INDIA TO-DAY

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 60, Issue 4232, 17 January 1940, Page 11

INDIA TO-DAY

AN UNCONVENTIONAL AUTOBIOGRAPHY. “All Too Human” is the title Dr Owen Berkeley-Hill gives to his autobiography, which he sub-titles “unconventional.” Dr Berkeley-Hill spent 30 years in the Indian Medical Service, in cantonments, native villages, on active service (during the last war he was with British and Indian troops in East Africa), in mental asylums, and at frontier posts, both in India and Burma. Psychiatry is the subject in which he has specialised. His has been a useful life best features of which he skims in his book.

Possibly because overawed by use of the wc)rd “unconventional,” he has given too little emphasis to this side of his life, and over-emphasis to more personal, less interesting phases, suefy as sex adventures, mostly irregular and with little nicety about colour. He has some nasty things to say about English public school and university education. At preparatory school his masters were “a collection of ruffians”; at Rugby he was “grossly underfed.” On the other hand, he was “not overworked, as I set myself against doing another stroke of work that was not absolutely necessary.” During his five years at Rugby he thinks his “rebel” temperament developed strongly. “In a muddled and subconscious .fashion,” he says, “I felt that the ‘education’ I was receiving was wholly absurd. I felt that I had capabilities, but that no one had the sense to realise the fact. A feeling of contempt for my situation gradually took a hold on me. The recognised ‘loyalties’ to which

our attention was constantly directed made no appeal to me . . In 1898 1 left Rugby hoping never to set eyes on it again. I never did. Years afterwards, when my youngest son was refused admission to the school because his mother was an Indian, my hatred for the school doubled itself.”

At University College, London, he does not remember learning anything “except •how to smoke.” At Oxford he was not happy: the “atmosphere” made little appeal to him. He adds: “In spite of being at that time what Americans call a good mixer,’ I did not really enjoy the life. The ragging, tippling and other forms of ‘heartiness’ did not appeal to me. I wanted to work but could not. The work bored me almost as much as the play.” After two years he “could not stand it any longer,” and went to the University at Gottingen, Germany. He was also at the University of Nancy studying anatomy.

He entered the Indian Medical Service in 1906, chiefly as the outcome of a quarrel with his mother. He married an Indian woman (“One of the dearest creatures I have ever known”). Of his marriage, he says: “There is no doubt in my mind that by marrying an Indian I incurred the displeasure of many members of my family, as well as that of many of my friends. On the other hand I am sure I should have quickly tired of an English wife. She would have bored me, and this my wife has never done. I do not think that I ever bored hier, although I have often exasperated her. As a housewife she has no equal in my experience. No household could have been better run than ours. No point ever escaped her attention. She threw off all her caste prejudices, except one, that is, she will never eat beef. My wife is the only Indian I have ever met who can be relied on consistently to do things promptly and properly.”

On the question of India to-day (he lives there in retirement), Dr Berkeley-Hill says: “The curse of India to-day is intolerance, particularly religious intolerance. Hindus and Mahometans have got to learn that where there is intolerance there can be no freedom of thought and no personal liberty or human dignity . . . And if the people of future surrounded by rationalised, standardised, mechanised and devitalised systems of state and society, they will at least know that the road they have chosen does not lead to ‘free development and liberty.’ ” As to the outcome of all the political, social and religious changes that are taking place in India, he does not hazard a guess.

On the problem of the Anglo-In-dian—the half caste—he says their attitude is motivated by two main principles, their conscious hatred for Indians and sub-conscious hatred of Europeans; chief defect is their thriftlessness, which knows no bounds. He has every sympathy with the hatred the Anglo-Indian has for the European, which he says, is well-founded. There is no doubt, he adds, that the French, the Dutch and the Italians are far less prejudiced against half-castes than are the British.

Dr Berkeley-Hill tells many good stories (some against himself). One of the best concerns a journey from prohibition America into Canada. When his eyes rested on the Union Jack in Canadian territory “without thinking much of what I was doing, I raised by hat. To my utter astonishment I noticed an old American do the same.” He expressed his surprise, and the American answered, “Sir, I did not take off my hat to the emblem of your country, but to a beer advertisement."