not 'authentically' Indian, others that he is not an
'authentic' Briton. As for himself, he can only reply that he is
'authentically' Indo-British.'
Ankur
25 February 2005
