NigG (#302),
Your Post absolutely bristles with points which ring bells with me, and which will have to be taken up. Will try to deal with them in order. To begin with:
...there was still some vestiges of the 'old order' when I spent time there in the 1980s...
This would be forty years after Independence, and only the older generation would have fading memories of the Raj. I never saw India again after leaving in early 1946, but my old friend from 20 Squadron, Flt Lt Niel (sic) Ratan Ker, went back several times; on the last occasion, accompanied by his extended family, to return to Bangalore with his wife's ashes for a memorial service for her at the Garrison church (where they had been married at the war's end), and then to scatter her ashes on the church garden. He died the following year, some four years ago.
He said that it was not uncommon to hear:
"I wish the British would come back !" This was not out of politeness to a former Sahib (an Anglo-Indian born there, he was as brown as they were, and Hindi would have been his mother tongue). It was sincere.
...insisted on calling me 'Master'...
Never heard of that '42-'46. Always "Sahib" and "Memsahib". Where was your "mountain village" ?
It was true that we were the "Masters" there (and had been for two hundred years), first under royal charter as the East India Company ("John Company") and then, after the 1857 Mutiny, effectively "nationalised" by the British government until Independence 90 years later. But it was not a "Master" and "Slave" relationship, there was genuine respect (and even affection) on both sides. 'Democracy' was a concept unknown to them, whose time had not yet come. They had always had "Masters" of one kind or another, the Raj was as good as any - and better than most !
As you say, it was not servility but respect to use the word. (On retiring from the RAF, I joined H.M.Customs & Excise. From sheer force of habit, I always addressed my line managers ["Surveyors" in Customs parlance] as "Sir" [no Ma'ams in my time] All ex-servicemen, they accepted it without comment).
Every European was a "Master" by virtue of the colour of his skin, and knew he was out there to rule. Rule kindly if you can, rule harshly if you must - but always rule. We were not alone - the Dutch, Danes, French and Portugese had each had a share of the cake before we eased them out (not always gently, I'm afraid).
It is one of the great paradoxes of history that the British, who were not noticably good at ruling themselves (our story is one long bloody catalogue of civil and external wars, cruelty and treachery, since the Romans took 400 years to lick
us into some sort of shape), should prove so remarkably successful in ruling other peoples.
More in next Post.
Danny.