John Masters

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John Masters (1914–1983) was an English officer in the British Indian Army and novelist. His works are noted for their treatment of the British Empire in India.

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Life

Masters was educated at Wellington and Sandhurst, the son of a Lieutenant-Colonel whose family had a long tradition of service in the in the Indian Army. He joined the army in 1933, having been seconded to the Duke of Cornwall's Light Infantry (DCLI)and decided to opt for the 4th (Prince of Wales Own) Gurkha Rifles. He saw service on the north-west Frontier and was rapidly promoted. At the outbreak of World War II his battalion was sent to North Africa; he served in the desert and in Iran and Iraq in the capacity as its Adjutant. Later in the war Masters was sent to Staff College at Quetta. Here he met the wife of a fellow officer and began an affair. They were later to marry. This caused a small scandal at the time. After Staff College he joined a Chindit battalion and served behind the Japanese lines in Burma. His brigade (the 111 brigade) was ordered by General Lentaigne to hold a position code-named ‘Blackpool’. The position was attacked with great intensity for seventeen days and eventually the brigade was forced to withdraw. These events Masters later wrote about in the second volume of his autobiography, The Road Past Mandalay. He also described how he gave the order to shoot 19 of his own men, casualties who had no hope of recovery or rescue.

At the end of the war Masters left the army and attempted to set up a business promoting walking tours in the Himalayas, one of his hobbies. The business was not a success and to make ends meet he decided to write of his experiences in the army. When his novels proved popular he became a full time writer and moved to the United States. His third autobiographical volume was "Pilgrim Son". The first volume, Bugles and a Tiger, deals with events up to his unit's move to Iraq in 1941.

In later life, Masters and his wife Barbara moved to Sante Fe, New Mexico, USA. He died in 1983 from complications following heart surgery. His family and friends scattered his ashes from an aeroplane over the mountain trails he loved to hike.

"A regimented life" by John Clay was published by Michael Joseph in 1992. This biography of John Masters is now out of print.

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Works

Apart from the autobiographical works (mentioned above), Masters is also known for his historical novels set in India. Five of these portray members of five successive generations of the Savage family serving in the British Army in India in an attempt to trace the history of the British in India through the life of one family. The best known of these is the last, Bhowani Junction, which concerns the Partition of India and the Anglo-Indian community. It was made into a film starring Ava Gardner. Four of these five novels (excluding Far, Far the Mountain Peak) were adapted for an 18 part serial in BBC Radio 4's classic serial slot, being broadcast from October 1984 to January 1985.

Unsurprisingly, considering the subject, Masters' works are not without their critics, many of whom think his work to be revisionist or uncritical of the Empire. He has even been described as an apologist for the Empire. The critic Ronald Brydon has stated "For [me], the saga of the Savages, heroes and conquistadors of the Raj, was a political pornography in which [I] savoured the illicit sensualities of imperialism." Others have detected a greater sophistication in his dealings with the British Empire than simple revisionism. Another recurrent theme in his work is Rock climbing. In the fifties and sixties his books sold in large numbers, particularly Bhowani Junction. Now most, if not all, of his works are out of print.

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Publications

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