in this eighteenth century print scottish field hands scrabble for firewood and scrape with a hoe in front of a stone cottage-see the poverty beforethe loot
Aug 15, 2016 - In Britain, a museum visitor from India is suddenly made aware of how his ... to public view was in the late 18th century when British army officer ...
The British Empire in India is the most striking example in the history of the world of .... The European forces in India are now somewhat in excess of this and the ..
His original Essay was published anonymously and made few references to Scotland beyond notingthe poverty of the Scottish peasants and the .==================================================
now read their side of the story of India under British (mis)rule
Exclusive Opinion by Aline Dobbie: The Great Scottish India Connection
The Scottish diaspora throughout the world was significant but in
India it was huge with every two out of three families having family
members working and living in India, Burma and Ceylon.
This year is 250 years after the vision of the New Town of Edinburgh
that coincided with the Age of Enlightenment when Scots Philosophers,
Writers, Scientists, Engineers, Artists and Architects shone their light
and talent and wisdom out over Great Britain and Europe. That time of
enlightened thinking that coincided with the activity and success of the
East India Company led to young Scots of all walks of life seeking to
assuage their aspirations and find serious occupations for themselves.
The subcontinent of India proved their great opportunity.
Standing looking out onto lush green lawns and the autumn colours
beginning in the trees I reflected on the landscape of a Scottish
ancestral home and thought of all the Scots who went to India where the
landscape could be very varied but not quite like this. Those of us
whose families served in India through the generations still have that
sense of India in our heritage and therefore a love and great interest
in that huge country …. from a small northern land of valleys, hills,
mountains and sparkling rivers we Scots went for over two centuries to a
vast sub-continent of wide diversity and the legacy remains with us to
this day.
Here at Broomhall, the ancestral seat of the famous Bruce family,
descendants of that legend Robert the Bruce I had come to see a new
exhibition detailing this family’s great past in India where indeed I
was born and grew up, the last of generations of two families who
served, worked, lived and died in the sub-continent.
James Bruce, 8th Earl of Elgin
The 8th Earl of Elgin was Viceroy from 1862 to 1863 when
he tragically died of heart failure aged only 52. This quiet man had
made his mark in Jamaica, then very importantly in Canada as Governor
General and indeed persuaded the Canadians of both English and French
origins to become a Dominion, the very first which was an example
followed by Australia and New Zealand. But he actually with his
foresight and wisdom dissuaded the Canadians from joining up with the
United States. A huge achievement. Cruelly his work in India was
curtailed by his sudden death and he is buried in Dharmsala in north
India. He was on a march in the company of my ancestor the Commander in
Chief to Lahore when he died in 1863. His young son Victor the 9th
Earl grew up fully mindful of his late father’s achievements, the
godson of Queen Victoria and he came to India as Viceroy in 1894. His
was a quiet but hugely significant time in India and he was known as
‘The Walking Viceroy’ and his views mirrored his late father’s that he
wanted the Indians to benefit in every way from the British rule;
development, communication, food distribution, education, dignity of man
were his values and he and his countess had eleven children the last of
whom was born in India. The new museum is really a cabinet of curiosities
intended to enhance the appeal of the property for guests who will be
able to hire the house on an exclusive basis for a function or event
from 2017.
The 9th Earl faced the challenge of two consecutive years of
widespread crop failure in 1896 and 1897 by organising the most
comprehensive programme of outdoor relief ever seen in India. At its
peak the programme provided work for 33 million people – over 30 years
before Roosevelt launched the New Deal to combat the effects of
the Depression in the US. Underlying the success of Elgin’s programme
was the railway building programme, again the most progressive in the
history of India, which allowed distribution of food supplies to famine
stricken areas. By the time he left office in 1899, India had been
provided with over 25,000 miles of track, of which 4000 miles had been
planned or built during his term of office.
I have seen just a part of this glorious archive and was entranced
and intrigued. Broomhall is going to play host to modern young people
who will see a heritage mansion open its doors and welcome folk to
dinners and lunches and events, who want to learn about a shared past
and enjoy the present, with a glass of fusion whisky to wash it all
down. Yes, a fusion of Scotch and Indian malt whiskies is what is going
to be launched and it will be intriguing and special I have no doubt.
The Water of Life can flow in great rivers in both Scotland and India.
