WEST AND EAST

New Zealand Listener, Volume 30, Issue 765, 19 March 1954, Page 5

WEST AND EAST

sir,-Mr. Ik, M. Burdon. properly stresses thé importatice of K. M. Pannikar’s Asia and Western Dorninance. A reviewer in the English Listener- says this is the first time such an analysis has been presented ‘through Asien eyes "since the retreat of Europe from the East.’ Those last eight words are important for my purpose. Mr. Burdon’s staternent that since most books on the subject have been written by Europeans or Americans, "we of the West have heard only one side of the case," leads mé to point out that the case against the West has been presented through the years by innumerable Western journalists and au : supported "should say, by Asians writing in English for Western people. The main indictments against the West have always been open to the inquifing Western mind. In Britain, liberal and radical journalism and thought generally kept an pecs ome eye on British policy and administration in India, and there was a close connection between Indjan reformers and British sympathisers. _The impact of Britain runs through our literature. The "Nabob" type, product of that "plunder" to which Mr. Pannikar refers, is known to readers of: English histor and fiction. It ‘ig 30 years ‘since E. M: Forster’ wrote A Passage to India. When Britain "left" the Indian peninsula there must have been murmurs of "Good riddance" in the West, as well as the more emphatic by Indians. Now, however, there are distinct signs of a reaction, of a recognition that apart from material things, the East owes a great deal to the West, and especially to Britain. It is a few years since I read an amusing: compilation of the nasty things Indian leaders had said about Britain during the occupation and the compliments these same Indians were now. .paying. It, may have been about that time that the Minister responsible in the new State of India was commending the example of the old Civil Service to the new. other day the Vice-President’ of India mentioned as British gifts to India, the ballot, which implies the wholé system of pafliamentary government, the Bible and cricket; and) the officer commanding the Indian military police in Korea thanked ‘ the British Army for having taught. the Indian Army "how to fight and how to behave." And a member’ of the Wellington Bar has been telling justices of the peace that the English common law is the basis of law in India and Pakistan; that, indeed, more non-English-spéaking. than English-speaking people live. under this system. And finally, and perhaps this is the most telling of all, a Jewish publicist recently; after severely» criticising Britain’s handling of the Pales-, tine mandate, said that the Jews there’ generally wefe grateful to Britain for order, the rule of law, training in selfgovernment, and the integrity and devotion of the civil service. The Indian view, he added, was essentially the same.

LIBERAL

(Wellington).