A Desi Comes to Terms with his Racism

by Surinder Jain

When I was a child growing up in a refugee colony in Delhi, one of the neighbours sold their house to an Anglo-Indian family. The Anglo-Indian family—with a mother and three daughters, and a father visiting them only occasionally from England—was a puzzle for me as a seven-year- old child. My sisters and I were forbidden to play with them, as were most of the other kids on our street. Most of our families were Hindu refugees who’d fled their homes in West Punjab after it became part of Pakistan in 1947. I could never understand why I was not allowed to play with the Anglo-Indian children. Their English- sounding names, such as Rosemary, used to perplex me. My parents never gave me any explanation of what was wrong with the family and why I could not play with those girls. My sister used to talk to Rosemary sometimes, both hiding under the night-blooming jasmine tree, rooted on our side of the fence but protruding into the neighbour’s garden. Sometimes I would stand near them and listen to their conversation. While my sister talked about her friends and her school, Rosemary was preoccupied with her father taking the whole family to London the next time he visited.

A few years later the neighbours demolished the house and built a three-storey building in its place. While Rosemary and her family occupied the ground floor and the first floor, the top floor was rented to a Madrasi family from southern India. Again, I was restricted. While not permitted to enter the Anglo-Indians’ quarters, I was allowed to visit the Madrasi family, though forbidden to eat there. My older sister once explained to me that even though Madrasis are good people, they inhaled every day the fumes coming form the meat eaters’ kitchen below and therefore were no longer ‘pure’. The Madrasi family—a young couple with a four-year-old son—were a curiosity for us all. I heard from other kids on the street that the Madrasis were very skinny because they ate rice all the time and did NOT eat wheat. What a disgrace! A group of kids, including me, starting teasing the Madrasi man. As he would walk past us on our street, one of us would follow him and shout “Idly, Sambar, Dosa” at him. He would continue walking as if we did not exist. We were punished by our grandfather when he saw us doing that one day. We were all made to go to the Madrasi house and touch the feet of the Madrasi man and seek his forgiveness.

After a few more years passed, my father rented another house in a different part of Delhi and my parents, sisters and I moved out of the joint family home. I never heard anything more about Rosemary until I visited an older cousin whose family was still living in the house next to the Anglos’. I was surprised to learn from her that Rosemary and her family had finally emigrated to Britain and were living in London. Yet our pure vegetarian family could not celebrate because the new neighbours were a Sikh family who, despite being asked not to by their Guru, ate meat. My sister said she was glad our family no longer had to suffer from smelling the fumes of cooking meat. But her pleasure was muted by the sadness of having lost her friend, Rosemary.

As I grew up and got involved with many religious and patriotic activities, I learnt that the British were oppressors of the Indian people. I learnt about the atrocities committed by General Dyer in the Jallianwala Bagh massacre and the sacrifices of martyrs like Bhagat Singh. Suddenly, the prejudice of my parents towards the British and anyone associated with them started making sense. I was told that Anglo-Indians are either fully British or were partly Indian.. I met a few Anglo-Indian boys at university but was not able to mix with them or befriend them.

My first real contact with a true Anglo-Indian came when my father-in-law was seeking to obtain protection from the Supreme Court of India against arrest by the police in a food case. Since he was not well educated but was ready to spend any amount of money, we decided to hire a proper legal advocate. The advocate recommended to him by associates turned out to be an Anglo-Indian. He was not only a very powerful advocate but a politician as well. He was a friend of the ruling Gandhi family and was a nominated member of the Parliament. I went eagerly to his office with my father, thinking that we were lucky to have found the right advocate. But his behaviour was disgraceful. We waited three hours to see him, during which time we heard him yelling abuse at his office workers and witnessed him showing contempt for his clients. He threw papers at the face of his assistant, Ramesh, and everyone was scared to talk to him. We finally got an audience of two minutes with him, after yelling back at him for making us wait so long. The Anglo advocate did appear in court for my father and won the case for us, but I was left to wonder what these “ex-Britishers”, who held such contempt for us, were doing in India.

Later, I landed a job with a university in an Arabian Gulf country. One of the secretaries at the university was an Indian girl from Bombay. I had never met anyone from Bombay before and, seeking to impress her, I said: “So you must be speaking Marathi at home.” She replied, “No, we speak English at home.”

I assumed she must be one of those convent-educated neo-Indians who think and act like Britons—brown sahibs of pure Indian descent but who delight in following British fashions rather than Indian. “So, you speak English at home but your mother tongue must be Marathi?” I asked.

“No, my mother tongue is English,” she replied. I remained puzzled for quite some time. How could an Indian born in Bombay claim English as her mother tongue. Ah, I told myself, she must have converted to Christianity and is now disowning her language as well as her religion. We used to talk often about many things, including where to get the best samosas in Kuwait, but she never told me that she was an Anglo. Eventually, she married a co-worker from England and they both left their jobs and returned to London. It did not occur to me at the time that she might be an Anglo, and that was why she so emphatically claimed English as her mother tongue instead of Marathi.

