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to bring about a merger. In 1920 under the name The South India Boy Scouts Association, a new Organisation comprising the above two associations was formed. This may be recorded as the first successful attempt at merger of more than one Association in India.

CENTRAL PROVINCES AND BERAR :

The first Scout troop of purely Indian boys in the Central Provinces and Berar, and indeed, in India, was started in Chanda by the Rev. Alex Wood, later Bishop of Chota Nagpur and then of Nagpur, in 1908. It was registered direct with Imperial Headquarters in London as there was no Scout Association in India to which it could be attached. This was before Imperial Headquarters changed its policy and refused to admit Indian Boys.

A few years later, Mr. L. G. de Silva attended a training course at Gilwell Park in England and got the Wood Badge. On his return to India he started a troop of Indian boys in Jabalpur in or about 1915. The policy of exclusion had then come into force; so his troop was a private one not affiliated to any organisation. This was most courageous of him, as Mr. de Silva was then in Government service and the Education Department vehemently opposed to Scouting for Indian boys. The authorities even went to the length of threatening sanctions against those who advocated it.

When Mr. Vivian Bose returned to India from England in 1913 he explored the possibility of starting Scout Troops, not only for Indian boys, but for everybody on a basis of complete equality. He met with open hostility from Government but worked behind the scenes in the hope of bringing about a change. When, however, he found government attitudes hardening and becoming more hostile and bitter, he gave up and branched off on his own in 1918.

But pressures had been mounting even before 1913. So Government started a movement called the School-boy League of Honour for Indian boys and wanted Mr. Bose to work for this. He refused on four grounds: (1) it was based on racial discrimination with the underlying assumption that Indians were inferior and not fit to mix with their western counterparts on terms of equality; (2) it was a pale and bad imitation of Scouting, so, with the genuine article at hand, it was unwise to turn to a patently defective, inferior substitute; (3) it was parochial in character and lacked the international vision; and (4) it was limited to school boys and excluded the vast majority of Indian youth.