OXFORD SCHOLAR IN INDIA

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23865, 20 July 1939, Page 17

OXFORD SCHOLAR IN INDIA

LIFE WITH SAVAGE TRIBES Verrler Elwin, brilliant Oxford scholars, returned recently after a holiday in England to his mud . hut and his beloved aboriginals, deep in the forests of Central Provinces. Indiadescribed by Kipling in “ The Jungle Books.” , Here he has made his home, the only white man in a radius of a hundred miles. Here in the Maikal Hillssome of the loveliest hills in India—he is quietly writing his name across the history of that great country. Here he intends to spend the rest of his life with his aboriginal friends, learning their magic, tending their lepers and their sick, teaching their children, writing his books. He is 36, writes Anna Hope, in’ the Sunday Chronicle. He has given up the prizes of so-called civilisation, all thoughts of marriage, children—to help and understand the- first and most primitive inhabitants of India. Vender Elwin is the son of an- Anglican bishop, who. at Merton College, Oxford, got a Double First, was a Charles Oldham Shakespeare Scholar, a Matthew Arnold Prizeman, and later became Vice Principal of Wycliffe Hall and Chaplain, of Merton. Twelve years ago he went to India as a missionary, then gave it up and devoted himself to humanitarian work In the service of the aboriginals. He became intimate with many of the leaders of Indian politics and culture. His name is known to all who love India. He left the Church of England, though remaining a Christian. He tried to protect the simple aboriginals from the native vested interests (“ these people have suffered deeply at the hands of civilisation”), from the money-lenders charging 300 and 400 per cent. So he made, to begin with, enemies as well as friends. He was poisoned. Someone put powdered tiger whiskers in his food. It works like powdered glass. He got a good dose of this. His co-worker. Shamrao, undoubtedly saved his life. The rains were on and terrific . thunderstorms. Through it all the native had the white man carried some 30 ■ miles., swam flooded rivers, struggled against frightening odds to reach medical help. .. His mud home is full of books and toys. The naked Indian children know he has them, swarm over his house, sleep in his bed, try to take his ■fountain pen out of his fingers as he writes. Often he stops his work to make them sweets. His books: are a great comfort to him, ‘ they almost talk to a man.” But goats chew the covers and white ants march destructively through the pages. ‘ ■ . He was the Englishman who represented India in the Empire broadcast on Christmas Day, 1935—the last time King George V spoke to his peoples.