As Professor of History at the University of
California, Berkeley, Thomas R. Metcalf specializes in South Asian History. His
1995 work, Ideologies of the Raj, is
included within the volumes of The New
Cambridge History of India. Ideologies of the Raj seeks to investigate how
the British aimed to justify their rule over India and its subjects. Metcalf’s
volume is a useful summary (especially after reading the works of Bernard Cohn
and Nicholas B. Dirks) covering many aspects of British India. Metcalf focuses
on two areas in his study of British rule in India: the similarities and
differences in Britain and India as seen by the British.
Metcalf argues that the British used
ideologies to convince themselves of their right to govern India. The
similarities and differences between the Britain’s self-perceptions and India’s
characteristics as a nation, including India’s supposed despotism, the cultures
of dress and gender, and India’s caste-based social hierarchy system versus the
feudalism in which Britain was familiar, all gave Britain plenty of examples to
use the growth of empire and their conviction of Britishness to rule India. The
differences became the enduring legacy.
Cohn and Metcalf differed in the ways in which they
clarify how the British ordered society. For Cohn, codifying knowledge was how
the British were able to order and justify rule in India. Metcalf uses the dual
strategy of similarities and differences. While I think there is truth to both
author’s points, Cohn’s makes the most sense for me. The British would not be
able to order society based on similarities or differences if they did not
first understand that there were similarities and differences in the first
place. The British had to first gain the knowledge before they could structure
the results, the results being similarities and differences. In addition, Metcalf
almost completely skirts the topic of language, but one could read Cohn’s work
to gain a better understanding of how the British identified, regarded and
codified Sanskrit and other native dialects of the Indian subcontinent.
When comparing Dirks and Metcalf, I think their
arguments fall closer together than Metcalf and Cohn’s positions. Whereas Dirks
argues that the transformation of Indians into victims by Burke laid the
foundation for a civilizing mission as justification for empire, Metcalf
answers that the justification of empire was difference between the societies
of Britain and India. With Dirks’ focus on the Indian victim in the Hastings
trial, he makes the Indians appear inferior and badly governed. Metcalf’s basic
argument is that the British saw the Indians as inferior and different, and
were thus available for governance.
One way Metcalf demonstrates the difference sought by
the British over the Indians his the treatment of the climate in India. The
British believed that the tropical climate of India produced natives who were
ineffectual and submissive (8). Hot humid temperatures produced natives who
would rather lounge about than engage in strenuous activity. “Heat and humidity
were seen as conspiring to subvert manliness, resolve, and courage.” Even the
Indian diet of rice contributed to the view of climate’s responsibility
regarding effeminacy because rice required little effort to grow (105). However,
the climatic explanation of difference expired the longer the British took up
residence in India. The climate argument allows Metcalf to demonstrate how the
British purported a difference, but the same argument also points out how the
British changed differences to suit their justification of empire. Metcalf uses
the example of climate to show how British men, who were considered powerful
and masculine, contrasted to Indian men, who were viewed as diminutive, weak,
and effeminate.
One of Metcalf’s strongest points is his indication of
similarity between past Britain and present India. Practically the only time
the British considered themselves similar was between the past and present.
India’s villages and communal tenures reminded the English of a familiar form
of their own feudalism (71). India’s “ancient institutions” gave the British a
way to order society and make Indian society subservient to the needs of the
Raj (81). Metcalf does argue, though, that Indian feudalism as a social order
based on the ties of blood and kinship were fundamentally different from any
form of feudalism observed in Europe (74). This shows that the British did not
need much encouragement to find similarities.
English self-perceptions made it very difficult to
accommodate similarities of gender in India. Ideologies of the Raj employs gender differences between English
women and Indian women to explain how the British attempted to justify their
rule in India. English women projected the appearance of purity and
domesticity, while Indian women were viewed as prostitutes. Moral reformers in
Britain fought for the rights of all Englishwomen, prostitutes included, but
the same was not true in India. Metcalf argues that the only concern for
females in India was to maintain the appearance of purity in the behavior of
British women. In a great example of double standard, the British did encourage
the prostitution of Indian women in order to downplay the possible appearance
of homosexuality in British men (113). Metcalf uses this point to demonstrate
how the British used a distinct difference to justify their rule in India.
Concerning men, Metcalf explains the comparison
between the effeminacy of Indian men and the masculinity of British men. Bengali
men’s baggy clothing was quickly viewed as similar to that of women’s dresses.
Combined with the Indian devotion to female deities, the British had
confirmation that India was a land ruled by women or womanly men (105). The
British considered India a land of degraded women and effeminate men.
I think Metcalf’s strongest argument is his treatment
of the Aryan racial theory. Using this theme, Metcalf succinctly shows how the
British used similarities and differences when it served themselves best. The
British saw what they wanted to see.
The Aryan racial theory involves the belief that
British and Indian peoples originated from a common peoples in southern Russia.
Language was not connected to race, but German scholars found perceived
similarities between Sanskrit and most European languages. The Aryans were
supposed to have spread out and conquered Europe and the Indian subcontinent
(82). This view suited the British for a time, until several difficulties came
up. On problem the British finally had to come to terms with was the issue of
heredity: if the Indians and the British descended from the same people, how
could the Indian be marked as inferior to the British? The British skirted this
issue by claiming that those Aryans who traveled south to India intermingled
with an aboriginal people living there, thereby losing their purity of race
(83).
Wholly missing from Ideologies of the Raj (and maybe from
South Asian studies in general) is any discussion on how the Indians viewed
themselves as similar or different to the English. I think the Indian viewpoint
would contribute a great deal to illuminating the history of British
imperialism in India. How did the Indians contribute to imperial ideology? Certainly
the Indians could not have simply viewed the British as reformers of morality.
If Metcalf’s purpose is to present
the most important findings of the justification of British rule in India then
he overwhelmingly succeeds. Metcalf presents the big picture ideas in India and
it is much easier to read than the previous works, particularly The Scandal of Empire by Dirks. Exposing
the similarities and differences as viewed by the English shows how the British
set out to turn Indians into Englishmen. The British were able to completely
transform Indian culture and society.
