Memoir of the Career of Thomas Edward Rogers [‎11r] (21/118)

lo
stepped down from our pedestal to live as ordinary men exposing our weaknesses
and faults which, such is human nature, would have been perceived more easily
than our strengths. Above all, relative isolation gave us the means and the
necessary appearance of impartiality and incorruptibility; and the knowledge
that we lived on a pedestal with great responsibilities in fact concentrated our
lives and minds, without social distractions however agreeable from our first
duty of discharging those responsibilities. I have before me the memory of my
first District Magistrate. His every contact with Indians was either publicly
on his veranda as he received his morning callers in full view of all who cared
to see, or in court or office where all approaches made to him could be observed.
No one could point to favour being sought or bought behind closed doors.
From Mymensingh the change to my first independent post at Serampore was
dramatic - from rural north-east Bengal to a busy, largely industrial area
thirteen miles up the right bank of the Hooghly river from Calcutta. Beside
smaller plants and factories there were several large jute mills where labour
unrest and strikes were common and I was often called in to keep the peace or
arrange a settlement. Political movements from Calcutta seeped in to touch off
student or other protest or lawbreaking. This took on a new importance when war
broke out in 1939. I attracted, perhaps deserved the rebuke of my Indian District
Magistrate at Hooghly for briefly gaoling some shopkeepers for hoarding and
profiteering in the first days of wartime price controls. He thought I acted
highhandedly. I claimed the need to protect the public, and especially the poor,
by making a deterrent example. Had any British lawbreaker similarly offended I
would even more readily have meted out similar treatment. No doubt I identified
unconsciously the interests of the Indian public with that of the King Emperor in
winning the war. But the Government of India had made the same identification in
declaring war without consulting Indian leaders as it was constitutionally entitled
to do.