Scots Cemetery as it is being restored and reconfigured now in 2016
In 2008 a team of experts flew to Kolkata (formerly Calcutta) to
survey the Scottish Cemetery in the heart of the city. Their aim was to
restore the Cemetery within its walled perimeter and provide a green
oasis within a city of 15 million people. Estimates now suggest over
6300 people are buried there and over 90% have Scottish names. Those
Scots originated from towns and villages throughout Scotland and they
came from all walks of life. The cemetery was established in 1826 and
was the main burial ground of St Andrew’s Church of Scotland sited in,
what was then, Dalhousie Square and is now known as BBD Bagh. The South
Park Street Cemetery close by has been carefully renovated and conserved
and provides a melancholy reminder of all the people who gave their
lives in the service of Great Britain and India. In my childhood that
too was a complete jungle and a dangerous place to visit but is now a
place of heritage; that is now a requirement for the Scottish Cemetery
that it should be declared a place of national heritage to give it
historical importance.
This topical story reflects the history between our two countries.
Kolkata was, until 1911 the capital of India. It was the centre of the
British East India Company’s vast trade monopoly until the Indian Revolt
in 1857 led to British rule under the Raj. In 1800 it was estimated
that over two thirds of the Company’s officials were Scots.
The trading links were created back in 1618 when King James VI
awarded a patent to Sir James Cunningham of Glengarnock, to found the
Scottish East India Company. This led to vigorous objections in the City
of London and amongst the Royal Burghs which feared the importation of
exotic goods and they forced the patent to be withdrawn. It is worth
considering at this point that at that time India had a significant
number of empires that flourished and made it a major trading nation in
the east.
However, the Act of Union in 1707 allowed Scots equal access to the
English East India Company, which subsequently became the British East
India Company (hereafter referred to as EIC) and by 1750 it was
estimated that around 30% of the posts in Bengal were filled by Scots.
The EIC provided an escape route out of poverty for many young men at
this time. John Malcolm was one of seventeen children from
Dumfriesshire who got a cadetship in Bengal at the age of 13. He became
private secretary to Lord Wellesley and set about a major reorganisation
of Central India. His ambition was rewarded when he became Governor
General of Bombay in 1827.
John Malcolm
Youth was also a feature of Malcolm’s predecessor in the governorship
of Bombay. Mountstuart Elphinstone arrived from Scotland aged only 16.
He became perhaps one of the greatest legal reformers in India, trying
to eliminate infanticide, slavery, prostitution and sati (the ancient
Hindu practice of a widow throwing herself on her husband’s funeral
pyre.) He was also a great believer in education and he founded a Hindu
College staffed by Sanskrit scholars at Poona now Pune in 1821. This was
in direct contrast to the edict from the EIC at that time which wanted
education to be conducted in English, perhaps their way of encouraging
European and Christian values in the educated Indian elite.
The EIC was also seen as a suitable career path for the educated
classes within Scotland. Many graduates from Edinburgh University,
particularly in medicine and botany, found success in India. One such
was William Roxburgh from Ayrshire who became the Superintendent of the
famous Calcutta Botanical Garden in 1793. He introduced new plants from
all over India and became known as the father of Indian botany. The
Calcutta Botanical Gardens had a great deal to do with Kew and in 2009
Kew’s significant year it celebrated in many ways that connection – how
lovely it would be for the Calcutta Botanical Garden to be renovated and
given sensitive restoration.
Hugh Falconer of Forres
Another medical man with an interest in botany was Hugh Falconer of
Forres. He was asked to investigate the possibility of growing tea in
India. Wild tea plants had been found in Assam eleven years earlier by a
young Scot, Major Robert Bruce. Bruce brought the plant back and, after
his death, his brother Charles worked tirelessly to produce India’s
first tea which was officially declared Assam tea in 1834. James Taylor
from Kincardine used this Assam variety in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) and
after he invented the first “tea-rolling” machine he revolutionised the
tea production industry. Fellow Scot William MacKinnon used his shipping
line British India Steam Navigation Company to bring Indian tea to the
world. However, it was a third Scot, Tommy Lipton from the Gorbals who,
after meeting Taylor in the early 1890s, saw the potential for tea and
realised the savings that could be made from cutting out the middle men.