I migrated to Australia in the 1980s. My initial fear was that Australians would be like the British and look down upon me, as the British used to look down upon Indians in pre-1947 India. My fears were soon laid to rest. Australians, I found, were some of the most open, friendly and fair people. To put icing on the cake, my Australian office colleagues used to tease a newcomer from England, calling him a Pommy. It was a lesson for me that not all white people are as bad as the Britishers of per-1947 India.

A female divorced co-worker seemed to know a lot about India. To me she looked like any other Australian and I was surprised at her knowledge of India. She once asked me for my opinion of Anglo-Indians. I blurted out my usual prejudice that they were Indians of loose character who mixed with the Britishers. She became a little aloof towards me that day onwards, which I could not understand. A few months later, she left the job in Sydney and retired to a home in the country. A few years later, someone at the office told me that Jane had died. He also whispered in my ear, “Do you know, she was born in India and was an Anglo-Indian?” I regretted my indiscretion in insulting her but had no way of apologizing to her. That day I decided I would no longer voice any disdain for Anglo-Indians. It also set me on a journey to learn more about them and to re-examine the reasons for my prejudice.

In 1987, my wife and I were being shown a house by an Australian real estate agent. After seeing the house, the agent asked us our opinion about the house and whether we were interested in buying it. Although the old salesman was pushy, I did like the house. So I started discussing its merits with my wife in Hindi. Both of us had a habit of switching to Hindi if we did not want people around to know what we were talking about. We decided we both liked the house and, after reaching a decision, I turned towards the real estate agent. But before I could open my mouth, he said: “So you both like the house.” My jaw dropped because the agent was speaking to me in Hindi. It was apparent that he had understood every word we had said to each other, including some not so nice remarks about his sales tactics.

It turned out that the real estate agent was born in Delhi and had studied in Dehra Dun. His parents had moved to Australia after 1947. He told me how much his parents loved and missed India and I could see moistness in his eyes as he told us of his favourite places in Delhi. The emotion in his now choking voice was no different than the emotion I had felt when my father and his brothers would sit on a winter day, on their verandah in Delhi, and reminisce about the home they’d left behind in Pakistan.

All my hatred of the British and my low opinion of Anglo-Indians came to a crashing end as I realized that this man loved India perhaps more than I did. I learnt a lesson on that day that human beings are the same everywhere, and our prejudices against some are more to do with not having shared any common feeling with them than the injustices committed by their group in a different place and time.

This encounter was soon followed by another incident. With our two young children, my wife and I boarded a taxi in New York city. I was a rich tourist in the city and did not even look at the taxi driver. My wife and I started chatting to each other in our native tongue, Punjabi. A few minutes into our journey I was annoyed to hear a question from the taxi driver, “Which part of Punjab are you from?”

I am from Delhi, but my parents had come from Pasrur, near Sialkot in Pakistan. Against my instincts, my good manners forced me to ask him, “Where are you from?” He replied: “I am from Pakistan, sir. I, too, am from Pasrur. After a long time, I have heard someone speaking with my native accent.”

I felt flattered by his statement that I have a Pasrur accent. I have never been to Pasrur, nor have I seen Pasrur or Pakistan, though I’ve heard a lot about it from my father and uncles. But before I could say this, memories came flooding back of the many stories my grandmother told us about atrocities that Muslims had committed against Hindu women during the terrible days of Partition. I stiffened my lips and searched the taxi for any sign of this man’s religion. I did not find any but was certain that he must be a Muslim, a descendant of one of those people, because of whom, my family had to leave their home. I decided not to carry our conversation further with this low-caste taxi driver from my enemy country.

Soon, we reached our destination. The meter showed about thirty US dollars. I took out three ten dollar bills to hand over to the driver and decided I would not tip this Pakistani. The taxi driver politely refused to take the money. “You are from my native place, I will not charge you any money.”

I insisted that he must take the money but soon realized that he saw me as one of his village brothers and I would only insult his feelings if I pushed him to accept the fare. I changed tack and told him that while I acknowledged his brotherly love towards me, thirty US dollars was still a lot of money for him, and he should at least take $20. He refused and left.

After he’d driven away, I stood there looking at my sons to see if the boys had realized how racist my behaviour had been, and how stupid in general the previous generation is about these matters. I still do not know if they understood. Although both have now grown up and are working, I dare not ask them. To my shame, my wife knows how I felt towards that taxi driver.

I returned to Australia and found that I could now view things differently. Each year a large number of young Pommies (Australian slang for British people) come to Australia in search of work. These young boys and girls belong to a newer generation than the Britishers who had served in India and left after Independence. It is a delight to meet these young folk. Most of them feel more at home with Indian food than with Australian. I am told that if you grow up in London these days, you are bound to be familiar with Indian curry and culture.

I look back at the time when I was told not to play with Rosemary, and sometimes want to go to my father and accuse him of being a racist. But I hold back. After all, my father thought he was protecting me from diluting our culture. Apart from prohibiting me from playing with Rosemary, he also imparted to me many virtues and human values. It is those virtues which have given me the understanding and courage to rise above petty racism and truly understand the meaning of these words: “The whole world is one family”

** Surinder Jain is from Delhi but has lived in Sydney for 20 years. He is involved with various Indian cultural organizations and charities. He can be reached at: surinder@australians.com

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