City Improbable- Writings on Delhi

by Khuswant Singh

  From their house at the nukkarh, Joseph Daniel and the others watched the government party. This was the first nukkarh of the mohalla, there were many others inside, each a nerve centre, where the narrow lanes joined up and parted again. The Hamdard trust had secured a house for Abha Mustafa to live in and run her dispensary from at this very nukkarh—where Joseph and Dulari had already been living for some time. Joseph Daniel had tried to persuade Abha to go to Imphal and help in the medical relief to the Indian revolutionaries. She had firmly declined, saying she was doing no social work, she was discovering herself; she had to stay here and work amongst the Muslims. Joseph Daniel had then learned of her family background—her connection with Rakesh and the Ajitha family. The proof of her hard work here was before their eyes today. They saw and they heard the doors being slammed before the government team. The party had so far not collected a single paisa from the mohalla.

  At the nukkarh, they also watched the anger of the mohalla building up. They saw more men coming out of their workshops, and they saw men streaming back into the mohalla. Abha Mustafa had told the men not to interfere on such occasions; she wanted the women of the mohalla to handle them on their own. This was her way of understanding not only Islam but Muslim women. They were healthy and uninhibited women. If they could do such effective relief work with her during the cholera epidemic, going from house to house to tend to the sick, even discarding their veils when the occasion so demanded, couldn’t they handle a couple of government stooges? The mohalla had come to respect Abha doctorni sahiba. So young and so dedicated. Not only to her profession but to Islamic ethos. Her word was almost law for them now.

  Yet the volatile Muslim temper can be held in check only as far and no further. The way they flagellated themselves at Muharram—drawing blood out of their self-inflicted wounds in the memory of the two descendants of the Prophet who had died in the battle of Karbala. They would as easily die and sacrifice themselves today—in the honour of Islam. The men at the nukkarh looked offended and angry. How many more doors would this imbecile knock at? Why didn’t he quit and go back the way he had entered the mohalla? The thought had come to Griffith but it went against his grain to depart with no entry against Mohalla Ballimaran in his ledger. Each mohalla in Delhi so far had donated some money, and his clerk had drawn a line across the register after the last mohalla visited, and written in bold letters ‘Mohalla Ballimaran’ across the page. Would he have to draw a line across it showing a zero contribution? And would Mohalla Ballimaran be setting up an example for the other Muslim mohallas—with more zeros in his register? It was a risky and a tricky situation but he had to go on, which the men in the mohalla came to resent increasingly, their resentment very soon reaching boiling point at the nukkarh.

  New Delhi at War, 1939–45

  NAYANTARA POTHEN

  An imperial imagining, the city of New Delhi was originally planned and designed to showcase British imperial power and authority in India; its design, the way it was laid out, was intended to represent the strict hierarchical and segregated (both socially and racially) nature of Raj society. In 1939, this vision remained untarnished. The wide avenues and whitewashed buildings of the imperial capital, the grandeur of the Viceroy’s House and the geometric precision of the city remained untouched. When the Second World War broke out, New Delhi was still a quiet city. Lifeless. A little provincial, even. And obsessed with the minutiae of governance. A local witticism about the imperial capital ran that ‘nothing could be heard at night, save the grinding of axes.’1 By the late 1930s, one might safely argue that the city of Lutyens’ dreams had been lovingly nurtured. New Delhi had evolved into a model garden suburb inhabited by officials.

  The Second World War would change this. The city rapidly filled, and the regimented and formal nature of official social life changed. The traditional summer exodus to Simla wound down as government officials began to remain behind in New Delhi for longer periods of time. The city also became the supply hub for the war in the Pacific, and with that responsibility the capital opened its doors to Britain’s wartime allies. In this way the official circle of New Delhi society would expand and its hierarchical nature would be challenged. Viceregal circles might have persisted in retaining a degree of formality (and an unofficial, unspoken social and racial segregation) but a new and equally valid social space now came into existence in which the normally strict regimentation of social life was relaxed.

