Indian Tourist

Manawatu Times, Volume LIV, Issue 6627, 14 August 1931, Page 5

Indian Tourist

An Indian correspondent, Air. T. F. Davir, writes in the Manchester Guardian describing his humiliating experiences on a tour of tho Dominions. “Entering into Australia last February purely on a temporary visit (ho writes), I was examined and crossexamined by the immigration authorities at Brisbane, my port of entry, and had to answer all sorts of unnecessary and annoying questions, including a query whether I had Bolshevik sympathies—as if every Indian at sight was to bo taken to be a Bolshevik suspect —while my fellow-passengers from other parts of the British Empire were passed almost without any questions on their producing their passports. 1 had to undergo this despite xny British passport issued in London and my assurance that I should not care to live permanently in Australia in contravention of the bar against tho entry of Asiatics, even if I was paid to do so. “Entering into New Zealand, again only as a tourist, I had, besides iiUiug the usual landing form, to make a declaration on oath to obey the laws of the country—as if this was not understood —and to make a deposit of JilU, from both of which all white British subjects and even American citizens are exempt. “While In New Zealand I tried to book my passage to [South Africa, but was definitely informed by the agents of the shipping company that they had instructions not to book any Indians on their ships. Returning to [Sydney, however, I managed to book my passage to South Africa, intending to make a tour through that country to Egypt and thence return home to India.

(Air. Davir was not allowed to land in South Africa and had to continue to London.) “I have travelled in various parts ot the world (says Air. Davir), and 1 can assure you rarely have I Known such opposition and disgraceful invidious distinction made against my compatriots as in the Colonics and Dominions of the British Empire. It is galling humiliation such as I have been through, created by narrow-minded racial prejudices and vulgar snobbery, that engenders and fosters feelings of national bitterness, which, while they exist, make all talk of tho wonted ‘Commonwealth of Free Nations’ a hypocritical sham. “Ia these circumstances, is it at all surprising that a large section of my compatriots should be prepared to face all necessary sacrifices in the struggle to shake themselves free of your ‘Glorious Empire,’ so that they could, in all fairness and in keeping with their sense of national self-respect and dignity, legislate to retaliate to the full and pay back in their own coin all those countries that think fit to hurl insult and indignity at India?”