'THIM DAYS IS GONE' [‎23r] (45/248)

? 3
After the experience of six weeks or so
strange how tame and flat the mountains
the pass on my way back, and as for the
they were mere mole hills*
in that country, it was
looked from the top of
mountains round Simla -
a 11 owed to
for Simla
The summer of 1934 was little different to that of 1933 and it
began to seem as if the life of a Light Battery, Roy alAr't i Her v
had something in common with a yo-yo. However^ we were fii
comparison with other units in India, incredibly fortunate to be
aestivate, and to do so in a not uninteresting place
India but W of H th6 s , ummer ca P ita l of the Government of
Pani^h it - f ^ / r qUarterS dnd 0f the Government of the
, ^ * was full of Civilians and it was obvious even from a
VieW f that ’ beSide Civilians, the mi Ht ary "counted
creation Th p ’• i f ° P the matter of that » did the
nJnrH n* r Th ! C y U \ dns w ere men who, having taken a
Oxford or Cambridge (or conceivably at some lesser
ad chosen the Indian Civil Service for their
passed a stiff and very competitive examination for
rest of
degree at
university) ,
careers, and had
i t
It is important to remember that in pre-war India Civilians
were not to be confused with civilians meaning non-members of
the armed forces. These were referred to as "box-wallahs",
from the imputed similarity of their occupation to that of the
Indian traders, who used to bicycle around the cantonments with
boxes on their carriers containing cloth and trinkets which
they spread out on the verandahs of the bungalows for display
- and hopefully sale - to the 'mem-sahibs'.
The I.C.S. was not a bit like the Home Civil Service, who come to
mind as an amorphous mass of sub-fusc-suited, nameless, faceless
men who pass an endless chain of files across their desks in dark
and dirty back rooms, while soot-laden rain streams incessantly
down the windows .
By contrast, the Civilians were born into the sunshine; for 99%
of the administrat ion of India was looked after by Indians - and
Indians who were uncovenanted - while the young I.C.S entrant
stepped right onto the top of the heap. They were sometimes
called by a translation of an Indian term for the Brahmins "The
Heaven-Born".
But even more esoteric and arcane was the Foreign and Political
Department, who dealt not only with the External Affairs of India
but represented the government at the courts of the rulers of the
Indian States .
And the gate to these Elysian Fields was open to the Army! No
one wds recruited direct from the university to the Foreign and
Politica! Department, but entrants were selected from Junior
Indian Army officers and from the I.C.S. in the proportion of two
to one. Hence the Brahmin title by which they were known was
The Twice Born". The service had originated in the I9th century