The excuse commonly made by the Anglo-Indians for the lack of social cordiality between themselves and well-to-do natives is that the caste regulations of the latter bar real intercourse. A man who will neither eat with you nor drink with you, it is said, nor admit you to his own wife’s society, cannot be really intimate in your house. But I confess I cannot see the force of that argument. In my own case I certainly did not find that caste prejudices prevented my forming the most agreeable relations with a number of Indian gentlemen, Brahmins of high caste, and Mohammedans, as well as Parsis and native Christians, nor did I find any who did not seem quite willing to treat me on an equal footing. I found no difference of any insurmountable kind between their ideas and my own; not more, indeed, than would have been the case had they been Spaniards or Italians. The fact of their not breaking bread with me, I am sure, constituted no kind of obstacle to our kindly relations. On the other hand, it is obvious that, as regards the native Christians at least, the rule cannot apply. These have no caste prejudices, yet they are just as much excluded from the pale of English society as the rest.
It will hardly be credited in England, but in this present year of grace, 1884, no hotel-keeper in India dares receive a native guest into his house, not on account, of any ill-will of his own, but through fear of losing his custom. When I was at Bombay in the winter I was treated with the greatest kindness and attention by various members of the native community, and by none more so than by Mohammed Ali Rogay, the leading Mohammedan of the city. He had travelled in Europe, dressed in European dress, and had even so far adopted our manners as to subscribe to all the public charities and to drive a four-in-hand. Yet, happening one day to ask him to dine with me at my hotel, it was explained to me that this could not be, at least not in the public room, “lest the English guests should take offence and leave the house.”
In Bengal and Northern India things are still worse, and I think it is not too much to say that no native gentleman, whatever his rank, age, or character may be, can visit a place of public resort frequented by Englishmen, especially if he be in native dress, without a certain risk of insult and rough treatment. Railway travelling is notoriously dangerous for them in this respect, and nearly all my native acquaintances had tales to tell of abuse from English fellow-passengers, and of having been turned out of their places by the guards to accommodate these, and now and then of having been personally ill-treated and knocked about. Men of high position, therefore, or self-respect, are obliged, either to secure beforehand special compartments for their use, or to travel third class. The second class they are especially afraid of. I should not make this statement unless I had received it from unimpeachable sources. But I have been assured of its truth among others by two members of the Supreme Legislative Council at Calcutta, who separately narrated to me their experiences. I know also that one of the principal reasons with certain of the leading natives of the Presidency towns who have adopted the European dress has been to escape thereby from chance ill-usage.