By Sadiya Akter [Edited by Bismah Rahman and Seren Caglar]
The beginning of British rule in India was a complex one. The role of the East India Company was initially one of trade but increasing political and economic instability drew the company into internal affairs in Bengal.[1] The desire to protect trading interests is what made the company become involved with Indian merchants and financers. The shift of the East India Company to a successor state was a haphazard process, and one that was highly criticised back home. Initially, a dire significance was not placed upon justifying the empire. Company officials dressed in Indian clothes, spoke Indian languages and married Indian women.[2] There was a shift in this fluidity when British involvement in India became deeper than just for purposes of trade. An important turning point in this was the Indian Mutiny of 1857 and the ensuing events, which haunted the British Raj and categorised ‘colonial anxieties and fears about colonial insecurity, leading to the proliferation and expansion of new forms of political surveillance, and judicial and police powers.’[3]
British rule in India was a somewhat paternalistic one as described by Edward Said in his influential work, Orientalism: ‘the Oriental is irrational, depraved (fallen), childlike, “different”; thus, the European is rational, virtuous, mature, “normal”.’[4] The acts of justification and maintenance are dual systems, as ideologically justifying empire through the notion of superiority helped to maintain British rule. Whilst the justification of empire was a defensive concept, its preservation was a direct consequence of this.[5] British rule was maintained using the different systems within society, some of which the British claimed to have ‘gifted’ to the Indian civilisation – for example, the rule of law – but there are layers to these justifications. This essay will focus on the following three factors as they demonstrate this dual function well: earlier influences of Christianity which sought to ‘reform’ India such as the abolition of Sati, the ‘The Rule of Law’, and fictional narratives used to reinforce the significance of empire. Christianity was an important mode of justification as it used the significance of morality to create a difference between those who have and have not been ‘civilised’ by it. The legal system provided a framework and an excuse for white violence and maintained against the ‘fanatics’. Finally, whilst fiction has many layers, this essay will focus on spy novels and how they ally with the anxieties of empire to justify and maintain a narrative of superiority. All three modes of justification worked by injecting a certain ideology of British authority; some of these were conscious efforts whereas others took time to mould into the concept of superiority.
In 1813, the first missionaries were permitted into India, a decision taken due to pressure from Evangelical groups back home. The parliamentary commission – which included Warren Hastings – saw this as a terrible idea as it could create conflict amongst the Muslim elite, disrupting trade. This indicates the Company’s initial indifference towards religious sentiments in India. James Mill’s ‘History of British India’ marks changing attitudes in India, and the beginning of the ‘Age of Reform’. Mills was an examiner correspondent for the Company and never visited India, yet he characterised Indian society as ‘barren, perverse and objectionable’.[6] His book was published in 1818, but he began writing it in 1806. It was a form of critical history that condemned aspects of Indian society, including its history, morals and people.[7] As the Company’s attitudes towards Indian customs changed, the influence of Evangelism and utilitarianism acted as backbones for the reformation of India. Evangelicalism gave British actions a wash of legitimacy. The example of the Abolition of Sati in 1829 under Governor Bentick illustrates this well. The practice of Sati comes from the Goddess Sati, who sacrificed herself due to her father’s humiliation of her husband Shiva. Statistically, Sati was not as common as the British painted it out to be. In the Madras Presidency ‘a total of two hundred and forty-three in six years from 1814 to 1819’ performed Sati.[8] Anand Yang explains that the option of ‘becoming a Sati was not only conditioned by their economic and social circumstance, but also by the virtue they earned in gaining […] spiritual reward […] by closing out their lives as symbolically dead.’[9] This process of creating moral panic about a situation that affected a minority provided an opportunity to justify empire. Sati was part of Indian society, but it was not a frequent practice, and neither was it accepted by everyone living in India. Many women only consented to Sati due to circumstance and devotion to their lord. Therefore, the abolition was a calculated decision to create distance between the ruler and the ruled.