  In its early years, the war was placed on the margins of people’s lives. Philip Mason would recall that the response of the Establishment, to the news that France had fallen to the Nazis, was to continue with its frantic activity: ‘Everything we had taken for granted was falling to bits—and there was so much we had taken for granted. But in Simla there was to be a viceregal garden-party and the band would play soft music while tea and ices were consumed.’2 Society events continued unabated and one official was moved to comment: ‘One expected the least possible fuss and tamasha in war time, but it seems Delhi is to be spared no iota of officialdom, pompous tamasha and bad taste.’3 For New Delhi’s official society, good works for the war effort were fitted in around garden parties and the annual New Delhi Horse Show rather than the other way around.

  Indeed, as late as 1942, there appears little evidence that the war in Europe was having any impact on the social lives of New Delhi’s official population. So much so that Charles Amery, the Secretary of State in London, was moved to send an alarmed telegram in April of that year to the Viceroy, the Marquess of Linlithgow, regarding the activities of the European community in India. He asked what steps the Viceroy was taking ‘to enjoin greater austerity of living on wealthier classes, Indian and European, as definite contribution to the War effort.’4 Linlithgow was deeply unimpressed, his response forceful as he defended the behaviour of his compatriots in India, arguing that fundamental differences between the United Kingdom and India, in terms of climate, transport and conditions of social life, were being ignored by the British Parliament. The need for relaxation was greater in India, he insisted, as many Europeans had been working without leave for some time; petrol rationing was a burden in a country of such great distances and inadequate public transport; and the varying dietary requirements of Indians and Europeans made catering appear extravagant. Be that as it may, steps had been taken in the name of wartime austerity:

  Social functions [have been] almost entirely discarded. Late hours in hotels and restaurants are prohibited. Use of cars greatly limited, consumption of liquors very substantially reduced and the only relaxation which Europeans generally permit themselves are occasional visits to early dances or cinema performances. Europeans here keenly resent attempts to malign their War effort …

  The European community, he concluded, greatly resented ‘attempts to malign their War effort’.5

  While some might have wondered at the social gaiety in New Delhi during a time of war, others saw the frivolity as deliberately cultivated. It was a deliberate policy of the stiff upper lip, even if it could look like ‘a complacent indifference to reality’.6 Despite the concerns of the Secretary of State, and in the face of New Delhi society’s determined gaiety, official functions did decrease. By 1943, it would seem people had noticed that there was a war on. It was acidly noted, by one New Delhi stalwart, that even the women of New Delhi now had wartime jobs to keep them occupied, leaving little spare time for gossip and parties.7

  Social events and functions, previously a predominant focus in letters written home, were now less frequently discussed. It was often observed that ‘life is quiet’ and, as ICS officer John Tyson would remark in 1941, that the introduction of petrol rationing would surely ‘cut entertaining to a minimum’.8 Most people were, by this stage, involved in war work of some kind and this, according to Tyson, left little inclination for late nights.9 And indeed it did. Yet it did more than that. The previous decorum of New Delhi social life was at the same time undermined by the conditions of a city at war.

  John Chr
istie, Deputy Private Secretary on the Viceroy’s staff, remembers not seeing many friends in those days, a result of extended work hours and petrol rationing. When they did socialize, they relied on an odd assortment of vehicles, often hiring a bicycle to get around. With his wife sitting on the crossbar, the Christies would make their way somewhat erratically to dinner.10 Emma Wilson, Chief Lady Superintendent of one of the many nursing services in Delhi at the time, also remembers cycling quite happily to viceregal dinners, the skirt of her long dress tossed over her arm with just enough to cover her ankles for the sake of respectability: ‘The chaprassis awaiting the arrival of guests looked horrified at first, then, recognizing the unusual form of transport, broke into broad grins and rushed to my assistance as I tried to dismount with decorum.’11

