IN THE CLUB: ASSOCIATION LIFE IN COLONIAL SOUTH ASIA
Benjamin B Cohen
Orient BlackSwan
211 pages; Rs 695
One of the abiding mysteries of India's horrific 200-year colonial encounter with England is the near-total absence of rancour between the peoples of the two countries. It is as if the depredations by the British never happened. The British have forgotten all about it, as they well might; and the Indians have decided to let bygones be bygones. Indeed, there is fairly large body of opinion in India that believes that the colonial experience was actually a good thing for the natives, what with all the mod-cons that the British kindly left behind - railways, ports, army, schools, hospitals, the judiciary, police and administrative apparatus and so on.
I have often sought an explanation for this and one of the best I ever heard came from a newspaper baron who said Indians and the British understand each other perfectly because both love to exclude people from social groups to which they belong. India, he said, had the caste system. The British had their own equivalent of it in England. And in India, well, they had their clubs.
These, as Benjamin Cohen points in this excellent and tidy little study with its fascinating bibliography, were designed to create islands of succour for the expatriates. Social homogeneity was the virtually sole requirement. The government types had their own clubs, and these were at the top of the totem pole. The businessmen, known deprecatingly as boxwallahs, too had their clubs, as did the Anglo-Indians and other persons of lesser social standing. The lines were clearly drawn and everyone was supposed to know his place.
They had, and still have, idiosyncratic rules. Women were not allowed until the late 19th century. Even then, they could only come as guests and not become members. They responded in the first few decades of the 20th century by forming their own clubs where no males were allowed to set foot.
You could not bring your own alcohol to the club. If you did you had to pay a fine before you could drink it. The process of becoming a member was typically designed to exclude the "wrong" types. A member had to nominate you; then another had to second you. Then all the members would vote whether or not to take you in. As in all voting there was politics and personal enmity. The means by which you voted against someone for whatever reason was the black wooden or ivory ball. You dropped it into the urn and your vote remained anonymous. White balls were used for saying yes. As the years went by the rules became more and more cumbersome.
The codes of conduct were strict and often silly. For example, a member was severely castigated and almost expelled because he sat on the bar. Mr Cohen provides a most entertaining account. Another didn't become a member because he was foolish enough to call for a bearer while in the reading room and then, when he stepped out, whistle in the corridor outside it.
The clubs relied heavily on servants. The term extended from the club secretary to peons, masalchis and markers. There were scores of them in any decent club. They took care of everything that the members might need, including loans. In many of these clubs, although the practice was strictly forbidden, the servants used to lend money to the members. Clearly, when it came to money, the sahibs were not as picky as when it came to receiving reprimands sent by the club secretary or president. The markers were a special breed available to play tennis or billiards with a member who found himself alone on the court or at the table.
The food was and is generally awful, being fake British cooked mostly by Indians who had been taught how to make things like omelettes, cutlets and puddings. Some clubs tried to import chefs but the experiment didn't work and the attempt was abandoned after a while.
The real problem, however, was warm alcohol. Members liked it to be cool, if not cold. But in the absence of refrigeration, the only way out was to keep the bottles covered in wet cloth covers, known for some reason as "petticoats". Then in the mid-19th century, an American called Frederic Tudor appeared on the scene. He came to be known as the "Ice King" because he carted ice all the way from the east coast of America to India for sale to clubs and others, like the railways, which used it in tubs to cool the first class. These carriages were running till the mid-70s, minus the ice of course.
By the time the British left, there were over 500 clubs in existence. In most of them, dogs and Indians were not allowed. This practice was not very different from upper caste Indians not allowing Dalits into temples. And just as with the temples, the rule about the dogs could be relaxed but never about the Indians. It was only in the 20th century that this changed.
