Social life for all ranks in India
But we hadn't been out there long enough to pick up the "sahib" mindset, and realise that as the ruling class we were entitled to the best. Or rather, as NCOs, to second best. For we'd brought out our own caste system with us, every bit as all-embracing as the Hindu one.
In the British Indian social scene, the Services were the top dogs (although the Commander-in-Chief was, in theory, subordinate to the Viceroy, and the "Civil Power" was paramount). Our power had come, and was maintained "out of the barrel of a gun" (pace Chairman Mao). A commissioned officer was royalty, even the most junior second lieutenant. He was paid by the Government of India on a much more lavish scale than at home. He collected all the perks, which amounted to much more than first-class rail travel.
An officer travelling alone on duty (and, I think, on official leave) completed a "Form E" on which he could claim a refund of three first-class rail fares for the journey. This was a hangover from peacetime, when he would travel with his "bearer" (Indian personal servant - no British batmen), and his horse and syce (groom), not to mention his family and their hangers-on, and would have to buy tickets for the whole lot. The lone wartime traveller profited handsomely from this archaic perk.
A Service officer would be accepted without question as a temporary member of any British Club in India. These Clubs were the hubs of all British social life, and until near the end apartheid was the rule; no Indian would be allowed in even as a visitor (except Maharajahs!) Before getting too hot under the collar about this, remember that there was nothing to stop Indians forming their own Clubs (and keeping us out), if they so wished. But then their Caste system would require an infinity of mutually exclusive Clubs.
There was a hierarchy of British Clubs, the august Bengal Club of Calcutta (think Atheneum) granted temporary membership only to officers of the rank of full Colonel or equivalent. I got in for lunch once, with an Assistant(RC) Principal Chaplain (who rated as a Group Captain), whom I'd met on leave.
The rules allowed him to bring me in as a guest, and we smuggled in my gunner, Keith Stewart-Mobsby, who was still a Warrant Officer, disguising him as a Pilot Officer with one of my caps and a pair of my old rank cuffs. This was very reprehensible, of course, and the padre would have been drummed out of the Club had it been discovered, but Keith was commissioned soon after that anyway, and we had had a good lunch into the bargain.
The status of enlisted men - British Other Ranks - BORs -was markedly lower. Again this stemmed from pre-war days, when an officer would be upper-class, relatively well educated, probably public school and Sandhurst. His troops would all be working-class lads, apart from the rare "gentleman ranker". My father (who had spent the better part of his life in the ranks of the Army) told me once that the troops of his time were quite happy with this as the "proper" state of affairs, preferring it to serving under an officer who had risen from the ranks, and whom they regarded as being "just one of us", however good he might be.
The BOR was treated as a second-class citizen. He was paid only the rupee equivalent of his UK pay. He travelled second-class on a Warrant. No profit in that. And he was barred from the Clubs. This was not pure snobbery; the numbers involved would have hopelessly swamped them; it was simply impracticable.
This meant no social life for the troops outside barrack and canteen. In the larger towns Service Clubs were set up for all ranks and did their best to entertain them, but in smaller places this was not possible. In Railway Institutes (effectively Clubs set up by the Anglo-Indian communities who ran the railways) our troops were welcome. BORs sometimes bitterly referred to themselves as "the White Wogs"; there was some truth in this; any Indian, no matter how high his caste, came below us in the pecking order.
There is dispute over whether the (now terribly Politically Incorrect) "Golliwog" comes from "Wog", or vice versa. "Wog" was supposed to have been an abbreviation of "Wily Oriental Gentleman". How quickly standards of acceptable speech change ! In the much loved "Fawlty Towers", Major Berkeley (was it ?), a hotel resident, tells John Cleese: "Indians aren't niggers, Fawlty - they're wogs " (you'd never get away with that on TV today !)
Of course the unfairness of the social system was a problem only in back areas, where there were towns. In the field, there was no social scene at all, of course; we were all in the same boat, ate the same grub, lived with the same discomforts, saved our pay and made our own amusements. There might be a local farming village, but that was always left well alone - not that it offered much of a temptation, as a rule.
I shall be back on the train next time,
Cheers, all,
Danny42C
Man is not lost - much !
Last edited by Danny42C; 29th Apr 2012 at 20:30.
Reason: Add Title.