The Rise and Fall of the British Empire (36 page)

Some, mostly on the left, were distressed by the brashness and belligerence of the new imperialism which, they believed, had made militarism fashionable and undermined national moral values. One critic regretted that the businessman of the 1890s asked the question, ‘is it expedient and profitable?’ unlike his mid-Victorian predecessor, who asked, ‘is it right?’ It is extremely doubtful whether the latter was ever so high-minded, but the middle years of the century had already become a golden age in the eyes of old-style, free trade Liberals. Among other faults of the new age was a middle class that indulged in ‘speculation which necessitates new conquests of territories and constant acts of aggression’ and ‘that modern monstrosity and anachronism, the Conservative Working Man’, who had ‘exchanged his birthright of freedom and free thought for a pat on the head from any rump-fed lord that steps his way and spouts the platitudes of Cockney patriotism.’
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‘Cockney patriotism’ could drown the voices of those who believed they spoke with reason, but it quickly fell silent when there was nothing to celebrate. There was no mafficking during the tedious anti-guerrilla campaign in South Africa, which dragged on during 1901 and half of 1902. Indeed, politicians sometimes wondered whether the capriciousness of public opinion would prevent them from ever following through the long-term policies which were needed to renovate the country and consolidate the empire. Both were urgently required as the new century opened for, despite all the jingoes’ rhetoric, Britain’s former global pre-eminence could no longer be taken for granted. Kipling, who had become the poet of empire, sensed the new mood and struck a sombre note of warning in his
Recessional
of 1897:

God of our fathers, known of old,

Lord of our far-flung battle-line,

Beneath whose awful Hand we hold

Dominion over palm and pine –

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget – lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies;

The Captains and the Kings depart;

Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,

An humble and a contrite heart.

Lord of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget – lest we forget!

Far-called, our navies melt away;

On dune and headland sinks the fire:

Lo, all our pomp of yesterday

Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!

Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,

Lest we forget – lest we forget!

If drunk with sight of power, we loose

Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe,

Such boastings as the Gentiles use,

Or lesser breeds without the Law –

Lord of Hosts, be with us yet,

Lest we forget – lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust

In reeking tube and iron shard,

All valiant dust that builds on dust,

And guarding, calls not Thee to guard.

For frantic boast and foolish word –

Thy mercy on Thy People, Lord!

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The Miracle of the World: India, 1815–1905

The Empire of India Exhibition, which opened at Earl’s Court in 1895, captivated Londoners. It was a colourful imperial extravaganza, which suited the mood of the times and both educated and entertained. Indian scenery was reproduced and there were displays which reflected the country’s past and present states. The overall theme was clear: modern India was the product of British patience and genius. This truth was spectacularly illustrated by ‘India’, a pageant performed daily in the adjacent Empress Theatre. The climax of the show was a glittering tableau entitled ‘Grand Apotheosis: The Glorification of Victoria, the Empress Queen’. The Queen-Empress appeared in ‘an allegorical car’, drawn by white horses and accompanied by the symbolic figures of Love, Mercy, Wisdom, Science, Art, Commerce, Prosperity, and Happiness.
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Dazzled, the audience would have left to stroll through the Indian gardens or eat at the curry house where, no doubt, they would have felt a thrill of pride in their country’s achievements. British India was nothing less than ‘the miracle of the world’ according to the Marquess Curzon, who was appointed Viceroy in 1898.
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There was indeed something miraculous about the way in which less than a hundred thousand soldiers and administrators held in thrall two hundred and fifty million Indians. India also possessed elements of glamour and mystery which entranced the Victorians, and everyone sensed that ruling it gave Britain power and prestige. Furthermore, and this was made clear in the Earl’s Court displays, everything that was good in India derived from Britain’s influence. What had happened there during the past hundred years was inspiring evidence of Britain’s civilising mission. For Curzon, governing India was the fulfilment of a mandate from God:

I do not see how Englishmen, contrasting India as it is with what it was or might have been, can fail to see that we came here in obedience to what I call a decree of Providence, for the lasting benefit of millions of the human race.
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What the Indians called the
angrezi raj
(English rule) was not, however, an exercise in higher national altruism, although many such as Curzon liked to think so. Britain had become economically dependent on India during the nineteenth century. India had become an unequalled market for British manufactured goods, particularly cottonware, and by 1913 60 per cent of all Indian imports came from Britain and it had absorbed £380 million in British capital, one tenth of all the country’s overseas investments. India had rescued British commerce during the lean years of the late nineteenth century, taking goods which had previously been sold in European markets.
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The process of modernising India, which gave so much satisfaction to the Victorians, was vital for balancing the books at home.

The history of India since 1815, as chronicled by the British, was a steady ascent from the depths of chaos, ignorance and backwardness towards the heights of peace, order and material progress. And yet, in many quarters, doubts lingered about the ambiguity of Britain’s position in the country. How was it that a nation with liberal traditions and deeply-held convictions about personal liberty could maintain an authoritarian empire which ultimately rested on force? The answer was that the constraints on Indians were applied humanely by a régime devoted to their best interests. Autocratic paternalism was defended by Herbert Edwardes, who had been guided by its principles as a commissioner in the Punjab in 1848–9:

There laws exist not, and he who rules, must rule the people by his
will.
If his will be evil, the people will be far more miserable than it is possible for any people to be … but if his will be good as well as strong, happy are the people … for a benevolent despotism is the best of all governments.
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Variations on this theme became a standard defence of the British raj for the next hundred years. The framework of Indian government meant the concentration of power in the hands of a few men, but their sense of duty and standards of honesty were such that they never acted capriciously or oppressed their subjects. This self-image of the men who ruled India was tirelessly promoted both in Britain and the subcontinent, and it contained much truth. And yet in the application of enlightenment, the administrators of India found themselves confronted with resistance from subjects who did not see things in the same way, and were deeply devoted to customs which their masters despised. A collision between rulers and ruled became inevitable as the Indian government turned its attention towards what it imagined to be the emancipation of India from its past.

