Colonel Gidney’s advice to Anglo-Indians to walk “hand in hand” with Indians is always vitiated by a race prejudice that renders such advice nugatory. In his famous Bangalore speech, in his familiar vein of exhortation, Colonel Gidney and his kin recognise that Anglo-Indians are Indians? and that their place is in the ranks of the Indian Auxiliary Forces? In the Calcutta speech of the 2nd May, he urged Anglo-Indians to “range themselves on the side of the Government” as if the Government were necessarily in opposition to the people. Had the Colonel said: “Cast away as untenable every idea of racial difference or superiority and compete, in every-day life, with Indians as Indians, expecting nothing more than a fair field and no favour; enter into trade, learn handicrafts; become sailors on the P. and O. and other steamer lines; drop your expensive way of living; give up drink, save money, stand on your own feet, and win for the community the respect of the both Europeans and Indians as a factor to be reckoned with” — it would have been more to the purpose.