So he bought four tea plantations in Ceylon and started growing and
importing his own tea, thus making it accessible to the masses. Lipton’s
tea became a household name across Europe and US, making Sir Thomas a
wealthy man and dramatically improving the economies of India and Ceylon
Tipu Sultan
The EIC offered young men the opportunity to prove themselves in the
military. After the failure of the 1745 uprising at home many men
enlisted and some battalions were formed specifically for duty in India,
like the 75th Highland Regiment raised in 1787. Four years later it merged with the 92nd to become the 1st
Battalion The Gordon Highlanders whose first two battle honours are
“Mysore” and “Seringapatam.” The Regiments spent twenty years fighting
in south India to protect British interests around Madras where the EIC
had first settled back in 1640. The famous ‘Patriot before his time’
Tipu Sahib, known as the Sultan of Mysore, was a dangerous enemy who had
sided with the French. The Mysore Wars culminated in an important
victory for the British at the Battle of Seringapatam which resulted in
the death of Tipu Sultan. In the National Gallery of Scotland there is a
portrait of General David Baird standing triumphant over the body of
Tipu. However, now in this 21st century The Burrell
Collection, one of Glasgow’s publicly owned museums, would like to
acquire a gold and gem-encrusted tiger’s head finial from the throne of
Tipu Sultan as a fitting addition to its collection of Muslim and Indian
art. Interestingly the Burrell Collection feels that acquiring the
finial would not only fit into the Collection because of its artistic
quality and cultural significance but would also help explore deeply
resonant contemporary issues such as achieving mutual understanding,
prosperity and stability via intercultural dialogue in a complex
culturally diverse society. Yes, indeed, Tipu Sultan died just over two
centuries ago and the evolving world order has shown all of us that we
have to respect each other not dominate or subsume peoples (which is
still sadly happening in other parts of the world).
That military campaign however was the start of the path of success
for Arthur Wellesley subsequently Duke of Wellington. For some, the
military taught them skills which they could later apply outside the
army. In 1783 a young man from Stornoway called Colin Mackenzie joined
the EIC as an officer in the engineers. After the Battle of Seringapatam
his survey team made detailed drawings of Mysore and the surrounding
captured territory. He went on to survey throughout south India and
garner extensive information on all aspects of Indian life and culture.
He was later appointed Surveyor General of India and produced some of
the first accurate maps of India.
Scots had proved themselves to be good administrators and many had
held the post of Governor General. One prominent figure was James
Ramsay, later to become Lord Dalhousie. In 1847 he became the youngest
ever governor. He had introduced railways to India and expanded the
telegraph to improve communications. He reformed the postal service,
introduced a public works department and instigated plans for a
nationwide irrigation system. Soldiers, sailors, engineers, marine
engineers, harbour masters, doctors, teachers, missionaries, tea
planters, coffee planters, jute ‘wallahs’, policemen, civil service
administrators and all their wives made up the Scottish Diaspora in
India and Ceylon. To this day the Scots are widely held in respect
particularly by the older generation. It was Sir Walter Scott who
allegedly remarked ‘India has become the corn chest for us Scots….’.
James Ramsay, later to become Lord Dalhousie
Dalhousie’s policy of annexation and reforms were felt by some to
have been partially responsible for creating the grounds for discontent
that led to the Indian Revolt. It must be pointed out however that there
had been several revolts throughout the 1800s, reflecting Indian
dissatisfaction with British domination. Ill health led to Dalhousie’s
retirement a year before the uprising of 1857. His name lives on in
Himachal Pradesh where the town which bears his name became a popular
hill station during the Raj with a magnificent view of the Himalaya. The
Indian Revolt is better referred to as The First War of Independence in
India today; my own ancestor was one of the four victorious generals
who defeated the amazing and courageous Rani Lakshmi Bai of Jhansi at
the siege of Gwalior – she is recognised in India as one of their very
first Freedom Fighters.
The power of the EIC increased over the years but with it grew
internal corruption and inefficiencies. One man charged with presiding
over the administration of it was Henry Dundas, Solicitor General for
Scotland in 1766. He determined to curb the monopolistic powers of the
EIC in favour of free trade. Slowly he dismantled some of the privileges
but it was his son Robert who finally abolished the EIC monopoly in
1813. This opened new opportunities for commerce and Scottish companies
were quick to take advantage.
One such company was James Finlay and Company, a Glasgow based
company established in 1745 whose roots were in cotton. With the advent
of free trade, the founder’s son Kirkman, later described as “the
leading capitalist in Scotland,” sent his ship the “Earl of
Buckinghamshire” to India in 1816. She was the first ship to sail from
the Clyde to Bombay. This new market for cheap cotton goods boomed and
soon India became the company’s most profitable region.