After 1815 the old Company live-and-let-live approach to the governing of India was replaced by one which set great store by remoulding the country along Western lines. India became a sort of laboratory for current British liberal, evangelical and utilitarian theorists who sought, in various ways, to regenerate all mankind. John Mill, historian, pamphleteer, philosopher and, from 1823, a Company bureaucrat based in London, wanted above all to liberate the Indian mind. Native religions were the chief obstacle to this process:

By a system of priestcraft, built upon the most enormous and tormenting superstition that ever harnessed and degraded any portion of mankind, their [the Indians’] minds were enchained more intolerably than their bodies; in short; despotism and priestcraft taken together, the Hindus, in mind and body, were the most enslaved portion of the human race.
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Using their dictatorial powers, humane British officials would sweep away these supernatural encumbrances on Indian thought. The poet and historian Thomas Macaulay, who was chairman of a committee formed in 1833 to consider future educational policy in India, predicted that Hinduism would wither away as Western learning spread across the country.
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To accelerate this process, he insisted that all teaching was in English and based on English texts. With remarkable foresight, he claimed that exposure to British ideas and patterns of thinking would, in time, create an Indian élite which would demand self-government. Some years later, the Governor-General, Lord Ellenborough, remarked to a babu (an English-speaking Indian clerk), ‘You know, if these gentlemen succeed in educating the natives of India, to the utmost extent of their desire, we should not remain in the country three months.’ ‘Not three weeks,’ was the reply.
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British-style schools, run by missionaries, had been established in India by the mid-1820s. Evangelical pressure from, among others, Wilberforce, had persuaded the Company to allow missions in its territories despite fears of a Muslim backlash. Nevertheless, the directors allowed themselves to be overwhelmed by the familiar missionary lobby arguments that conversion would advance civilisation and create new customers for British products.

There was much that was crass in the thinking of those who imagined that they could remake India in the British mould. High-mindedness and an urge to improve often appeared like meddlesome arrogance, and this was all too apparent in the almost universal contempt shown towards India’s existing culture and religions. Hinduism and its caste system were singled out for the worst abuse; one exasperated champion of progress declared that its polytheist followers displayed ‘an ignorance and a credulity almost approaching idiocy’.
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What was worse was that some Hindus stuck resolutely to their faith despite Western instruction. In 1824 Bishop Heber sensed divided loyalties after an Indian pupil at a mission school had shown him a shrine of Shiva, and explained the legends of different Hindu gods and goddesses. The enthusiasm of his discourse perturbed the cleric, who afterwards wondered whether Indian boys might become ‘accomplished hypocrites, playing the part of Christian with us, and with their own people of zealous followers of Brahma’.
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The agitation of British political and religious theorists did push the Company in the direction of benevolent, paternalist policies which, by their nature, disturbed Indian society. Non-interference with native customs was abandoned and campaigns undertaken against religious rituals which offended European sensibilities. Under Lord William Bentinck, governor-general from 1828 to 1835, systematic measures were adopted to eradicate thagi (the Hindu cult of assassin-priests who preyed on travellers) and sati. The Thugs, as they were called, were all but eliminated by condign methods, as was sati, although there were still isolated cases being uncovered in the 1920s.
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At the same time Company employees were encouraged to dissociate themselves from Hindu ceremonies and involvement in the administration of temples.

Nonetheless, passive tolerance had to be shown publicly to native religions. A handbook of advice for young officers, published in 1833, suggested that they would have to show forebearance towards their men’s religions even though they were unwholesome. This had obviously been hard for the author, who later commented disparagingly about the ‘self-venerating Hindu’ and ‘the bigotted Mussulman [Muslim]’. Such expressions became commoner in British works on India in the 1820s and 1830s, and provide hints of a growing gulf between the British and the Indians.

One indicator of shifting racial attitudes was a reduction of sexual contacts between British men and Indian women, which had been extremely frequent throughout the eighteenth century. On one level such behaviour was seen as condoning an indigenous morality and therefore unfitting for men whose duty was to serve as detached administrators and commanders. Indian sensuality revolted British churchmen who saw it as debilitating and potentially subversive. In 1816 one complained that young Christian men were morally undermined by India, succumbing to all its temptations even to the point of letting their faith lapse.
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Eight years later Bishop Heber was glad to notice that keeping native mistresses was no longer ‘a fashionable vice’ among younger officials in Calcutta, although laxity of this and other kinds was thriving in remote districts.
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The high-principled Metcalf, despite prizing that ‘pure love which exists between man and man’, had three sons by his native mistress, and General Ochterlony, the Resident in Delhi from 1803 to 1825, had a harem of thirteen concubines.
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