Teapot Tempest

White settlers of the Salisbury area were comfortably settled on the veranda of the picturesque Mazoe Hotel in suburban Mazoe sipping their customary sundowners (brandy and soda). Suddenly glasses were put down and eyebrows raised as their lily-white privacy was invaded by plump, brown-skinned Jagannath Rao, the press attache of the Indian diplomatic mission, who had brought his wife, two children and a friend into the lounge for a cup of tea. Before they could be served, the hotel manager bustled up, asked them to leave. Rao protested that he was a foreign diplomat, but the manager snapped: "I don't want any Indians in my hotel. The right of admission is reserved." The Indians got up and left.

40 Miles From Zomba. Central Africa's Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland proclaims "racial partnership" as its official policy, but unofficially the color bar is so rigid that Indian and Pakistani diplomats are continually turned away from movie theaters, liquor stores, hotels and restaurants-even when they are guests of whites. The wife of an Indian official was not allowed to enter an elevator in a Salisbury department store, and later was refused admission to a "European" maternity home. A Pakistani trade commissioner who had been an R.A.F. squadron leader during World War II was invited to represent his country at a ceremony arranged by the city of Salisbury to honor Britain's Marquis of Salisbury. He found himself shunted to a segregated seat, along with other non-whites while the rest of the diplomatic corps were allotted seats in the council chamber. When the Indian assistant commissioner, the wealthy, Oxford-educated Rajah of Alirajpur, had to visit the Nyasaland capital of Zomba on official business, the only hotel accommodations he could get were 40 miles from town. The rajah has his hair cut by his pretty wife because, he says bitterly, "it has been made painfully clear to me that if I go to a barbershop, some white bricklayer or truck driver will object to sitting next to an Indian."

Civilized Treatment. Last week India officially protested the Rao incident and, as after all the other incidents, the Federation government made official apologies. It further promised that, under a new Immunities and Privileges Act, Asian diplomats will receive a special permit entitling them to order a cup of tea without being thrown out of the tearoom. Indian newspapers fumed that the Federation permit "is in itself an act of racial discrimination. No self-respecting country can allow its envoys to go about demanding civilized treatment on the strength of such chits of paper." Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru himself seemed equally unsatisfied to accept apologies as a substitute for immediate and constructive action. Last week he told his Parliament that India will break diplomatic relations with the Federation unless discrimination comes to an end.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.