The abolition of Sati is an action that is difficult to fault. Even among contemporaries, this action was ‘hailed as one of the few and real untainted humanitarian achievements of British colonial rule.’[10] At the beginning, British rule in India was in a vulnerable position – hence the laissez-faire attitude – but as British power in India began to crystallise, they saw Sati as their ‘problem’. India had to be compatible with European ideologies. This brings in the idea of how the process of justification of Empire is a dual system with maintaining power. By using Sati as a condemnation of Indian society, British involvement in India was ‘protecting’ women from backward customs, in turn justifying their rule. Thus, ‘these agents of empire were faced with a dual task of justifying colonialism on the ground that the backward societies need to be civilized and insisting that only Europeans could do this, ironically implying both that the liberal principles were universally valid and that they were uniquely European in their origin’.[11] The British were now able to maintain power over India because in their eyes ‘if they did not interfere with sati, they could not rule, at least not in the long run.’[12] This ideology proves to be contradictory when considering Europe’s history of burning ‘witches’. Thomas Waters clarifies that belief in the supernatural was not unique to the lower class in society, as in reality ‘great wealth, an expensive education and high rank didn’t stop people from crediting witchcraft.’[13] This contradictory ideology did not transcend the notion of non-Europeans being backward and uneducated. In the case of Sati, whilst the influence of Christianity and the civilising mission provides justification, the Abolition of Sati Act 1829 gives it legitimacy. By creating a foundation for what is construed as ‘legal’ and ‘illegal’, there were now boundaries in place for the ruler and ruled. By abolishing Sati, British rule was justified and maintained as it brought Indian civilisation ‘forward in time’, due to its ‘benevolent’ nature. This highlights the duality of both maintaining and justifying British rule.
Another important aspect of this dual process was related to the ‘Rule of Law’ or at least, the ‘idea’ of it. Many Whig historians and general supporters of empire take pride in Britain’s implementation of the ‘rule of law’ in India, with the academic Bruce Gilley being a key contemporary example. Whilst they recognise the atrocities of empire, there is a tendency to frame the legal system – like the Abolition of Sati Act – as an achievement. The rule of law was one of the major foundations of British imperialism and their so-called civilising mission. It not only justified empire but helped to maintain it. Influential figures such as Macaulay argued that the rule of law was a gift from the British as he set out to codify Indian law.[14] Macaulay described codification as a ‘work which especially belongs to a government like that of India – to an enlightened and paternal despotism.’[15] For example, after the horror of 1857, the legal framework introduced measures to control ‘fanatics’ of the North-West Frontier and give British officials discretionary powers. Mark Condos discusses the infamous ‘Murderous Outrages Act’ of 1867 as a reaction to the attempted murder of British officials, an example of the British ruling with coercion rather than consent. The events of 1857 triggered a type of scientific jurisprudence that produced a series of codified laws, including the Code of Civil Procedure (1859) and the Indian Penal code. The Murderous Outrages Act allowed fanatics to be executed with short summary trials and the vague definition of ‘fanatic’ led to abuse of the act. Under this framework, these acts were deemed ‘legal’ and justified in order to protect the empire. The dual system of justifying and maintaining British rule in India came into play in the context of the Murderous Outrages Act of 1867. Whilst the British were riddled with anxieties from the horror of 1857, they were able to demonstrate their power over the natives through this and many more acts of parliament. The punishing of ‘fanatics’ reinforced the paternalistic relationship between the Indians and the British. This notion of paternalism unconsciously justified empire as any action taken by the British administration was done to ‘improve’ India.
The rule of law was treated as ‘immeasurably superior to anything [Indians] had ever had before’ and it acted as an excuse for white violence.[16] Violence was a crucial part of maintaining empire, as Kim Wagner argues: ‘[the Empire’s] authority depended ultimately upon the use of violence.’[17] The concept of justice and equality which the legal system claimed to stand for did not apply to natives. The boundary between legal and illegal violence shifted constantly, making it difficult to understand when fatal acts of white violence became illegitimate.[18] In the case of ‘British boots and Indian spleens’, there were reports of British men kicking their Indian servants and rupturing their spleens. This led to medico-legal scholars making the indigenous spleen part of their research and coming to the conclusion that Indian spleens were just weak, thus providing an excuse to mitigate white violence.[19] White violence was an issue for empire as it hurt the claim of white superiority, making rule harder to defend.
Thus, the legal system provided a framework to keep white violence legal. Colonial justice did not become more effective over time, as sentences for British attacks on Indians were harsher at the beginning of the nineteenth century than at the end.[20] The case of the boot and spleen not only showed that violence was an inherent part of colonial rule but that ‘the colonial negation of murder depended on an inter-twining of law and medicine that stressed the racial specificities both of modes of violent action and of responses to violence, producing a mutually constitutive relationship between British boots and Indian spleens.’[21] Thus, the law served as an ideological justification for empire, but also maintained empire as it acted as an excuse for colonial violence. This attempt at excusing white violence did not go unnoticed by Indians. It was published in the Punjabi Akbhar, which stated that ‘whenever a Native is killed by a European, the Civil Surgeons, after examining the remains, are of the opinion that the deceased was in such a weak state of health that he might have died at any time without violence.’[22] The medico-legal machinery was crucial in maintaining British rule and excusing European culpability. Whilst maintaining an ideological justification, the legal system also created a hierarchy by separating the coloniser from the colonised.
