Victorian Attitudes to Race by Christine Bolt

Author:Christine Bolt [Bolt, Christine]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, General, Reference
ISBN: 9781135031503
Google: jb7WAQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-10-28T03:36:39+00:00

V

The Indian Empire

The natives respect us, they acknowledge that we make them rich and prosperous, that we are very just and very well meaning; but they cannot bear us. There is no mistake about this.

Saturday Review, 1868.1

A SENSE of failure and a sense of achievement are combined in much of the British writing about India after the revolt of 1857, which, according to one London journal, ended the romantic age in Anglo-Indian relations and began a new era of realism and caution.2 The Mutiny created a sense of outrage in Victorian Britain (in the same way that the Jamaica rebellion was resented) because it seemed to indicate a gross ingratitude on the part of the Indian people. Moral and political reforms begun in the 1830s and designed to create an efficient administration had instead alienated princes and landowners, alarmed traditionalists, and offended the religious — and particularly caste — sensibilities of the native troops, provoking two major revolts before 1857. A motley coalition of the discontented during that year took advantage of the mutiny in the Bengal Army (triggered off by the introduction of a new cartridge said to be greased with cow or pig fat, the first offensive to the Hindus, the second to the Moslems), but were united by little except opposition to the consolidation of British power. Accordingly the revolt was suppressed without serious difficulty, but with great bloodshed and bitterness.

The immediate result of the Mutiny was a further spate of administrative reform: Company rule was ended and power assumed by the Crown. The government of India was conducted from the British end partly through a Council in London, established in 1858, but mainly by the Secretary of State. The Central Legislative Council in Calcutta was enlarged in 1861, and Indian representatives were included among its non-official members; however, the Council continued to have no control over the Viceroy and his Executive Council. Legislative councils were established in the provinces, and by the 1890s there was a limited admission of the principle of election. After 1860 the system worked fairly well and the country was peaceful, although the North-West Frontier continued to cause apprehension and induce heavy expenditure, as did the Second Afghan War in 1879 and the annexation of Burma in 1885.

In the long term the Mutiny served to confirm the mutual distrust which had been growing up between rulers and ruled for over twenty years. The ensuing study will be concerned with Victorian attitudes to Indian religious beliefs and civilization generally, to the country and its people, and the principal sources used are books and articles by missionaries, travellers, administrators and soldiers, and the British Press. The contrasting viewpoints revealed in the Anglo-Indian and purely English material brings out, even more clearly than did the African survey, the potential for conflict between the stay-at-home philanthropist or philosopher and the settler groups. Equally, the contrast between secular and missionary activities is even more apparent.

The Mutiny of 1857, a monstrous shock to the complaisant British community in India, was hailed by missionaries both there and in Britain as a sign of Divine displeasure.

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