Of all the conquerors of India the British resisted any form of cultural fusion, they acquired no significant indigenous customs and kept very much to their own hierarchically ordered society.

The garden party scene in Passage to India, which is really characterised by social separation rather than by social mixing, graphically illustrates the uneasy relationship that existed between the British and Indians at the end of the Victorian era.

In the 18th century, however, at the beginning of Britain's encounter with India, a brief period of 'white Asianism' applied, in which European traders adopted local dress, acquired indigenous languages and shared entertainment with their Indian counterparts.

But such accommodation did not apply for long and was progressively replaced by the distancing which Kipling advocated as the natural 'law of the jungle'.

In this tutorial we will trace the relations between the British and Indians and identify the various factors that operated to separate them.

Synoptic Lecture Notes

LECTURE 7:

SOCIAL DISTANCE IN THE RAJ

Travelling in northwest India 1895 Photo: Jackson

* Why does social distance . . . splendid isolation . . . become one of the main features of the British raj?

There is general agreement that the Imperial Raj [1858-1905] was a period of pomp, ceremony and distance.

Characteristics of this period:

Pomp - Ceremony - Appearance - Exemplified best in Coolness - Curzonian period.

But the picture is not so clear at the other end of the period : 17th Century/early 18th Century.

P. Spear and G. Bearce:

They argue that roots of social distance clearly apparent in this period too.

- English 'Fort' and Blacktown separated.

- English a marginal community band together.

So Social Distance present; but not yet Racial Superiority

Jan Morris and D. Kincaid:

They focus on the period of transition [1740-1786]

- A period in which 'White Asianism' exists.

- A period too of social mixing and joint entertainment.

[ie: Nautch]

Trading, after all, requires a 'working' relationship.

General Agreement that Social Distance becomes official policy with Cornwallis [1786-92]

- English-Indian liaisons frowned upon.

- Indians excluded from top EICompany jobs.

- 'Anglo-Indians' no longer favoured or given employment.

Explanations

Aristocratic Middle-Class Theory - F.G. Hutchins

Middle-classes acquiring the airs and graces of the aristocracy.

Change of Function Theory

From traders to rulers. Trade requires contact; rule requires authority and distance.

Maintenance of Power Theory

British had to look as if they were omnipotent

Separation maintains security

Influx of White Women to India Theory

Particularly after the Mutiny

Indian Side of the Coin : separation and hierarchy natural: the Indian order of things

Tutorial Questions to be Addressed

1. Society under the East India Company (1740-1857)
On what bases did the British-Indian encounter take place during this period?

2. A Society under Siege (1857-1905)
If the Mutiny caused the British to review their position in India, the assumption of power by the Crown also changed attitudes and approaches to the ruling of an alien society.
Consider F.G. Hutchins' hypothesis that social separation was due to the phenomenon of middle-class administrators attempting to live like aristocrats.

Core Reading

Woodruff,Vol.2, part I, Chs: II,IV,IX

Hutchins, Ch 5

Marshall article in Modern Asian Studies,1996

Additional Reading

The essay list can be drawn on here but the following books are central.

K. Ballhatchet, Race, Sex and Class under the Raj

G. Bearce, British Attitudes to India 1784-1858

S. C. Ghosh, The Social Condition of the British Community in Bengal. 1770s

V. G. Kiernan, The Lords of Human Kind

M. MacMillan, Women of the Raj

J. Long and J.H Stocqueler, British Social Life in Ancient Calcutta, 1750-1850

R.K. Renford, The Non-Official British in India to 1920

P. Spear, The Nabobs : A Study of Social Life of the English in the 18th Century