The Thick Khaki Line – History Fiction Story
Photo credit: kconnors from morguefile.com
Introduction
In earlier centuries when explorers and adventurers of Europe set off for far away lands, they did so without any women accompanying them. For many, chances of returning home to find gainful existence was remote, and so they settled abroad and fathered both in and out of wedlock a race of mixed blood.
In Africa, the Christian missionaries stamped out the natives’ religious beliefs, except for those regions where Islam was prevalent. There was a shunning of local names and adoption of European ones like say Robert Mugabe and not X Mugabe. The dresses the women folk wore became increasingly westernised. The Africans forcibly taken to the Americas slaves, over time, were completely westernised; however, strains of African music seen in Salsa, Tango and the Samba escaped destruction. Those of mixed blood of the USA identified with African-Americans. Malcolm X and Mohamed Ali rebelled against white racism. In “Roots”, we see a thirst in Alex Haley to know about his African ancestry.
In spite of more than 200 years of European influence and rule in India, Indian spawned religions like Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism sustained. Indian culture, music, food and dress survived. Indian women are comfortable in a sari and not a skirt. However, unlike the Mulattoes, the Anglo-Indians existed in a state of denial of their Indian ancestry. They resented being called natives, half-castes, half-breeds or East Indians and preferred to be called Anglo-Indians in the same manner as Anglo-Saxons and Anglo-Normans. The very fair skinned tried to pass of as Britons and those less lucky cringed at the mention of their Indian ancestry.
Was there betrayal of the Anglo-Indians by Britain-in the early part of their creation? How wrenching was it for the Anglo-Indians to be sandwiched between the conquered and the conqueror during the birth pangs?
Birmingham - 1982
Geoffrey Roger, an Anglo-Indian born in the UK, was 16 when Britain’s armed forces were gearing up for the Falklandswar in 1982. His father immigrated to UK in 1960 from India, and found a job as a waiter in a hotel. His white classmates classified Geoffrey as a “ coloured” and it stung. The Asians were aloof and never invited him for their festivals. He asked his father if the Army would accept him and if their ancestors won medals while fighting for the Empire. His father narrated a story about the origins of their race as told to him by his father.
A New Race
Before the invention of the steam engine during the reign of King George III, David Roger was born thirty miles North of London to Mary Roger, a servant-maid in Lord Wickham’s manor. David’s father, John Roger, was a valet to the lord whose cousin, a frequent visitor of hunting parties, fancied Mary. As David grew, his resemblance to the lord of the manor’s cousin became pronounced, leading to friction and eventual divorce. Mary continued as a house cleaner while the valet left when David was ten years old. David helped his mother eke out a living doing odd jobs on the estate. When he turned 17, while cleaning the guest house, Lord Wickham caught him helping himself to sandwiches on the dining table. He was whipped. He bid farewell to his mother and set off for London.
The East India Company was in the news where fortunes were being made through not only trading and smuggling of opium to China but also plunder and annexing vast tracts of land in India. King Charles II in 1680, allowed the company to raise its own armed forces, provisioned it with the rights to autonomous territorial acquisitions, to mint money, to command fortresses and troops and form alliances, to make war and peace, and to exercise both civil and criminal jurisdiction over the acquired areas.
Distribution of free samples of opium in China helped in the habit taking root and demand sky-rocketing — the import was from India. The profit margins on trading in cotton, tea and Indigo though high were nowhere near opium. The opium wars in China were waged to clear the decks for a monopoly in opium trade. It was unfettered free enterprise where East India Company held a ledger in one hand and a sword in the other hand — it was the most powerful commercial organization the world has ever seen. The need for Britons in the armed forces was growing.
David subsisted by tending to pigs in a slum. He was approached by an agent with tales about India, where as a soldier he could have servants attending to him. Native Indian women were paid to have children fathered by Englishmen so that a khaki line could be created to reinforce the thin red line. English soldiers were paid more than native soldiers were, and great opportunity existed to amass a fortune by way of bounties. America offered vast tracts of sparsely inhabited land, which required back breaking effort to develop, where as in Indian old rich civilization wracked by infighting was waiting to be plundered and enjoyed. The returns would be immediate.
David signed up and embarked in August 1773 for Fort St. George, Madras. The cramped and miserable journey by ship around South Africa took six months. When he started, it was pleasant inLondonand as the equator neared, it started getting warm and humid. Used to bathing once a week in summer and not at all during winter, he found splashing of water on his stinking body pleasurable. Next to the bow of the ship, the sailors squatted and dropped the matter into the sea and the sea spray washed the sides of the ship. While at the estate, he cleaned his bottom after defecating with grass and leaves, and while tending to pigs in London used rags and discarded newspapers. On the sailing ship, he had to manage with the frayed end of a rope dipped in seawater. Replenishment of fresh water from contaminated streams on the coast of Africa led to diarrhoea. The officers and their servants were the only ones armed with muskets to put down any mutiny.
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