FICTION
Remnants of the Raj
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`These are, in a sense, haunting stories, taking us back to a time of inequality, subjugation and servility.'
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A RAJ COLLECTION is an attempt to bring four outstanding Raj novels under one cover, says editor Saros Cowasjee. The stories in this omnibus cover a period from 1896 up to Independence. One characteristic that stands out in all these novels is the British feeling of the right to rule over India.
Haunting stories
That the genre of Raj fiction continues to be in print speaks volumes for the interest it still generates. These are, in a sense, haunting stories, taking us back to a time of inequality, subjugation and servility.
A comprehensive Introduction by Cowasjee places these novels in their socio-historical contexts. On the Face on the Waters by Flora Annie Steel (1896), Siri Ram - Revolutionist by Edmund Candler (1912), Indigo by Christine Weston (1943) and The Wild Sweet Witch by Philip Mason (1947) are decidedly not as well-known or as popular as Plain Tales from the Hills or the Raj Quartet, but they do tell a story — part history, part fiction. These novels have been out of print for almost 40 years.
On the Face of the Waters could well be the first novel on the Mutiny (the first War of Independence, as it is today known). It is set in the Delhi of 1896 — during the siege of Delhi. Steel was the wife of a British officer, had a wide circle of Indian friends and had lived in India for 22 years. The story sketches the romance of Major Erlton and Alice Gissing, the uprising and their separation, the coming together of Mrs. Erlton and James Greyman. It's not all about love and romance though, the intrigues of the Mughal court are also thrown in for good measure.
In Siri Ram - Revolutionist by Edmund Candler, Siri Ram is portrayed as being misguided by unscrupulous, self-styled leaders whose cry for freedom is weak but whose interest in self is great. There is the stereotype British teacher whose one purpose is to educate the "natives". And so Skene teaches his students the nuances of poetry. But, "There is a popular fallacy that the Indian mind is imaginative. Nothing is further from the truth... but there is no film in his mind that is responsive to poetic fancy." So the interpretation of the lines in "Ode to a Nightingale", "Thou wast not born for death, immortal bird,/ No hungry generations tread thee down", reads:
Nightingale is not the game bird for table. Therefore the hungry sportsmen spare to tread on it.
But beyond poetry, Siri Ram is led to assassinate the magistrate, Merivale, just as he is embarking on a much-awaited furlough.
Candler's depiction of Siri Ram as misguided and ill equipped to join the freedom movement is unjust. For, in their own small ways, Siri Ram and his group were fired with patriotic zeal and were fighting for a noble cause.
Indigo by Christine Weston traces the friendship between three boys — Jacques St. Remy, son of a French Indigo planter, John Macbeth, son of a British army officer and Hardyal, the son of a lawyer. Weston, unlike the earlier two authors, is kinder in her description of India and Indians. In the character of Mrs. Lyttleton, she reveals a tender understanding of the country she had made her home.
Towards the end of the Raj, new ideas had come into play and new concepts were taking shape. Philip Mason has attempted to capture the essence of this time in his novel The Wild Sweet Witch through the eyes of three generations of the Garwali family. And, like in the other novels, death is the regular visitor taking with it the protagonist and the story.
A Raj Collection, edited by Saros Cowasjee, Oxford University Press, Rs. 595.
NIMI KURIAN
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