The text below gives an idea of how challenging it was for the Theosophical Society to establish itself in the colonialist era, of which many attitudes still survive to this day. This account is one of the more
candid and personal accounts of her experiences with racism in India and
describes with vivid explicitness the crude racist attitudes of an
English member of the Theosophical Society. See also Blavatsky's Eloquent Anti Racist Colonialism Editorial
translated from Russian by
Olga Fyodorova
From the Caves and Jungles of Hindostan: Letters to the Homeland (Pre-reform Russian: «Изъ пеще́ръ и де́брей Индоста́на: пи́сьма на ро́дину»; tr. Iz peshcher i debrei Indostana: pis'ma na rodinu) was written by Blavatsky under the pen name Radda Bai in serial installments (letters) from 1879 to 1886 in Moscow in the periodicals Moskovskiya Vedomosti and Russkiy Vestnik, edited by Mikhail Katkov. The first part of these letters was published in a single volume in 1883 as an appendix to the journal Russkiy Vestnik.
(Cranston, S. L. HPB: the extraordinary life and influence of Helena Blavatsky, founder of the modern Theosophical movement, 1993).
p. 56, 336)
All of the above is not a digression from my story, but a necessary
explanation of what has to be explained. "Letters from the Caves and
Jungles of Hindustan" is not a geographical and ethnographic description
of India with fictitious heroes and heroines woven into it, but rather a diary
of the main members of the Theosophical Society, whom both spiritualism and
materialism in Europe and most importantly - negligent orientalists have
already begun to take into account.
Embarrassed by the conduct of Miss B *** and getting into the carriage of
the Bhurtpore Maharaja, we were startled by the contact with it. It was a huge
half-open landau, half-prehistoric, quite comfortable, however, and capable of
easily accommodating six or even eight people. But its seat before our arrival
managed to turn into a chair on which the victims of the Inquisition were once
fried ... On the steps and iron sheathing of the landau one could cook eggs,
and after touching it with a bare hand the skin on my palm peeled off ...
Withdrawing my hand in horror, I did not dare to get in; and even the dashing
colonel stopped in embarrassment ... In such a chariot, probably only
Beelzebub, the prince of hell, rides around!
“You can’t go in this carriage until evening,” the Thakur remarked,
frowning. “You’ll have to spend the day nearby. You can stay at the buffet
until I send for the covered carriage...
We held a consultation. The magical gardens of Deeg, watered with 600
fountains (the historically known heritage of the Bhurtpore Maharajas) were 18
miles away; the state capital was 5 miles away; the place where we can have
breakfast 15 miles away. The train was late, and it was already ten o'clock. To
ride in the midday heat, when even then we were quite dizzy and everything went
dark before our eyes, would be madness. All felt so except the Thakur, even the
Indians turned pale, that is, they had earthy complexion, and fanned themselves
with scarves... And the Babu seemed to be blissful. With uncovered hair, as
always, and bouncing on the front seat, on which he had already sat with his
legs, crossed, he dived in the waves of hot air, as another dives in the cool
streams of the river, assuring that it is not so hot yet, and that in Bengal such a day would be considered cool by many.
While the Thakur was giving the order, and the two bodyguards galloped off
somewhere for the carriage, Miss B ***, completely exhausted from the heat and
finding fault with everything and everyone, considered it her duty to be
offended by the words of the Babu:
“C'est du persifflage, cela!” – she kept on repeating, fanning herself in
excitement. “He feels cool when we are all dying from the heat!”
“Well, what is it to you? Can you forbid a person to feel differently from
how you feel?” - I persuaded her, anticipating a new quarrel between them.
“But he said it on purpose! He is laughing at us,” the spinster muttered loudly.
“He, like all Indians, hates us, the English! He is rejoicing at our
suffering!”
“It’s in vain to think so,” the Babu teased her from the carriage. “I do
not at all hate our good masters. Only when they are hot, I always feel cool
and - vice versa ... Will you sit down next to me, and I will fan you with your
fan ... You know how I ... respect you!”
“Thank you!” - she burst out. “You can sit in the sun, which is powerless as
such as you ... regular amphibians!” - she said in rage.
“Do you mean salamanders?” - the Babu bared his teeth. “Don’t be mistaken,
chand ka tukra sahib!”
“I ask you not to teach me, even if I was mistaken!” – screamed she,
turning pale with rage. “It's not your ... race to teach us - the English!”
“I seriously advise you to be more careful ... in this heat,” interjected
the Thakur, dismounting from his horse and stressing on the last words
meaningfully. “The slightest excitement can be disastrous in our climate, which
even the English authorities have not yet managed to enslave.”
