The Making and Unmaking of British India
James, Lawrence, The Making and Unmaking of British India, Little Brown & Co 1998. £ 25
It may well be an euphemism to call Lawrence James's The Making and Unmaking of British India a historian's nightmare, especially if the historian happens to be an Indian. One would have thought that the days of such books are over. That even after 50 years of Indian independence such stereotypical mega-narratives of the British empire can be conceptualized, written, and priced at £25, points to the existence of a market where 'curry and rice' are still palatable. Not surprisingly, the book has been found to be a 'thumping good read', a 'masterpiece' for its 'range, sweep and verve' by various critics in the United Kingdom.By Damayanti Datta
The context of writing in which The Making and Unmaking of British India is set has been established for many years. Ever since the first British-Indian contact, the traits and stories of British-Indian life, sketches of India written for 'fire-side travellers at home', histories of British-Indian settlements, travel literature, memoirs and biographies developed as a popular literary genre. Part of the charm of these writings came out of the formidable jumble of notions, legends, dreams, and romance that was associated with India in Britain and which these writings addressed; part of it emerged out of a self-congratulatory awareness of Britain's role in India.James's storyline is simple, but has all the necessary spices. He would have us believe that in the wake of the Mughal twilight, a series of emergencies transformed the East India Company into the British Raj. Almost in a fit of absentmindedness the British conquered India. But the 'conscience of Britain was troubled' by the despotism which was being created in its name. The result was a government which 'balanced firmness with benevolence, and which had as its goal the advancement of India'.
There was resistance, but millions of Indians 'collaborated with their new rulers and made possible the government of so many by so few'. The British knew that the situation rested ultimately on the 'goodwill of Indians', which was why the pressure for self-government was met with a mixture of composure and sternness. The imperial government, outwardly so monolithic and magnificent, was actually 'an exercise in altruism'. James is convinced that British rule taught Indians to see themselves as Indians. From railways, roads, canals, schools, universities, hospitals, law to a universal language, habits of thought, and government - Britain made modern India.
Spices have been added to this narrative. In keeping with the demands of this genre, India comes out as 'the other' of Europe in every way. There are tales of exotic Indian wealth; of the intricate marble works, jewelled inlays, durbars and the peacock throne; stories of the early British nabobs, who had amassed 'lacks and crowes (sic) of rupees, sacks of diamonds'; and of the rajas of princely states whose pageantry, banquets, ram fights and fireworks stunned the British.
There are sections which play on the popular stereotype of India as a land of adventure and mystery, offering an excitement not to be found in the West: James elaborates how India offered the libertine abundant and varied sexual experiences, and gives details of the British encounter with Indian prostitutes and mistresses.
There's religion too for the spiritually inclined: graphic descriptions of the 'horrors and abominations' of Indian religious practices and rituals which the British encountered in India serve as titillating peepshows for today's readers into the 'bizarre' , 'barbaric', 'superstitious' and 'irrational' Indian mind.
Race stereotypes too have not been spared. Thus we find Indian soldiers to be 'instinctively timid', the western-educated Indians wily, and the villagers to be essentially loyal, prostrating themselves and kissing the ground whenever the British royalty visited India. In keeping with this mood, chapters too sport colourful headings: 'The sahib paid no attention', 'Like elephants on heat', 'Strong passion', or 'Was it too quick?'
The attractions of books like these is that so far as British readers are concerned, they work as romanticized, back-slapping exercises. They offer a chunk of time and a nicely packaged portrait of the British themselves. At best, they give the British the chance of saying, as the Times Literary Supplement does: 'Having largely, if often inadvertently, selfishly or ham-fistedly, engineered the world we live in, we need the courage now to face up to our record as coolly and intelligently as Lawrence James.' At worst, they tickle the popular western mind with race pride and the feeling that British imperialism was after all a 'bit of a good thing'. The British did possess the virtues necessary to dominate the world, didn't they?
But then, outside a charmed circle of the uninformed Western audience, a book like The Making and Unmaking of British India will not meet with such an enthusiastic response. It is sure to meet resistance from non-Western countries where anti-imperialism thrived. So far as the academic world is concerned, the premise from which it is written has already been challenged. Ever since the mid-20th century, especially after World War II, the Eurocentric way of looking at empire has been undermined. There has been a growing attempt among scholars to look at imperialism either from a non-European perspective or as a consequence of industrialization and national conflicts within Europe itself. The rise of various schools of history from within the colonized worlds, and especially after Edward Said's Orientalism, has given such a view the final push. There's simply no longer any space for such a book, especially if it claims to be history.
Does the book fall into the category of history? Going by the topic, span and the bibliography, it does claim to be what the history of the British empire was all about. James vaguely follows the Cambridge school and generously peps up the ongoing research on British imperialism. It is quite obvious that Kenneth Ballhatchet's research on race, sex, and class in British India has given rise to the chapter named, 'Hearty desire', while David Arnold's research on colonial medical knowledge has inspired 'Robust bodies and obstinate minds'.
Moreover, the book takes advantage of the recent historiographical interest in expatriate societies to try and market old wine in new bottles. James has also painstakingly consulted 11 libraries and archives, gone through manuscripts, private papers, letters and correspondence, official files and proceedings, scores of contemporary books, journals, pamphlets, newspapers, over and above some recently released official and private papers on Louis Mountbatten. There is no way a non-historian can tell that the book has nothing new to say, that it has not come up with any new sociological insight and that it has ignored much of the research that has been going on all this time on the making and unmaking of the British empire. Moreover, the book reads well, looks grand, and uses lovely pictures. All the more reason why it should attract the non-historian lovers of history.
Time for the Third World historians to think up ways of fighting such nicely packaged pop histories.
:Copyright: 1998 by The Telegraph, Calcutta, ABP Ltd Co. Reprinted by permission
Damayanti.Datta was an affiliated fellow at the IIAS from 5 April - 2 May 1998. She is also the assistant editor (Features) at The Telegraph, Calcutta.