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199 M. K- NAIK

was certainly in a microscopic minority when he told the House of Lords Committee on Indian Affairs in 1853 that the Eurasians ‘had a claim on us, being our descendants. They were in an equivocal position, were not owned by either community and were therefore sensitive, but they had much of the good qualities of both races.*¹¹ One was not too surę what exactly the worst trails of the Anglo-Saxon race were, but one knew very well those of the Indians, which were automalically transmitted to the Eurasian. Their very complexion was condemnalion enough of the Eurasians. It no doubt varied from almost ⁴mid-day (or a quarter to twelve) to midnight’, but inevitable touch of the tar-brush was always plain to a practised eye. Other tale-tell marks includcd unusually large and dark eyes, exceptionally white teeth, dark hair, a morę slcnder and fragile bonę structure (which occasionally madę for great beauty in women), morę vivacity than pure Anglo-Saxon blood was safcly uscd to, and curiously enough dark patches below the nails.

For worse than his appearance, which was a concrete evidence of Anglo-Saxon wild oats sown not wisely but too well, was the Eurasian*s character. Almost everybody agreed that the Eurasian imbibed all the worst traits of Indian character through his cursed mother's blood, viz. lack of strength, endurance and staying power; want of morał fibrę; pusillanimity, and a tendcncy to panie in times of crisis. The warring elements in Eurasian character were supposcd to make him an unstable pesonality. Evidence for this came from the Report of the Census Commissioner (1891). It stated that it appears from statistics that insanily is far morę prevalent among the Eurasians than among any other class.¹² The Report also added that the Eurasians, ‘seem to be peculiarly liable to... leprosy.’¹³ Anolher interesting finding of the Commssion is that ‘the far higher proportion of female as compared with małe lunatics in the Eurasian than in the native community is very conspicuous/¹⁴

If such was the British view of the Eurasian in generał, it wouid be equally interesting to ask the question : how did the Eurasian look at himself ? The oppressive consciousness of his being a monstro hybrid was like a Cain *s mark branded on the Eurasian ’s soul. Always aware of the fact that he was generally despised by the British on the one hand and the Indians on the other, The Eurasian found himself ‘between two worlds one dead, and the other powerless to be born. * Nirad Chaudhuri has evocatively described the plight of the Eursian, in The Contincnt of Circe: ‘There hung over their consciousness the shadow of a disinherited life, cast by the knowledge that all their potentialities were limited by something over which they had no contro], namely their birth. This fostered in all Eurasians a resentment against the British, which often became strong enough to be sullenness, affecting the mood and temper of the whole community. Yet they could not allow themselves to be drivcn by this sentimcnl into anti-British behaviour. They