REPORT ON INDIA

Hokitika Guardian, 9 June 1928, Page 4

REPORT ON INDIA

BERLIN, April 20. Miss Mayo, is a cheerful looking woman, and although not young, has roses in her cheeks which a girl might envy, and in her blue eyes a light of youthful happiness. “When I got to India,” Miss Mayo told me, “I came up against things which were so terrible—the suffering of animals and the misery and degradation of child-marriages—that I had to ask myself whether it was not my duty to speak out. I saw that if I di dso I should have to deal with matters from which one naturally shrinks'; but I realised that it was a duty to India and also a duty to the United States to speak.” “And why a duty to the United States?” I asked.

“Young Indians come to the United States,” she said, “and find it a profitable business to give dreamy lectures on the mystical soul of India and the shock to the sensitive mind of a people, in tune with nature, of contact with the cold materialism of the British. It was necessary to give my, fellow-coun-trymen. who are influenced by these men, a measuring-rod with which to estimate the value of such statements. Americans are easily swayed and have said to me after hearing Indians talk: ‘Well, I’m for the under-dog.’ ” Miss Mayo is one of those rare people whose voices unconsciously tell one what they fee) about the facts they state. It was her voice which showed her pity when she spoke of the fate of the Hindu girl, who may be only nine when she is sent to a- boy-husband or to a husband of forty, ajnd who becomes a mother when she is a child. Believe me, she. loves these people, whatever they may say against her.

SAPPING INDIA’S STRENGTH “You cannot stop this system of child-marriage, which is sapping the strength of India, merely by legislation,” she said, “because it is consecrated by ancient customs and religion.” How deep it is rooted may be understood by the reply which. Miss Mayo told me, a Brahmin gave when she asked him what lie would do with a daughter whom he had not married to a husband at the age of puberty. “T should have to send her to a desert place, u'here there was nobody to succour her and where she would die,” he said, and added, hurriedly: “But I should not commit such a sin as not to marry her,”

“What is the remedy?” I asked. “I don’t know,” said Miss Mayo despondently, and. then, as if she felt that despondency meant lack of faith India wants men like Francis Xavier, who do not care a straw for their lives. And then there may be a change in public opinion. After all, it’s a long time between Genesis and'the Gospels. As it is there are Indians who state openly that the present system means the physical and moral degeneration of the. race, and among them are men who have abused mo unsparingly. Indians are sensitive to foreign, especially to American, opinion, and that in itself was !l Sufficient reason for putting the facts about India before my fellow-country men,