Sir, My great-grandfather was Field Marshal Sir Neville Bowles Chamberlain (1820-1902), who served in the Indian Army with distinction. He was a subaltern in the First Afghan War (1839 to 1842), saw action in many campaigns and was wounded on various occasions. He evidently knew India and Afghanistan well. In about 1878, he wrote the following in a letter home:

“Anyone who knows the native mind, whether Hindoo or Mahomedan, must be alive to the fact that, with all our desire to do justly and to love mercy, the great majority of the people would be glad to see us depart, and would rejoice to return to the state of things we pride ourselves in having delivered them from. We are aliens. We are wanting in every bond which unites people together. Further, we are conquerors, and we are of a stamp who say and act as if whatever we think or do is best.”

It seems to me that these views may well be those of some of our senior officers now in Afghanistan.

Christopher Daniel
Faversham, Kent

Sir, Hamid Karzai must be wondering why he was rebuked by the Europeans for failing to ensure that the Afghan people should be granted a fair vote on their choice of president (report, Nov 3). I’m sure he must have seen the TV pictures of the celebrations at the EU after its success in ratifying the Lisbon treaty without allowing all the European electorate a democratic vote.

Denis Downes
Leicester

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