INDIANS’ ATTITUDE TO WEST CHANGED

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28906, 28 May 1959, Page 15

INDIANS’ ATTITUDE TO WEST CHANGED

India's attitude towards Britain and the Western world had become warmer since the country gained its independence and there was a realisation that some good was done by Britain when it ruled India, said Mr Felix Layton in Christchurch yesterday. Mr Layton spent 13 years in India and now lives in the United States. He arrived with his wife yesterday on his first tour of New Zealand lecturing on theosophy. “I would say that there was a swing of the pendulum. At the time I was there, there was a great deal of feeling against Britain and the West. It was at its height during the struggle for independence,” said Mq Layton. “Now they appreciate the West more.”

Mr Layton Was principal of a school in India when World War II broke out and spent six years in the Army in India. While he was a schoolteacher he actively supported home rule. Revival “I was one of those working in a school trying to revive- Indian arts and culture, he said. The trouble with India was that instead of keeping up with its own great traditions it was mimicking the West. With India’s gaining of independence there had been a great deal of revival. Mr Layton was teaching in the

United States for seven or eight years and has been in every state

except Alaska. “The state of California is growing at the rate of 30,000 people < a month or 1000 a day. Most of the people are migrating f<bm the other states. You get quite a few negroes from the south to get away from segregation, you get quite a few old people retiring in California, and you get quite a few people just starting in life and who have moved to the state because California is the most progressive part of the United States,” he said. Another reason for the growth

of the state was that persons in the United States moved from one place to another so easily and did not mind leaving their home towns. \ “People in the United States are not generally tied to follow in their father’s footsteps in busi-

ness. They are certainly very free,” he said. All kinds of thought movement were appearing in the American race, and most significantly in the children. “There is a new type of child appearing in the schools. They respond to the urge to co-operate rather than to compete,” said Mr Layton. The United States isolationist tendencies have also largely disappeared, he said. “I was in America before the war where there were large areas of splendid isolation, especially in the central part of the, country. Now the whole attitude has changed so that you never hear the words ‘splendid isolation’ although you hear from some ‘we are going too far,’ ” he said. Mr Layton will visit the four main centres during his New Zealand tour and will also visit some of the smaller towns giving his interpretation of theosophy. He is the author of a book on Einstein s theories in respect to theosophy and has lectured and travelled for most of the last five years.

‘‘Einstein’s contribution to science has been one of the most important influences in making science bjeak away from materialism,” said Mr Layton.