The Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire (21 page)

In the latter half of the nineteenth century, the British population in India hovered at about 100,000, compared to more than 250 million Indians. The British believed they ruled in India not only by power—whether military (Britons and Indians were agreed that white officers were the key) or possibly divine providence (God being an Englishman)—but by force of personality. Nothing else could explain how so few could govern so many over so great an expanse. The essentials were British pluck, fortitude, and courage, without which nothing could be done, and British justice, decency, and fair play, which justified the entire endeavor.

The moral side of the British Empire in India developed gradually. The Company was obviously out for profits. Many of its employees were not only free market buccaneers but quite willing to entertain Indian mistresses (or wives), though never to the extent that the French or Portuguese did (the general term for Eurasians was, in fact, “Portuguese”). The first pressures to reform were imposed by governor-generals like Lord Cornwallis and Lord
Wellesley who brought the aristocratic cult of the gentleman and made it part and parcel of company practice; then came evangelicalism and, just as important, the arrival of English wives.

Always kept in balance were the conservative's respect for native traditions and the liberal's reforming zeal. Conservative and liberal might unite in demanding the abolition of the Hindu practices of widow-burning and killing first-born girls, or the Thugs' murder cult of Kali, the goddess of death (even when such efforts failed, as they did in trying to overcome Muslim and Hindu traditions allowing the marriage of prepubescent girls to older men). Both could unite, for the most part, even on the idea that India might eventually be largely self-governing after sufficient British tutelage. But there were differences too. The conservatives generally preferred governing through the existing Indian ruling classes—speaking as British lord to Indian noble—with little interference in native affairs; liberals preferred a more aggressive, progressive, rationalist approach. Conservatives upheld Christianity as an integral part of British civilization and superiority, but generally thought it best to let Hindus and Muslims be rather than risk religious war. Evangelicals, needless to say, took a different tack entirely; and evangelicalism was the engine of reforming (and soon secularized) liberalism.

Not on the liberal side of the ledger, but an instrument of reform nevertheless, was the Army; and for all the licentious customs that Evangelicals associated with Indian culture, religion, and art (and that British civil servants associated with the decadent Indian princes they had to keep in line), to be a British officer in India in the latter half of the nineteenth century was essentially to take a religious vow—to one's regiment rather than the Church, though the regiment offered just as varied a supply of rituals and orders. When it came to marriage, the catechism for officers had long been, in the famous formulation, that subalterns
must not
marry, captains
may
marry, majors
should
marry, and colonels
must
marry. Certainly after the triumph of Victorian morality at home, a young officer's life was often, as Francis Yeats-Brown (
The Lives of a Bengal Lancer
) noted, writing of his
experience in early twentieth century India, “as sexless as any monk's. . . . What is good for the Roman priest is (I suppose) good for the Indian cavalry subaltern, who has work to do (like the priest) which he could scarcely perform if hampered by family ties.”
⁵
There was a bit of philandering in the hill stations, but less than is sometimes supposed.
⁶
The real diversion, or indeed obsession, for officers was sport. It doubled as training for war.

The importance of being British—of being cool in a crisis, courageous, a natural leader of men—became even more pronounced after the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857, the seismic event in the history of the British Empire in India. It began with a growing suspicion in some Indian regiments that the British were going to attempt the obliteration of caste and a mass conversion to Christianity; for evidence of Britain's disregard for the beliefs of Hindu and Muslim soldiers one had to look no further than the cartridges for the new Enfield rifle, which were rumored to be greased with cow and pig fat. The Company was quick to ensure that only ungreased cartridges were issued and that they could be greased according to the religious predilections of the greaser, but this did not assuage the sepoys, who distrusted the cartridges, nurtured gripes about pay and pensions, and feared the Army was intent on enrolling lower castes and forcing Hindus to serve overseas where they might lose caste.

The mutiny was not exclusively a military affair. It was joined by disaffected Indian nobles, Indians who distrusted British schools, Indians who resented British interference with their traditions, and the mob that welcomed any excuse to riot and pillage. The revolt was largely confined to north-central India, but it was fearsome nonetheless.

It began with a rumble: a mutinous individual sepoy here, a contumacious regiment there, a series of fires set by arsonists; the British officers responding with quick and effective courts-martial, threats of force, and
disbandment of untrustworthy units. But the fuse was really lit in May 1857 when members of the 3rd Bengal Light Cavalry based in Meerut sprang from prison sepoys who had refused (some tearfully, claiming they were loyal but could not violate their religion) to fire the new cartridges. The cavalrymen rode through the city rousing the people to join the revolt. It was Sunday, and though some British officers had been warned of the impending trouble by loyal sepoys, they had not taken the warnings seriously. British soldiers and civilians, including wives and children, were set upon and murdered. The mutinous cavalry rode to the eighty-two-year-old Bahadur Shah, the Mughal king of Delhi, whom they proclaimed the rightful ruler of India. He, rather befuddled by opium, accepted. The rapine that had been inflicted on Meerut was now repeated at Delhi, and the mutiny was in full charge: jihad for some, pillage for others. Most communities were divided; it was not a nationalist revolution or a sectarian revolution (except in the sense that it was anti-Christian and anti-British). The rebellion divided both between and within classes, races, and sects. Some of the mutineers wavered before they made their choice and even escorted their British officers and families to safety before throwing their lot in with the rebels.