Fictional narratives of the Raj were significant not only in maintaining power, but in reinforcing tropes which justified empire. Often, the boundaries between fact and fiction were blurred in these narratives. Popular culture made it difficult to escape the notion of empire. Before discussing fictional narratives, it is important to recognise the psychological context in which they were set, specifically focusing on this ‘anxious period.’[23] Colonial fiction is set in a period of rapid expansion of empire where Britain exerted force in more or less overt ways through a range of institutions and practices, such as education. Public occasions such as the Jubilee celebrations shaped imperial sentiments and put empire at the forefront of popular culture, not just for the elites but for the masses.[24] Yumna Siddiqi describes late modernity as an anxious period. She sees anxiety as not a theme, but as a motivating force.[25] Anxiety is linked to trauma and loss, in fiction of intrigue there is this same formula, where the reader apprehends a loss of harmony. This entertains cultural anxieties and uses enlightenment thinking to present the ‘other’ as being devoid of reason.[26] Fiction acted as an ideological weapon to maintain British rule as orientalist thinking can easily be injected into the masses, starting from children.
The detective novels in particular which gained popularity in the nineteenth century served the ideological interests of Empire by allaying these anxieties. The starting point was that British colonial rule was a ‘good’ thing. They then went on to portray colonial order as a problem to be solved. These imperial detective and spy fictions were cast as stories of adventure and emphasised validity of ‘benightment’ rationality. In the stories by Doyle and Buchan, the detective’s task was to ‘render these unsettling entities into knowable objects.’[27] For example, the character of Sherlock Holmes – who is popular even today – embodied the virtues and values of modern European society. Sherlock Holmes was characterised as ‘rational’ and used ‘scientific’ ways of solving crime, thereby symbolising western superiority and rationality.[28] Again, there is the presence of the theme of law and order which characterises British rule in India. These detective stories justified empire in a way that could be distributed to the masses, and in doing so the British could maintain their rule. Furthermore, Doyle writes about returned colonials in his stories. He depicts one of these returned colonials as a degenerate, who experiences moral and physical decline due to his having lived with the natives. The other is one that is respectable and not ruined by the ravaged natives. For example, in the ‘Crooked Man’, Colonel Barclay returns as a venerated and well-liked soldier, whereas the character of the crooked man is one that has been destroyed by the natives.[29] This comparative approach signified the English culture as one that was civilising and the native as one that lead to moral decline. This maintained empire as it emphasised the need for both British rule and the civilising mission. While detective and spy fictions emphasised the unsettling anxieties of British rulers, the volume of novels written after 1857 show how important it was to justify empire. Whilst Siddiqi’s analysis of the psychological context in which fictional narratives are set is interesting, this was less to do with economics and religious faith, and more to do with the events of 1857. There was a clear focus on consolidating British imperialism and using novels to paint a narrative of the mutiny and credit British dominance over Indians. This form of imperial propaganda did not address historical accuracies but was significant in creating the ‘fantasy’ of 1857 from the British perspective.[30]
This essay has argued that maintaining and justifying British rule in India was a dual system. The agents used to justify and maintain rule included the influence of Christianity, the legal system and the role of fiction. These categories expose the depth of each action taken by the British and the penetration within Indian society to justify British rule in the nineteenth century. The haunting memory of 1857 is highlighted in this essay to explain the shift in British policy and attitude towards Indians. The notion of superiority began to crystallise after this ‘betrayal’ of 1857. Interestingly, the British never had a tenuous hold over India; whilst 1857 and frequent uprisings did occur, they had no bearing on the level of action taken to justify British rule. Modes of justification such as the legal system seemed to be more for British satisfaction with their benign rule rather than for the native population. Whilst racist tropes had somewhat begun to disappear, there were apologists who used the Abolition of Sati and the implementation of the legal system to argue for the merits of British rule in India. This essay has attempted to unveil how key actions by the British administration were carried out with an ulterior motive that did not match their claims.
Instead of understanding Indian society and its cultures, religions, ethnic differences and caste differences, the British forced their way of life onto India. This lack of recognition and acceptance is what led to the Oriental being characterised as ‘irrational, depraved (fallen), childlike, “different”; thus, the European is rational, virtuous, mature, “normal”.’[31] These ideas have left their legacies in contemporary societies as well. On the one hand, Bruce Gilley sparked protest for his view on colonialism being ‘good’; his ideas illustrate that colonial rule led to the birth of a dangerous ideology of difference, which continues to affect society today. On the other hand, Shashi Tharoor argues that Britain should pay reparations for the damage caused to India through colonial rule, and this might be an important point to consider when discussing the justification of Empire.[32] The debates surrounding the justification of empire and maintaining its history continue as ‘every empire, however, tells itself and the world that it is unlike all other empires, that its mission is not to plunder and control but to educate and liberate.’[33] Notes
[1] B. Metcalf and T. Metcalf, Cambridge Concise Histories: In A Concise History of Modern India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), pp. 56-91.
