SPORT IMPROVES SOCIAL LIFE IN INDIA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 17863, 3 June 1926, Page 11

SPORT IMPROVES SOCIAL LIFE IN INDIA.

BUT RELIGIOUS FACTIONS ARE BIG PROBLEM.

Since I went to India in 1883 there have been many changes, writes Major H. Hobbs in a Melbourne paper, i heap ice and electricity have clone wonders in ameliorating the rigors of the climate. The Indians have advanc cd in every way. The rich may not be so rich (although I doubt that), but the conditions of the poor have improved enormously. Perhaps the greatest advance in social life has been through the medium of sport. Football is played enthusiastically, and in all the large centres is doing much for improving the physical condition of the young men. The standard of hockey is quite as high as it is in England, and the games arc played in a sporting spirit. In recent years I took up the study of Anglo-Indian social life, which has brought me into touch with the people of the country. I have, in a way, tried to study their mentality, which differs so much from the standard of Europeans. Boys With Families. In Europe it is said that the boy is the father of the man. Ini India the boy is the father of a family. A boy of 16, while still at school and petted by mother and aunts, may have two or three children—years before he has any hope of earning a penny. Social life where such standards prevail has a tendency to give most Hindus what might be called a feminine outlook on life. At a meeting I attended, a Bengali supporter of Mr Gandhi raved about a “blood-sucking, Satanic Government which crushed the lifeblood out of the people under the ruthless heel of despotism.” I pointed out that the speaker knew better than any man in that room that if it were not for that Government he would never wake in the morning and feel sure that his head would be on his shoulders in the evening. He replied by calling me all sorts of unkind names, and after the meeting was over I demanded to know why he had spoken about me in such a way. “Oh!” he replied, “that was only public speaking.” Prince of Wales's Visit. A prominent extremist boasted to an official that Gandhi would drive the British into the sea. “And what would you do then?” asked the official. After a moment’s thought, he replied, “I should go with you!” Mr Gandhi is just as irrational as his followers, although he knows on which side his bread is buttered. I once told him that it was easy to see how utterly he despised Western ways. Did he not drive through the streets half naked, in a Rolls Royce car? At a public meeting last year he complained that the Englishman would not offer the hand of friendship to the poor Indians. What they wanted was a “gesture” of brotherly love. lie was unable to reply when I pointed out that when the Prince of Wales came to India with a message of peace and goodwill, Mr Gandhi instructed all his admirers to turn their backs on him: that 53 people were murdered in Bombay and respectable European and Eurasian women were pulled out of trams and stripped naked in the streets, while others of his admirers burnt alive 21 Indian policemen at Chouri Chaura.

Ashamed of Gandhi. Vet it has to be stated that Indians and Europeans get along quite well. For a time the prestige of the Government stood very low, but those days are past. Curiously, too, the prestige of the Sahib never stood so high. Gandhi’s wild promises made fools of his own people; his followers committed unmentionable crimes, with the result that in the minds of sensible Indians there was a feeling of shame that they had been led away by claptrap. Unfortunately for Indian political aspirations there is an insoluble problem in the bitter hatred between Hindus and Mohammedans. After all, they have not had the pictures to take their minds off other things. There are no Indians. All are divided into religious factions, and it would be impossible for a Hindu to support a Moslem or an idol-hating Mohammedan to back up a pious Hindu. Of course, we have our rabble rousers just as you have. One of ours, denouncing those who were better off, declaimed, “The rich man welters on crimson velvet, while the poor man snorts on flints! ”

An Indian Navy? Things are better in India than they have been for years. Gandhi told the country that he would drive the British into the sea by December 31, 1921 ; C. R. Das advised parents to take their boys away from Government schools and send them to those he was starting. Funds were collected; huge sumc were promised, but the British remain, and the schools cannot teach the English language past the letter IT. Men were murdered in pleasant anticipation of the departure of the British. The boys who left school have passed no examinations, and thousands regret the faith which led them to trust Mr Gand hi and Mr Das. How long do T think vre shall stay in India? Well, as long as our standard of justice is so much higher than the Indian. But he is a wise man who refrains from prophecy. T wonder though, what the authorities would think of a real Indian navy?