  With the use of bicycles becoming one of the few ways for its population to battle petrol rationing, New Delhi became rife with a new sort of criminal activity—bicycle theft. A ‘Lost and Found’ classified from the Statesman offered: ‘If the person who borrowed a gent’s Raleigh cycle from Western Court on the night of February 5, 1943, cares to call at room No. 29, he can have the pump. He will probably need it.’12

  Domestic staff also became harder to find during the war. Established New Delhi residents would grumble of having nothing but trouble in this respect. Those that might have, in the past, been happy to attach themselves to a household in New Delhi found that the rates of pay were much better with the armed forces that now flooded New Delhi. These ‘birds of passage’, as John Tyson described the British and American armed force now stationed in Delhi had really upset the status quo and ‘spoilt the market’.13 By 1943, food rationing would make dinner parties and hospitality difficult (though not non-existent). ‘Pot luck’ suppers rather than ‘burra khanas’ were preferred as it was considered no small feat to organize a dinner party in these times of food rationing and reduced domestic staff. One such supper saw a spread of fish mayonnaise and mutton, finished with ice cream and tinned grapefruit.14 The more lavish style of entertaining, popular in the previous decade with its comparative abundance of food, petrol and domestic help, was now re-shaped by the conditions of war. These conditions meant that the overall shape of lifestyle for official society in New Delhi was changing and the once leisurely pace of life, with its strict observance of decorum, was slowly being eroded.

  As the war progressed and New Delhi became the supply hub for the war in the Pacific, the imperial capital played host to the various diplomatic and military representatives of the allied war effort. By 1942, the presence of a significant American expatriate community engaged in either military or economic liaison work in New Delhi added a freshness to society, at odds with the entrenched formality and decorum expected of New Delhi’s privileged elites. It was a change that some members of the older generation, both Indian and British, struggled with. For these New Delhi inhabitants, there was a feeling that the ‘uninhibited ways’ of the Americans crowding the capital eroded ‘the city’s carefully cultivated imperial ambience’.15 To begin with, they overpaid their domestic help and tipped too generously.16 Another New Delhi resident demanded an interview with the Viceroy—American troops were whistling at Indian girls and something had to be done about it.17

  Others embraced the newcomers; friendships were formed and relationships cultivated as many Americans were, generally speaking, sympathetic to Indian political aspirations. Indeed, R.K. Nehru, Jawaharlal’s cousin and a high-ranking ICS officer, recalls frequently having invited American journalists to tea and dinner at his residence. These were social occasions which Jawaharlal Nehru would also attend—R.K. Nehru recalled, Jawaharlal ‘used to like meeting them for relaxation’.18 S.K. Kirpalani, Additional Secretary in the Supply Department at the Central Secretariat, remembers making some very good friends among the American officers. One particular friend, a Colonel Henry of the Judge Advocate General Branch, taught Kirpalani how to mix a cocktail dubbed an Old-Fashioned.19

  Yet, at the same time, hierarchy remained embedded in the way life was lived in New Delhi in this period—the allocation of housing in New Delhi to an ever-growing population and the supplementary provision of petrol continued to be directed by one’s rank in the ‘Warrant of Precedence’. For a dinner party held at home, strict social ranking based on one’s official position was observed even when all parties knew each other and were, as ICS official John Tyson observed, friendly. The obsession of New Delhi’s privileged classes with rank was wryly acknowledged: ‘These things still count for something in India where so much of “society” is “official” …’20 At face value, the war made little difference to the importance placed on the hierarchical nature of social life in New Delhi.

  One could argue that it offered—much like that determined frivolity of New Delhi’s privileged population in the early years of the war—some sort of order in a world that was rapidly getting more disordered and chaotic. It was another way of articulating ‘the stiff upper lip’ so important to Raj prestige. The continued use of the ‘Warrant of Precedence’ in official society helped retain the perception of exclusivity, through which imperial authority was articulated, when the political reality of the time was challenging it. Perhaps in view of this, it is understandable that the importance of position and the maintenance of a rigid social structure through the medium of the ‘Warrant of Precedence’, though complained about, were never seriously questioned by the privileged inhabitants of New Delhi.