View from Hastings Bridge Calcutta 1860s
At home the textile industry was well established with much of the
finished dyed and printed cotton being shipped to India. In 1827 there
was a major breakthrough at the Vale of Leven. The mill owners perfected
the technique to dye fabric Turkey Red, a highly prized colour, without
it fading or running. Red is a highly auspicious colour, it is the
colour a bride marries in. Business boomed and at this time one of the
most popular patterns used became known as the “Paisley Pattern.”
Paisley Pattern
This teardrop shaped motif was originally used on shawls in Kashmir
and examples were brought back home as presents from men working with
the EIC in the middle of the 18th century. Shawls became very
fashionable and UK manufacturers could produce them at a fraction of
the cost of Indian ones. Production started in Edinburgh in 1790,
followed by Paisley in 1805 but it was technical advances in handlooms
that really helped the industry develop. The Jacquard loom introduced in
the 1820s allowed larger scale production of more elaborate shawls.
Paisley was pre-eminent in this field because its companies managed to
drive down costs more aggressively and target the mass markets of the
middle and working class. Paisley produced more products, and for
longer, than any other town and therefore the pattern became commonly
known as the “Paisley Pattern.” However, by the early 1870s fashion
changed and cheaper shawls flooded the market and the industry started
to decline. In India the pro -independence movement led by Gandhi was
promoting self-sufficiency and gradually the Indian home market started
to flourish at the expense of Scotland. On an Indian note it is thought
the tear drop design closely resembled a mango beloved of all Indians.
It was Babur the great Mogul who said when he was intent on conquering
India that it had two great discoveries for him…. the elephant and the
mango! Interestingly in Machlipatnam in south India on the Carnatic
Coast chintz was probably invented – that area of India had trading
connections going back to the Romans and indeed research shows that it
is an area that had previously been devastated by tsunamis in the Bay of
Bengal.
Calcutta View – Sailing Ships and Other Boats Docked Along Hooghly River – Calcutta (Kolkata)
Local production of raw materials like cotton and jute was a major
competitive advantage for India. The latter product was also the source
of close relations between our countries. Dundee and Kolkata were linked
by jute. Grown in Bangladesh and around Kolkata it was shipped to
Dundee where it was finished in Scotland and then shipped back. This
trade flourished for 70 years; however, by the 1900s the Dundee mill
owners realised it was more cost effective to move to India and many of
the mills on the shores of the Hooghly River had Scottish names like
Angus, Dalhousie and Caledonia. This was the beginning of the end for
jute production in Scotland. Instead of exporting finished jute to India
they were now exporting textile machinery made in Monifeith and skilled
people. In the Scottish Cemetery lie many of the employees and their
families sent out to nurture the jute industry. Curiously now in this
eco conscious 21st century people are returning to using jute
for bags and holdalls and as a means of packaging whereas plastic had
superseded it with disastrous consequences during the last half of the
20th century.
Pontoon Bridge Over Hooghly River in Calcutta (Kolkata) – and Bullock Carts Nearby
John Muir, who was now running James Finlay and Co. recognised the
decline in textiles and switched into tea production, for which that
company is still famous. Finlay moved into the infant tea industry in
1873, acting as an agent in Calcutta for two small tea estates in the
north. But Muir quickly saw the benefits of grouping tea estates and
gradually bought up many estates throughout the Subcontinent. Back home
he had warehouses in London, the company’s own tea brokers and tea
tasters and controlling interests in a tea packaging company. By the
1890s the Oxford Dictionary of National Biography said Muir was the
world’s largest stakeholder in the growing and marketing of tea. At his
death in 1903 James Finlay employed 90 000 people worldwide. Nowadays it
focuses primarily on tea, although it sold its tea estates to its long
term partner, the Tata Group. Unfortunately, James Finlay’s association
with Glasgow has also been severed when it moved its head office to
London in 2007.
In 1931 the majority of top 20 companies in India had Scottish
connections. The five largest in order of size were Tata, Andrew Yule,
Inchcape, James Finlay, Williamson Magor and Burn and Co. with Tata
Group the only Indian company. Companies with Scots roots owned 400
subsidiaries dominating tea, sugar, jute, coal, electricity, transport,
metals and general investments. Sadly, now they have all but
disappeared, with only James Finlay surviving today in a recognisable
form.
Andrew Yule came from Stonehaven in 1863 and set up a conglomerate in
tea, coal, jute and cotton. His brother George was involved in politics
and along with Sir William Wedderburn from Edinburgh they helped found
the current political ruling party, the Indian National Congress. George
became the first non-Indian president of the Party.
