EURASIAN COMMUNITY AS EUGENIC PROBLEM 89 



has distinguished itself in military service and produced outstanding men 

 and women in every walk of life. 



ECONOMIC POSITION 



The history of the Eurasian community shows that there was a time 

 when it was relatively prosperous, but this phase was of short duration. 

 Continued repression and oppression resulted in its degenerating into a 

 community of clerks, railway-men and telegraphists, forced to be content 

 with employment leading nowhere, and in receipt of wages that merely 

 enabled it to exist in a slough of despond. To-day the community, though 

 unique among Eastern peoples in being fairly literate, is characterised by 

 an abnormally high incidence of poverty and the inability to follow produc- 

 tive pursuits associated with such an economic condition. 



Indeed, the problem of the Eurasian community, as the Simon Commis- 

 sion (1930) points out, is essentially economic. A detailed economic survey 

 must therefore be regarded as the foundation upon which a constructive 

 policy of improvement can be built. Impractical schemes for colonisa- 

 tion within and without India, for ruralisation, for cooperation and for 

 vocational, or so-called higher, education, will not provide the required 

 solution. Under conditions in India, emigration or colonisation implies 

 recognition of defeat, of incapacity for competition in spite of numerous 

 advantages, which must militate against success under the more rigorous 

 conditions of a new life. 



Back-to-the-land schemes, which periodically claim the enthusiasm of 

 certain leaders, can only be regarded as antiquated specifics for the eco- 

 nomic ills of the community. An urban community, possessing no affinity 

 for rural life, can never be effectively ruralised. Moreover, it is living in an 

 age of industrialism in which effort is being increasingly directed towards 

 the industrialisation of rural areas. To believe that such a community can 

 be ruralised, to ask it to suffer the impediments to cultural and economic 

 advance associated with rural life, can only be dismissed as an utterly 

 ridiculous policy. 



Regarding education and cooperation, Wallace has provided a theo- 

 retically able discussion, which need not be paraphrased here. We should, 

 however, point out that any effective policy of education or cooperative 

 effort must be part of a determined plan of reconstruction, based on exten- 

 sive statistical data (Dover, in Wallace, 1930). And under existing condi- 

 tions in India there is, unfortunately, no machinery for providing the re- 

 quired knowledge. This is the reason for the failure of numerous schemes 

 and sentimental petitions to the Government during the last hundred years, 