Again, the same sharp lightning flashed in the Rajput's half-closed eyes,
and his nostrils fluttered slightly at the tone of contempt with which she
uttered the words “your race.” But the enraged islander could no longer be held
in check, and there was no way to stop her. She began to complain that she was
taken by deception to the country where there is not a single Englishman to
protect her, where the natives mock her and insult in her person the greatness
of the whole nation, the Queen herself. She spoke such nonsense that we,
puzzled, silently looked at her like at as a mad woman. W *** took her by the
arm and tried to take her to the buffet. He was terribly embarrassed, but as an
Englishman, he probably considered it beneath his dignity to make her listen to
reason and thus, at least indirectly, justify the native in a quarrel with the
daughter of the “superior race.”
Taken away by W ***, Miss B *** was already heading for the station, and I,
standing under a huge canopy umbrella, which was opened over the colonel and
me, was only expecting to receive the binoculars and gripsack left in the
carriage, when suddenly Narayan Krishnarao, Mulji and the Babu, as if by
agreement, approached the colonel and began asking permission to return with
the same train to Agra and then home. Our venerable president waved his both
arms. He will not part with them ... that quarrel is nothing and will be
forgotten in an hour.
“I’ll never let you go! I'd rather be back with you myself!” – he replied
loudly.
At the first words of the conversation, the Englishwoman stopped and
pricked up her ears. Hearing what was the matter, she tore her hand out from
under the arm of W *** and, running up, rattled off about the fact that those
gentlemen Hindus (mockingly pressing on the word gentlemen) – anticipating her
own request.
“We can no longer be in the harmony necessary for a pleasant journey,” she
announced. “Let Mr. President choose now between the European members and Asian
ones!”
“There can be no choice,” he began slowly, very angry, and in his
embarrassment, beating the hot ash out of the pipe onto the pillows of the
landau of His Grace. “All members of the society entrusted to me in New York, no matter what
race or religion they belong to, are equally respected by me and dear to the General
Society. Therefore I refuse to choose; but I sustain my right to resolve
disputes and misunderstandings between members. I heard every word of your rather
loud talk and I must confess that I do not find in it anything resembling a
quarrel! The venerable Miss B *** flared up and uttered insolence (emphasizing
the word insolence) to the Babu. He remained silent and acted like a gentleman.
I hope that Miss B *** will now understand that he is offended, but not she,
and in his person the rest of the native members; I hope that she will add her
request to mine that they would forget this insignificant outburst and ask our
kind, respected friends not to leave us...”
Miss B *** was shaking all over with rage.
Standing a couple of steps from me and leaning on the saddle, the Thakur had
his eyes fixed on her, which were shining at that moment with some ominous
phosphoric radiance. Narayan, casting down his eyes and dropping his head, was
silent; but a large drop of blood appeared on his severely bitten lip...
“What! Me... should I ask him for an apology?” - hissed the Englishwoman.
“Me ... when he...”
“Not an apology, but to give a hand of reconciliation… you are asked,” W
*** interrupted her.
He was pale and spoke with apparent effort. Natural honesty fought in him
with an innate national arrogance and, unfortunately, the latter won. At the
angry glance that a compatriot threw in his direction, he caught himself and
added:
“Apologizing for the interference, I allow myself to explain the just
expressed desire of the President only in the sense conveyed by me ... Because
... you should agree ... that American ideas about decency are diametrically
opposed to ours (the English), and I cannot suppose for a single minute of such
absurdity that even Mr. President could come up with the idea to propose to a
lady ... an English lady ... to apologize to ... to ... to ... a man!” – he finished,
stammering, and evidently replacing the last word with the term he managed
happily to swallow.
“So much for the Brotherhood of Humanity,” - I thought.
“Why not?” – answered the Colonel quite calmly. “You may suppose it, as it
was precisely such an absurdity that I
had in mind”
“Well, I don't even think to demand, or even hope for an apology!” -
interposed the Babu good-naturedly. “I do not even understand to this day what
I have done wrong to the venerable Miss B ***, whom I have always respected as
a mother...”
If lightning fell at the feet of a forty-five-year-old spinster at that
moment, it would not have produced such a terrible effect as this innocent word
“mother” uttered in complete innocence by a twenty-year-old fellow. Knowing her
strongest weakness, I was positively frightened, expecting that she would pounce
upon the Babu like a wild cat. The Thakur silently threw aside the reins of his
horse and, taking a step forward, fixed an even more attentive gaze at the
raging Englishwoman.
She turned purple all over. The veins on her neck swelled like twines, and
she screamed almost foaming at her mouth: “What? .. mother! .. mother ... you
... me ... you! .. You should know, sir,” - she suddenly added, majestically
drawing herself up – “that you are not obliged to respect me as a mother, but
as a member of that great nation that holds ... your most ... contemptible
ra...”
The Thakur suddenly and rapidly stretched out his hand to her... Choking
and muttering incoherent sounds, she suddenly crashed like a beveled sheaf,
wheezing and in convulsions, right into the arms of W ***, into whose arms
Gulab Singh deftly threw her falling body...
“It is, as I warned her,” the Thakur said quietly and calmly, bending over
the trembling body. “Heat apoplexy; take her to the ladies' restroom!”