The development of Inchcape Group is a classic example of Scots
working together for mutual profit. In the early 1800s there were 2
major shipping lines (the third Cunard, although bearing the name of a
man from Nova Scotia had Glaswegian managing partners).
P&O British India Travel Vintage Poster
Peninsular and Orient (P & O) was founded by a Shetlander called
Arthur Anderson in 1837 and later run by another Scot called Thomas
Sutherland. Early in the 1900s due to increased competition and
protectionist policies Sutherland entered into negotiations with James
MacKay (later Lord Inchcape) who was at that time chairman of British
India Steam Navigation Company (BI). The companies were comparable in
size and whilst BI dominated the Indian Ocean routes, P&O operated
long haul and domestic routes. In September 1914 BI was taken over by
P&O, although effectively it was members of BI who played major
roles within the newly enlarged P&O. Lord Inchcape became chairman
and managing director and the shipping operation became a subsidiary of
Inchcape Group thereafter.
The history of BI is interesting. Sir William MacKinnon was born in
Campbeltown in 1823 and joined his friend Robert Mackenzie who was
already established in trading in Calcutta in 1847. They formed a
partnership called MacKinnon, Mackenzie and Co. later the same year
chartering sailing vessels between India and Australia. Sadly, Robert
was drowned in a shipwreck in 1853 but William continued to prosper from
the boom in Indian cotton after the American Civil War in 1861 after
which the American supplies dried up.
MacKinnon has been hailed by some as the “greatest Scottish
industrialist of all time.” He favoured the Clyde side shipbuilders,
notably William Denny and Bros. of Dumbarton, placing orders himself and
negotiating on their behalf at home and abroad on new contracts. It is
also said he only served finest malt whisky from Campbeltown on his
ships. It is worth noting at this point that one can go around India to
this day and discover iron works and architectural works manufactured in
Scotland, such as the pillars of part of the fabulous palace at Mysore.
Assam, where I have been recently for the first time is full of
Scottish plant and engineering for the tea industry and that north east
area of India is trying very hard to encourage a tourism industry based
on the heritage of the tea industry.
When MacKinnon won the right to run the prestigious mail route
between Calcutta and Rangoon he immediately set up a new company, the
Calcutta & Burmah Steam Navigation Co Ltd and this ultimately led to
the formation of his company British India Steam Navigation Co., (B I)
registered in Scotland in 1862. The BI fleet went on to become the
largest single merchant fleet in the world in 1922 with 158 vessels.
James MacKay from Arbroath joined MacKinnon, Mackenzie and Co. in
1874 and when MacKinnon died in 1893 MacKay, later Lord Inchcape, was
ready to take on the mantle and take BI to even greater things.
Lieutenant Colonel James Tod
Let me tell you about the very special Lieutenant Colonel James Tod. I
came across him in a very special way. I was in Udaipur last year and
HH Maharana mentioned that he was a countryman of mine. James Tod was
born in Scotland in about 1782 and we do not know a great deal about him
till he joined the East India Company when he was only 18 years old in
1800. He came to India but he did not have family with great influence
and so he experienced various challenges and in those days the British
only had control of certain areas of India. In 1805 when he was still a
subaltern James Tod was tasked with commanding an escort attached to the
embassy sent to Maharaja Scindia who, at that time, was encamped at
Mewar. Thus, the still-independent states within what we know as
Rajasthan became his ‘home of adoption’ and he spent the best part of
his life there. Tod, only still twenty-four years old, resolved to be
more than a mere political resident and became, successively, a
geographer, historian and archaeologist. He started with the geography
of Rajasthan. At that time the Indian maps for the area were virtually
blank. He did a survey and produced a detailed and accurate map of
Rajasthan (Rajputana would have been the name then) which he presented
to the Marquis of Hastings in 1815. His work was respected and he was
appointed political agent of an extensive area comprising five major
states of Rajputana; Mewar, Marwar, Jessulmer (Jaisalmer as we know it
now), Kotah and Boondi (Bundi today). Tod was held in high regard by the
Princes and this led to jealousy and suspicion at British headquarters,
but he soon refuted it by the excellence of his work. In 1818 Mewar
signed a treaty with the British and Colonel Tod as he now was as
political agent realised that Ooodipoor (Udaipur) was facing challenges
and that his role would need to be more than advisory and he set about
reorganizing the State’s economy. Within two years he had doubled the
revenues of the state. The affection of the local people for James Tod
was immense and there is a small town in Rajasthan named after him:
Todgarh. His health became fragile but he pursued his aims and then
finally returned to his homeland in 1823. There he set about writing the
now famous Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan, which was produced in
two volumes in 1829 and 1832. Another book Travels in Western India was
posthumously published in 1839. Colonel James Tod is revered in Mewar to
this day.
I have a collection of prints framed of beautiful Indian plants and
the man who made the enormous collection is called Hugh Francis Clarke
Cleghorn 1820-1895. This year the Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh had a
small exhibition of his precious drawing and paintings. After studying
botany at the RBGE in 1838 and 1839, graduating MD in 1841 Hugh Cleghorn
went to Madras as an East India Company surgeon. Between 1843 and 1847
he worked in the Kingdom of Mysore. He commissioned a ‘Marathi’ artist
to paint a different plant for him every day. Following a sick leave in
Britain Cleghorn returned to Madras in 1851, where he was appointed
Professor of Botany at the Medical College, Secretary of the
Agri-Horticultural Society and Conservator of Forests. In all these
roles he continued to commission Indian artists who made illustrations
of native and cultivated plants, and copied book illustrations. There
are about 3,000 items and following his death in 1895 Cleghorn’s
botanical books and drawings were split between the Edinburgh Museum of
Science and Art and Edinburgh University, and his herbarium was given to
RBGE. In 1940 the books and the drawings were transferred to RBGE
whereupon Cleghorn became, if posthumously, one of the Garden’s most
significant patrons. I
grew up in India being taught by the parents about the beauty of
India’s great floral heritage and visits to gardens and countryside plus
gardening led me to love the pastime even now. It is a wonderful legacy
for India and Scotland to this day. I treasure my own few prints of
that great work. There is much of my family history I could include
but that is referred to in my various books.
John Begg a Scot born in 1866 became very successful designing public
buildings in South Africa, India and Burma. His public buildings adorn
Johannesburg, Mumbai, Kolkata, Rangoon, Agra, Delhi, Pune and Nagpur
among other places. He never reached the same level of recognition in
his homeland probably because he did not receive a commission for a
large public building here in Scotland. Scots literally shone when they
went to far off places and their legacies remain even now. I
returned to Kolkata once again and visited The Scottish Cemetery six
years ago. I found my Mother Barbara’s family vault and paid respects to
my close ancestors who are buried therein. My paternal grandparents are
buried in north Bengal. It is a fitting tribute to all those who went
before to be restoring The Scottish Cemetery in Kolkata into a memorial
to the dead but also a living garden for those who live and work around
it in Kolkata which is now a desperately over crowded city. In my
childhood in the 1950s there were about 450,000,000 people in India, now
there are 1.2 billion – in the same land space and that is a challenge
for everyone.
All four of Aline Dobbie’s books are now in hard cover and e-book form www.quicklookbooks.com
AbeBooks · On Demand Books · Amazon · Find in a library · All sellers » ... Poverty and Un-British Rule in India. By Dadabhai Naoroji. About this book · Terms of ...
Dadabhai Naoroji (4 September 1825 – 30 June 1917), known as the Grand Old Man of India, ... His book Poverty and Un-British Rule in India brought attention to the draining of India's wealth into Britain. He was ..... Google Book Search. Web.
Dadabhai Naoroji, known as the Grand Old Man of India, was a Parsi intellectual, educator, cotton trader, and an early Indian political and social leader.Wikipedia
The Scottish diaspora throughout the world was significant but in
India it was huge with every two out of three families having family
members working and living in India, Burma and Ceylon.
I
grew up in India being taught by the parents about the beauty of
India’s great floral heritage and visits to gardens and countryside plus
gardening led me to love the pastime even now. It is a wonderful legacy
for India and Scotland to this day. I treasure my own few prints of
that great work. There is much of my family history I could include
but that is referred to in my various books.
I
returned to Kolkata once again and visited The Scottish Cemetery six
years ago. I found my Mother Barbara’s family vault and paid respects to
my close ancestors who are buried therein. My paternal grandparents are
buried in north Bengal. It is a fitting tribute to all those who went
before to be restoring The Scottish Cemetery in Kolkata into a memorial
to the dead but also a living garden for those who live and work around
it in Kolkata which is now a desperately over crowded city. In my
childhood in the 1950s there were about 450,000,000 people in India, now
there are 1.2 billion – in the same land space and that is a challenge
for everyone.
!["Travelers overtaken by the inundation [of a flash flood]"](http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00routesdata/1800_1899/dailylife_drawings/ilnviews/flood1856.jpg){kind=link}
