Case for colour

PERHAPS EVERYDAY (well! if not everyday, at least once
every week) either a book or an article on colour prejudice
is being published. Today is my turn. Why have I rashly
ventured into this overwritten field ? The public have a right
to demand an explanation. Is it merely due to the vain desire
to see myself in print or have I really something new to say ?
I plead guilty to both charges. Like all authors I love to see
myself in print - not only in print but securely bound in hard
cover, with dreams of a more paying paper-back to follow.
But I think I have also some slight contribution to make
both by way of presentation as well as addition. I have sougKt
to reduce the scattered and bewildering array of knowledge
on this subject into some kind of systematic and easily read-
able form. Of course many have done this before me but let
me hope that I have at least displayed some originality in the
use of the scissors and the glue-pot. Concerning colour prejudice
in Britain and more so in India, I have a work to my
credit. References to this will be found in various parts of
the book and more exclusively in Chapters 4 and 5.
I have had three types of readers in my mind in writing
this book. To begin with, the enquiring layman and his first
cousin, the man in the street. But so many books are now
being written specifically for their benefit that the cousins
have become somewhat suspicious of the solicitude of authors.
So as a potential market they are not so good as they once
used to be. However I do hope they will rally round in this
case. Authors have to live. Secondly, the psychologist - the
student, not the expert. The expert can read and understand
all the learned tomes but the student likes to have the stuff
dished up to him on a silver plate in words of one syllable.
I have striven to do my best. I trust that he finds the dish
not too unpalatable. Lastly, the social worker. Many social
workers in the field of prejudice are rather weak in the
theory part. They have too much faith in appeals to good
nature and cups of tea. Social work will become more effec-
tive if facts are understood and evaluated correctly before
plunging into practical work. I have tried to provide this
theoretical background. One has to think of many reasons
for writing a book today. Publishers seem to have an equal
number of reasons for rejecting the same.
As long as our approach to the problem of prejudice is an
emotional and anecdotal one, little good can be done. The
first step in the right direction is an accurate knowledge of
things as they exist and the mechanisms behind them. We
tend to think of colour prejudice in terms of a rigid dicho-
tomy black and white. This is not true. There are a large
number of gradations and varieties. There is also a belief
that colour prejudice is the monopoly of the Republic of
South Africa and the United States. This has created in the
minds of some of the Eastern nations a dangerous state of
complacency. There has been colour prejudice in India,
though it had never reached the serious stage that it has in
some other countries. I have devoted two chapters to the
problem in India as it existed in the past and as it exists in
the present. In another chapter I have surveyed the position
of Indians abroad.