Prakash Tandon's Beyond Punjab illustrates the changes that India experienced in the early twentieth century.  The author described his rise to power in the British company Unilever despite the prejudice he faced.  The British policy of Indianization allowed him to gain this position.  As India moved from a colony to an independent country, one can see how social opportunities change for the Indian people.

 

     The British were racist and looked down upon Indians.  Tandon said, "The Unilever company has no need for Indians, they would be better off without us.  Having only a pass degree, compared to them I'm almost pukka.  A bright young Indian also makes a good conversation piece."   Tandon's British colleagues treated him as such; they were very pleasant towards him during the work day.  However, when the day was over they did not want to have anything to do with him.  They would make plans with his friend, Thompson Walker, but they did not invite him along.  Even Though he felt alienated by this exclusion from their clique, he did not try to fit into the British crowd.  He filled this void with the companionship of other Indians. 

    

     The British also had whites only clubs and railroad cars.  Tandon's explanation of railway segregation was very confusing.  British who stayed in India and made it their home for several generations were called Anglo-Indians.  They got the privilege of riding in the fifth class cars.  In one case, a dark skinned Christian gentleman complained to a European guard that a native, who happened to have fair skin, was in the wrong section.  The guard promised to look into it at the next station, but he forgot.  When he later checked the compartment, he threw out the dark skinned Christian.  This case shows that skin color was not the only factor in racism, the prestige of being British also contributed.

 

     While the British had been discriminating against Indians, the Indians were doing the same to Indian women.  Young girls were pressured to find a husband because their parents wanted to get rid of the burden of providing for them.  They married, had children, and were expected to take care of the home, with such responsibilities they had no time to take a job.  Even if they could, such action was frowned upon.   

 

     Tandon believed that men had the final say on everything,  including purchasing of household items.  His colleague, Thompson Walker, argued that the women got what they wanted.  Marketing data from the field confirmed Tandon's hypothesis.  Walker said that this could not be right, because women across the globe usually get what they want, not what their husband decided to buy.  Walker told his field workers to probe further into this subject.  The first women they talked to told them that her husband chooses the products, but he chooses what she tells him.  This shocked Tandon because he believed that Indian women were submissive.

 

     Tandon's Swedidh wife, Gard, had a hard time getting a visa to come to Indian to marry Tandon.  They would only give a visa if the man could prove that he earned enough to support a wife.  Expecting a European to require a higher standard of living, they would only grant a visa if Tandon could meet her requirments.  On the other hand, they had no such law for marriages between poor people in Britain.    They did not approve a mixing of races and used this as a screening process to stop these marriages.  Fortunately, they were not able to stop this marriage, because this dark fellow could easily provide for this fair girl.  

 

     The Indian people were tired of this sort of racism and wanted freedom.   Some felt that the overthrow of the Imperial government should be done at any cost.  Tandon says, "There were many in India who dreamt of Hitler as a savior".  One Indian leader, Subash Chandra Bose took Indian troops captured by the Japanese and fought against the Allies.  At such a critical time, the British could not allow the only Allied stronghold in Asia fall into enemy hands.  They tightened control over their colony, further alienating many Indians.  Realizing that resentment of their presence in India was growing, they had planned to leave as soon as the war was over.  With India about to explode, the British left India in 1947.

 

     As seen from the eyes of Tandon, the lives of the Indian people improved greatly.  After the British left, he got more responsibility in the Hindustan Lever Corporation.  His description of post WWII India was mostly from a business point of view.  Tandon's portrayal of indepdent India leads one to beleive that the India people had come closer to the utopian society that they had envisioned.  He briefly mentioned the partition and later he said of the Punjabis, "Without moping over its losses, even bothering to think about them, Punjab set to building as never before.  Wherever they went, they became like new people."  He did not have to live with them because he had a job in the Hindustan Lever company that allowed him to live a sheltered life.  Perhaps, if he had to live the life of the common Punjabi his views would have been different.

    

     The Indians had rid themselves of the British tyrants.  They would no longer have to live with racism.  As a result, Indians could rise to positions never before open to them.  However, they were wrong in beleiving all of their would go away when the British left.  Indians were no longer held back by British racism.  They took over the government, but were not able to put their own prejudices aside.  India was split into two parts, one with a Muslim majority and one with a Hindu majority.  The result was the death of millions.  Without British rascism they had the chance to build a great nation, however, their own racism held them back.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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