  The strict racial segregation that so characterized both New Delhi society specifically, and Raj society more generally, was challenged in this period. As increasing numbers of Britons left to serve in the armed forces, Indian ICS officers moved up to fill their positions. In theory at least, this meant that there now existed the potential for a greater number of Indian guests at official functions and a greater degree of social interaction between the races than in previous decades. However, the Viceroy’s unilateral decision in 1939 to declare war on Germany on India’s behalf, without ascertaining Indian public opinion, made British–Indian relations in the official sphere even more awkward than they had been previously. It is hardly surprising, then, that in the early years of the war, the lives of the Indian and British officials remained separate, intersecting only when the occasion and propriety demanded it.

  From the official side, the hierarchical nature of official life made clear the existence of the unspoken social convention in which Indians were considered socially subordinate to their European counterparts. Yet a counter-segregation was also practised by the Western-educated Indians who were a part of the official world. As the calls for Indian self-government grew more vociferous, this group had little time for those with little or no understanding and sympathy for Indian ambitions for self-government. They wanted only to be friends with Britons of a ‘certain sort’.21 India’s role in the Pacific war and an increasing international interest in Indian domestic politics meant that New Delhi now played host to a greater number of people considered socially acceptable by the standards of the Western-educated elites of New Delhi. Khushwant Singh remembers that:

  Many of [the newcomers] were young Communists or socialists, and they were appalled. They wouldn’t join these whites-only clubs, and they wanted to be invited to Indian homes … And I remember boys who had been in college with me in England, absolutely going out of their way to be with Indians. Even some of them attending political meetings … much to the disgust of the pukka sahib of the old type.22

  The ‘right sort of Englishman’, in short, was the type of person, whether a government official or not, who was not imbued with old colonial prejudices.

  It is interesting to note that while there was little patience amongst Western-educated Indians for ‘old empire-builders’, there was just as little patience for the type of person who wanted to ask endless questions about Hindu philosophy and the Indian soul.23 It was the politically aware person that was preferred by the Westernized Indian elites who, themselves, had become increasing
ly politicized.

  These political desires and activities, previously kept separate from official life infiltrated the Season’s parties and other social gatherings which many Western-educated Indians continued to attend. It was a careful breaching of official boundaries and there could be moments of awkwardness tinged with humour at any social event where politics and the official mixed.

  The experiences of Santha Rama Rau, daughter of an Indian official and herself a supporter of Indian independence, appear as a seamless blend of being a part of India’s nationalist struggle and embassy cocktail parties and midnight picnics at the Qutub Minar, ‘… our high heels clicking on the marble, our foreign furs held tightly over our Indian silks and chiffons …’24 At the same time, there were occasions when politics infused her social life. In her memoirs, she relates the story of an active radical friend of hers, Krishna, who was wanted by the police for encouraging acts of sedition. At a reception given by the Japanese Legation in New Delhi, she was warned by a young and slightly uncomfortable British official to get rid of the Communist papers lent to her by Krishna or risk having her house searched. When the conversation ended, however, they simply returned to making polite small talk and sipping champagne.25 For many of the participants who occupied the upper echelons of society, the political intrigue and national struggle in New Delhi was played out against a backdrop of civility. At least at this stage.

  The process of greater meaningful social interaction between Indian and Briton, however, took place outside the public sphere of official functions. This process accelerated during the war, and that once troubled area of ballroom dancing, fraught with the possibility of social ruin, now became an acceptable form of and expression for interracial relations. Raj Chatterjee, manager of the Imperial Tobacco Company, recalls the growing social relaxation between the Europeans and the Western-educated Indians during the war: