HEROINES OF THE INDIAN FRONTIER.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3465, 14 April 1930, Page 7

HEROINES OF THE INDIAN FRONTIER.

ENGLISHWOMAN’S LONELY LIVES AMID HEADHUNTERS.

(By O. J. Ketchum.)

All is quiet on the North-West Frontier. All, indeed, is peaceful throughout British India—at the moment. But while Gandhi is plotting and our politicians are wrangling and playing for time, there is one phase of the story of this country that should he told. It is the story of the indomitable courage shown in recent months by the hundreds of our gallant .English womenfolk isolated in lonely, far-flung out-stations away up in the icy hills of the wind-swept northern provinces. 1 have seen something of the sacrifices endured by the Englishwomen trapped along the Yangtse when the Chinese Nationalists were on the rampage three years ago, and while it is not altogether accurate to draw a comparison with their experiences, I doubt whether any crisis in which the Empire has since been involved has produced finer examples of their capacity to withstand privations than this iii |ndia. Two, three, and four years at a time, with long, cold winters and summers of scorching heat, are spent by many an Englishwoman in India *in distant outposts hundreds of miles from the nearest railways, in villages where there is not another white man save her husband.* He in many cases is the district magistrate, police officer, or doctor, and in the long intervals when lie is forced to he away on duty she cannot travel with him. She remains entirely alone at the mercy of the few Indian friends she has made. Here, though not too happy, she leads a reasonably busy life, for, just as these primitive townspeople have come heavily to lean on the one Englishman planted in their midst as a sort of father of the village, so does his wife in time become a veritable fairy godmother sent by Providence. She may ride for an hour for exercise. or walk along mountain passes near by, but she must return before sunset, for she is in the regioy of headhunters and wild beasts of the jungle. All along the ridge of mountains forming the North-West Frontier these dauntless women are scattered in desolate outposts like this. The process of Tndianisation of the Civil Service has made the segregation of their husbands a necessity, so that they do not complain. There arc innumerable -stories < i their hardships. Tales, too, arc frequently cold of cases of actual bravery in face of the gravest perils of tribal warfare. Here is one, typical of others, it was told to me this morning by a British intelligence officer who has just returned from an extended tour in the Province of Assam, p In a remote district beyond the slopes of the Black Mountains of Assam. where few white men have over set foot among the savage cave dwellers who inhabit the country, a serious conflict arose- between two.frontier tribes over the recent declaration by Gandhi. The loyal Indians of the Assam hills were urged to wage war on their tribal neighbors “because the British were all gone, and they would soon be invaded by the other sicle.V It is difficult for any one without experience of one of these stations i.o appreciate how easily the tribesmen are stirred to action, and this case was no exception to the rule. There was only one course open to the police officer ol the district. Tie must prove that the British were still very much in evidence in India. It was not easy. His appehrance alone would not save the situation. But his wife was known :11 the district, and that might help. So, mounted on two sure-looted Indian ponies, they rode together with their baby daughter, and for three da vs and three nights made their precarious way along the rugged hillsides of the frontier, calming the populace and establishing, at any rate, proof that they themselves had no lear that the- British troops, had gone. More cheerful, of course, are those lives spent in tea planting centres, such as Dibrugarlr and Sadiyu. along the Brahmaputra River, in Shilling, the provincial capital ol Assam, and in the larger military posts of Baluchistan. There arc unavoidable hardships here, but at least there are some comforts. (Mails come with regularity, and there arc clubs and colonies of Europeans, with tennis courts, bridge playinti, and dancing. A sharper contrast comes in the existence of our English folk in the great cities of India, with their theatres, cabarets, talkies, and restaurants, and little sympathy need be wasted on the average European “languishing” in Calcutta or Bombay. The Viceroy’s palatial home in. New Delhi, and Government House in the. provinces, are. of course, the great centres of society, and seldom, il ever, have I seen a more brilliant spectacle than f witnessed this week when 1 attended an evening reception given hv Sir Frederick and laidy S\ke.', whose hospitality has become a byword in Bombay. More than a thousand persons—Jndians. Parsecs, and Europeans— passed before the Governor and his wile as thev stood in the gardens in the _moonlight, afterwards moving leisurely tbroii'di the spacious grounds ol government House, overlooking the Indian Ocean, which wore decorated id“ a vast fairyland with thousands <-l multi-colored lights suspended Irani ' Xotluu gin India can be more beautiful than the sight of a mass ol Indian women in their shimmering evening saris and these, combined with lien menfolk’s colored turbans, and British military and naval officers m In l-dress uniforms, produced a scene vbnb , shall not soon lorget.