The Bengali Babu.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XLI, Issue 5, 29 July 1908, Page 37

The Bengali Babu.

CLERKS WHO ARE STIRRING OP INDIA.

(By

WENTON STERNE.)

Let us first learn to pronounce him properly. English people persist in treating Bengali as a dactyl, and in reproducing “Babu” either as “Babboo or as “Baboon” without the “n.” These inaccuracies are a sore trouble to the Babu. He hears more willingly, as the Latin poets say, the correct pronunciation, which is “Bengawly Bahboo. The title itself is a prefix, denoting a man of education and position. It corresponds pretty nearly to the English prefix “Mr.” Indeed, a little time ago some of the younger generation of Babus formed a league in Calcutta which was sworn to address all Europeans as “Mister,” in order to emphasise the Bahn’s dislike of the use of his own title without the accompaniment of his name. In spite of their efforts, however, it is unlikely that the Anglo-Indian custom of addressing every Babu simply as

"Babu” will ever be altered. No discourtesy is intended by it, and the older generation, who respect and like the Sahib, and are liked and respected in turn by him, have never shown any objection to the practice. There is no mistaking the Babu. He wears a dress peculiar to himself, unkindly branded by the late G. W. Stevens as “the most indecent dress in the world.” It consists of a startling combination of Eastern and Western ideas, and in this respect is wholly characteristic of its wearer. IN EVERY PROVINCE. There are Babus, of course, in every province in India, for in every province there are universities, and the university is the incubator which hatches tne Babu. But the most typical Babu comes from Calcutta, and the Bengali Babu has made his way all over India, not only in Government service, but also in trade and commerce. The head of the Bengali Babu is sleeK, well-oiled, and neatly curled and brushed. The upper part of his person is mostly Western. He wears a European shirt, with studs, collar, and tie, according to individual taste, covered with a coat of European make. Over this he throws a shawl, like a Scotch shepherd.

From the waist downwards he is Oriental. The shirt Haps loose and nnconfined in the breeze. His legs are swathed in a dhoti, a strip of linen which combines the advantages of a sporan and a loin-cloth, leaving a portion of each thigh and the calves of the legs bare. Down below, the Occident is represented again by socks with suspenders, and patent-leather shoes. These last are an invariable adornment of every Babu. The head is bare, scorning hat and turban altogether, and this heterogeneous costume is completed by the adjunct of a common black European umbrella. He is, above all things, a clerk. His weapon is the pen. In all other matters he is timid and retiring; with a pen in his hand he is a very Paladin. In the multitude of figures and calculations his soul rejoices. The compilation of tables of statistics is his keenest joy. The accumulation of notes and the multiplication of documents are his delight. Such exercises, in his mind, mark his superiority to the uneducated, and constitute his invaluableness to his employers. FRANKENSTEIN OF ADMINISTRATION. The most annoying feature about Babudom is that we have made it for

ourselves. It is the result of our craze for bestowing the supposed advantages of Western education on the subtle East. Now we have this hybrid monster to nourish and support. The thought of the modern Babu is squeezed from Mill. Burke, and Herbert Spencer, absorbed and assimilated from cheap text-lssiks during the progress of his sojourn at the university. We have switched him off from his natural development and set him to stumble in our speech amid his Oriental ways and surroundings. His phrases are magnificently absurd, and his quaint turns of garbled talk are a never-ceasing pleasure. There never was a creature who knew our language so well and spoke it so badly as the Bengali Babu. 1 was once privileged to read the explanation offered by a postmaster to the Deputy Commissioner of his district to account for a delay in the arrival of the mail. At one point the mail-bags had to cross a river which was in flood, and the boat that conveyed them had been capsized. The Babu postmaster concluded a glowing account of what he termed “this frightsome disaster” with the following sentence :

“I can only attribute, sir, the uneoni fortableness that eventuated to the swol len condition of the river taking advant age of the imperfection of the lx>at.”

A condition taking advantage of an imperfection is precisely the kind of metaphysical situation that interests a Bahn. On another occasion a Babn, in describing the precise distance of one place from another, determined, as all Balms are, to show his mastery of our language and his recondite knowledge of its idioms, put the matter thus: "It is not more, your honor, than a matter of three miles. That is, of course, your honor will apprehend, as the cock crows.” LIMITATIONS OF VISION. The Balm, with his inflated self-con-sciousness and his sesquipedalian fluency, is an ideal vehicle for the dissemination of sedition. Mistaking rodomontade for eloquence, and sentimentality for reason, he is a living exemplar of the adage with regard to the dangers of a little knowledge. Discipline to him spells tyranny, and liberty is, in his judgment, commensurate with license.

Cradled in the fantastic philosophy of the encyclopaedists, fed full with the pabulum of false patriotism, we have taught him to read without teaching him to think. When we further let him listen to such leaders in political wisdom as Mr. Keir Hardie and Sir Henry Cotton, can we wonder altogether that he mistakes them for the Cromwells and the Gracchi that we have taught him to admire? The Bengali Babu at present threatens, like the Private Secretary, to be quite cross with us, and to give us a sharp knock with his bath-bun. When his buns become bombs, it is time to deal with him with swift and merciless severity. In spite of his shirt and his patentleather shoes, he is an Oriental to the marrow, and must be handled accordingly. Once he has learnt the beautiful inconsistency that has dominated his education he will join his truest friends in advocating its reconstruction and reform.