The Inscrutable English

Someday perhaps I shall re-write the colonial history of India with this thesis : the reason why the English managed to subjugate the Indians for two hundred years was not because the English were Imperial but because they were Inscrutable. The Americans may have overtaken the English today with their imperial high-handedness, but with their fetishization of Plain English they cannot come even an inch close to the heights that the English had one reached in their love of Plain Inscrutability. Observe these snatches of conversation between an Englishman and a Native, with the Transparent Ironist in the thankless role of an interpeter.

(A)

Englishman : This is not proper at all. No, really, it is not.

Native : 'Sahib, what is not proper? Too much sugar in your tea? The dog bit Memsahib again?'

Transparent Ironist : 'The Native is here asking a very improper question. When an Englishman says that this is not proper, he is in fact referring to everything in the world. Nothing in the world is ever proper for him. At one time, he had an unchallenged control over the seas, only to be overtaken by hordes of barbarians from other nations, and now the natives themselves are fomenting trouble in the hinterlands. Back at home, it is either the middle-classes in Manchester, the lower-classes in Dublin, the Greek-classes in Oxford, the no-classes in Parliament, or the class-less in Moscow. No, nothing is ever proper to an Englishman. As for an Englishwoman, everything in this world is proper for her, but that is just because her Englishman says so.'

(B)

Native : Sahib, last year I read all the novels of Charles Dickens and Emily Bronte.

Englishman : 'Oh, did you?'

Transparent Ironist : 'The Englishman is not asking for more information with that cryptic question. He is simply saying, 'Yes, dear Native, I bet you did. Go on, go on, what more nonsense shall I have to hear from you now? When my Cambridge don asked me to go to India and serve King and Country, little did I know that I would meet an upstart with the refined sensitivity to read Dickens and Bronte. What a nerve!'

(C)

Native : Sahib, we want freedom from your oppressive regime.

Englishman : 'Brilliant! You couldn't have put it better.'

Transparent Ironist : 'Is the Englishman agreeing to the native's demand here? Far from it, he is applying a rhetorical trope which he effectively used on his demure wife when she had demanded that she should be given the right to vote. He is saying, 'Very well, now you are finally talking like John Stuart Mill. But Mill, my dear native, is passe. Haven't you read the London Gazette? My, what is the world coming to!'

(D)

Native : Gandhi and Nehru are starting a mass movement against you. How are we doing on that front?

Englishman : 'Oh, not too bad, not too bad. The wind is picking up a bit, but London says that the storm will wear itself out very soon. What do you say, Pickles?' (Pickles is his Doberman.)

Transparent Ironist : 'This is every Englishman's last line of defence. An Englishman who utters 'not too bad, not too bad' is usually a sinking one who is catching on to any straw that comes floating his way. And considering the fact that one out every two Englishmen (2001 census statistics) mutters this inanity every morning, it is no wonder that Englishmen keep on complaining that they have a sinking feeling.'

(E)

Native : Memsahib, if you so wish, I could take you on a tour of the Taj Mahal in broad daylight.

Englishwoman : 'Oh, how preposterous! Don't you keep up with the literature? I mean, haven't you a clue about E.M. Forster? No, thank you very much, I do not need a passage to the Taj Mahal.'

Transparent Ironist : 'Not being adept at Freudian psychoanalysis or the intricacies of post-colonial theory, the Transparent Ironist desists from making any comments on this one.'

(F)

Native (on August 15, 1947) : Sahib, err, I mean, Mr. Churchill, can we shake hands now and forget the past?

Englishman : 'What? Shake hands with a man of straw! An Englishman will never, ever stoop to such a depth!'

Transparent Ironist : 'The Englishman here is revelling in his favourite tea-party game for little children called How To Build a Straw Man (And Then Destroy Him). He often applies this game to his understanding of international politics in the valiant hope that people outside his island really are strawmen. This policy has one great advantage : the next time he gets that sinking feeling, he can hold on to one of his strawmen and plead with him to rescue him.'

(G)

Native (on August 16, 1947) : Oi, you there! Didn't we ask you to leave sometime back, eh? So shake a leg and get on with it, will you, eh? It is time you left us for good, innit?

Englishman : 'Yes, mate, getting along with the job, eh. Just packing off the last few tins of curries and baltis, eh. Cheers! Care to join me later for a drink, eh?'

Transparent Ironist : 'Thus the ground was laid for the rise of one of the greatest civilisations in human history, the Indo-British of which the Transparent Ironist is himself an inhabitant. He considers himself neither a Native nor an Englishman; he is that strange hybrid that lives on the hyphenated middle between the two, and delights in each other's foibles. In the end, these foibles are also his own, for he is incurably Indo-British. In this manner, of course, he has exposed himself to fire from both sides : some will complain that he is not 'authentically' Indian, others that he is not an 'authentic' Briton. As for himself, he can only reply that he is 'authentically' Indo-British.'