[1] Metcalf, Concise History of Modern India, pp. 56-91.
[1] Mark Condos (ed.), The Insecurity State: Punjab and the Making of Colonial Power in British India (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), p. 26.
[1] Richard H. Minear, “Orientalism and the Study of Japan”, The Journal of Asian Studies, 39/3 (1980), pp. 507-17.
[1] A. John Simmons, “Justification and Legitimacy”, Ethics, 109/4 (1999), pp. 739-71.
[1] J. V. Naik, “Instant Indian Nationalist Reaction to James Mill's ‘The History of British India’”, Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, 63 (2002), p. 587.
[1] Naik, “Instant Indian Nationalist Reaction”, p. 588.
[1] Norbert Schürer, “The Impartial Spectator of Sati, 1757-84”, Eighteenth-Century Studies, 42/1 (2008), p. 19.
[1] Anand A. Yang, “Whose Sati? Widow Burning in Early 19th Century India”, Journal of Women's History, 1/2 (1989), p. 26.
[1] Jörg Fisch, “Humanitarian Achievement or Administrative Necessity? Lord William Bentinck and the Abolition of Sati in 1829”, Journal of Asian History, 34/2 (2000), pp. 109-34.
[1] Jyotsna G. Singh, Colonial Narratives/Cultural Dialogues: ‘Discoveries’ of India in the Language of Colonialism(London: Routledge, 1996), p. 85.
[1] Fisch, “Humanitarian Achievement or Administrative Necessity?”, pp. 109-34.
[1] Thomas Waters, Cursed Britain: A History of Witchcraft and Black Magic in Modern Times (New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 2019), pp. 9-37.
[1] Elizabeth Kolsky, “Codification and the Rule of Colonial Difference: Criminal Procedure in British India”, Law and History Review, 23/3 (2005), p. 632.
[1] Kolsky, “Codification and the Rule of Colonial Difference”, pp. 631-83.
[1] Kolsky, “Codification and the Rule of Colonial Difference”, pp. 631-83.
[1] Kim A. Wagner, Amritsar, 1919: An Empire of Fear & the Making of a Massacre (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019), p. 253.
[1] Jordanna Bailkin, “The Boot and the Spleen: When was Murder Possible in British India?”, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 48/2 (2006), p. 462.
[1] Bailkin, “The Boot and the Spleen”, p. 463.
[1] Bailkin, “The Boot and the Spleen”, p. 463.
[1] Bailkin, “The Boot and the Spleen”, p. 493.
[1] Elizabeth Kolsky, Colonial Justice in British India: White Violence and the Rule of Law (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), p. 140.
[1] Yumna Siddiqi, “The Cesspool of Empire: Sherlock Holmes and the Return of the Repressed”, Victorian Literature and Culture, 34/1 (2006), p. 234.
[1] Siddiqi, “The Cesspool of Empire”, pp. 233-4.
[1] Siddiqi, “The Cesspool of Empire”, p. 234.
[1] Siddiqi, “The Cesspool of Empire”, p. 235.
[1] Siddiqi, “The Cesspool of Empire”, p. 236.
[1] James Kissane and John M. Kissane, “Sherlock Holmes and the Ritual of Reason”, Nineteenth-Century Fiction, 17/4 (1963), pp. 353-62.
[1] Arthur Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Crooked Man (London: George Newnes Ltd, 1893).
[1] Gautam Chakravarty, The Indian Mutiny and the British imagination (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005).
[1] Minear, “Orientalism and the Study of Japan”, pp. 507-17.
[1] Shashi Tharoor, (2017) “'But what about the Railways...?' The myth of Britain's gifts to India”, The Guardian, <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/08/india-britain-empire-railways-myths-gifts> [Accessed 20 March, 2020].
[1]Edward Said, (2003) “Blind Imperial Arrogance”, Los Angeles Times, <https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2003-jul-20-oe-said20-story.html> [Accessed 14 March, 2020].
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Tharoor, Shashi. (2017) “'But what about the Railways...?' The myth of Britain's gifts to India”. The Guardian. <https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/08/india-britain-empire-railways-myths-gifts> [accessed 20 March, 2020]
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