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This book situates women at the centre of the practices and policies of British imperialism. Rebutting interpretations that have marginalised women in the empire, the book demonstrates that women were crucial to establishing and sustaining the British Raj in India from the 'High Noon' of imperialism in the late nineteenth century through to Indian independence in 1947. Using three separate modes of engagement with imperialism: domesticity, violence and race, it demonstrates the varied ways in which British women, particularly the wives of imperial officials, created a role for themselves. From the late nineteenth century, Anglo-Indians constructed an idea of family and marriage that was, both literally and metaphorically, the foundation for British imperialism in India. Although imperial marriage was very modern in its emphasis on companionship and partnership, it also incorporated more traditional ideas about husbands, wives and families. The politicized imperial home stood in sharp contrast to the ideal of middle-class British domesticity that had developed from the late-eighteenth century onwards in the metropole. Relationships with Indian servants, created and maintained primarily by women, were a complex mixture of intimacy and trust counterbalanced by feelings of fear and suspicion. For Anglo-Indians, the Mutiny served as a constant reminder of the tenuous nature of imperialism in India. The relationship between Anglo-Indian and Indian women was complex coloured by expectations about femininity and women's role in the empire. Indian men may have derided Anglo-Indian women as 'brainless memsahibs', but the British government similarly scorned their contribution to empire.
Recalling the end of the British empire in India, an Anglo-Indian woman who had spent eight years in the subcontinent as the wife of a civil servant contrasted her own view on the demission of power with her husband PD’s perspective: [W]hen the Raj came to an end, PD
What, exactly , were Anglo-Indian wives doing in India? If the man and woman on the Clapham omnibus had hazarded a response to such a query, they would undoubtedly have replied that Anglo-Indian women were doing good in India. That is, they were helping their less fortunate Indian sisters to ascend to the level of modern British womanhood
, and the British empire they represented, such social encounters between nationalists and imperialists were not uncommon during the interwar years. British leaders in the metropole and in India, hoping to retain control of the devolution of power, encouraged socializing among Anglo-Indian officials, Indian political leaders, and their respective wives. Recalling her meeting with the Indian
) The problem with the memsahib, according to her many critics, was that she was both spoiled and lazy. She unashamedly rejected the ‘slavery’ and ‘fag’ of housework and revelled in her status as the ‘colonel’s lady’. Metropolitan visitors to India frequently and disapprovingly noted that Anglo-Indian women were not engaged with the details of household management. Indians, too
‘[A]n Indian household can no more be governed peacefully, [ sic ] without dignity and prestige, [ sic ] than an Indian Empire’, intoned Flora Annie Steel and Grace Gardiner, the doyennes of Anglo-Indian household management and authors of the popular housekeeping guide The Complete Indian Housekeeper and Cook . 1 In thus revealing the
intrude on this pathetic scene. Who is it that approaches these helpless women and children? Friend or foe? The subject matter of Paton’s painting was the Indian ‘Mutiny’ of 1857. 1 For Anglo-Indians, the Mutiny served as a constant reminder of the tenuous nature of imperialism in India. In addition, the overt violence of the colonized peoples’ resistance and the brutal methods
subjects living in the mofussil , or country towns in India. 1 The Ilbert Bill, which was widely interpreted as a challenge to the control European capitalists exercised over sources of raw material and labour in the interiors of India, provoked a ‘white mutiny’ from Anglo-Indian officials and non-officials alike. 2 The opposition secured a victory when the Viceroy Lord Ripon was forced into an
British writing about India, usually referred to as ‘Anglo-Indian’ 1 literature, can be divided into three distinct periods, each with its own set of attitudes and assumptions. The first, roughly from 1800 to 1857 (the year of the Indian Mutiny), can be called the ‘era of romance’. It yielded historical romances full of action, adventure and sentimentality. Important
target practice and recreational hunting. They used their knowledge of firearms, as well, to protect themselves, their families and their empire from the threat posed by the wild animals of the Indian subcontinent and, during the interwar years, from the even more insidious dangers of Indian terrorists. Anglo-Indian women were not only shooting and hunting but playing polo and cricket, breaking