Standing by the British were the martial Sikhs and Gurkhas (among many others); Indians who benefited from British law and commerce; loyal rajahs (most Indian princes stayed loyal); and Indians who were intimidated both by the Company's fearsome reputation for battlefield success and by the reinforcements that arrived with bagpipes skirling. The British, however, were still stretched perilously thin. They were besieged at Lucknow and at Cawnpore (where they were lured out by an offer of safe passage and then massacred). The British in turn besieged the mutineers' capital at Delhi. When British retribution came, it was indeed swift and fierce, fired by the rebels' treachery and their murders of women and children. British generals Sir James Outram, Sir Henry Havelock, and Sir Colin Campbell (commander in chief of India), among other commanders, cut through the
enemy with avenging swords and Enfield rifles, erecting gibbets to hang surviving traitors; they were slowed only by a shortage of troops.

The rebellion was not fully quashed until early 1859, though the outcome was never in doubt from the summer of 1857. Delhi was regained in September, and the purported rightful ruler of India, Bahadur Shah, sent into exile. Lucknow was fully regained in March 1858. The rest was hunting down miscreants who were shot out of hand. The British had, as usual, been outnumbered in every major battle; they had fought disciplined troops they themselves had trained—troops that could match them, or nearly (the Enfield rifle had its advantages), in weaponry. But they had again emerged triumphant—a fact that impressed itself forcibly on the Indians. The soldier sahibs were to be obeyed.

The Mutiny led to the East India Company's dissolution and the formal annexation of India to the Crown in 1858. Evangelicalism was muzzled—it was a great source for shaping honest, hard-working builders of empire, but it was a dangerous irritation to the Indians. Conservatism was ascendant. The government looked to rule through local, traditional Indian leaders, respecting Indian customs. The hand of government was kept light even as in pomp and ceremonial it was meant to impress (on terms the maharajahs well understood). Universities and elite public schools were created for Indian students to build up a class of Indian gentlemen on the British model.

The British were also devoted to public works improvements—systems of irrigation, canals, the linking of railroads that were meant not only to improve Indian life and agricultural production (and tax revenues) but also to help stymie the periodic famines that could scythe through India like a juggernaut—and which, ironically, anti-colonialists blame on the British, who tried to make all these improvements while never numbering more than 0.05 percent of the Indian population. That was not all the British did either: they strung telegraph poles, began a massive inoculation program against smallpox, and pursued other public health projects. India was the
jewel of Britain's imperial crown not only because it was vast—incorporating the subcontinent from the eastern border of Afghanistan to the western border of Siam—and profitable, but because, in the eye of the imperialist public, it was a gleaming example of how manly Britons with rolled up sleeves were working to advance civilization, peace, and progress. Progress of course was not necessarily popular—native uprisings inevitably targeted Western institutions and technology—but if English schools, programs of medical hygiene, and public works weren't always welcomed, there was always cricket to teach Indians how to play up, play up, and play the game.

“The Great Game” itself was still being played in the ever restive Northwest Frontier, where the British continued to fear an invasion combining Cossack ferocity with Islamic fanaticism. The Great Game was a matter of spies (and of course the great spy novel of British India is Rudyard Kipling's
Kim
), but it was also a matter of war, as in the Second Afghan War (1878–80) in which General Frederick “Bobs” Roberts invaded Afghanistan after the emir had entertained an (uninvited) Russian delegation but refused to accept a British one. Such bad manners had to be punished. When British officers blooded themselves on punitive expeditions against turbulent tribes on the frontier, they were usually small-scale affairs, enjoyed by both sides as a bit of martial sport (killing people was what Pathans did—and why the British liked them and enlisted them when they could: “We must gradually
convert to our way of thinking in matters of civilization these splendid tribes,” in the words of Lord Salisbury
⁷
). The Second Afghan War, on the other hand, was mounted as a large-scale military operation, with an army of 40,000 men invading the country, occupying the seat of government, and squelching the emir's attempt to enlist Russian help. In 1879, the emir's son and successor signed the Treaty of Gandamak, allowing the British to annex small portions of Afghanistan (along its eastern borderlands) and run the country's foreign policy. This amicable arrangement folded when only a few months later Britain's man in Kabul was assassinated, and Afghans flew into rebellion. Roberts then marched into Afghanistan, crushed the various rebellions, installed a biddable emir, and reaffirmed the Treaty of Gandamak, though this time no British officials were left behind as targets for assassination. The British returned to India, and everyone was more or less happy... at least until the next Afghan War (1919), when the Afghans invaded India and were repulsed. In exchange for their promise of good behavior, the British allowed them to conduct their own foreign policy (which they were doing anyway).

In 1903–04, Russophobia led to the British invasion of Tibet, where, it turned out, there were no Russians. The campaign was over in six months, and the British were eventually apologetic about the misunderstanding (the Tibetans compared the British favorably to the Chinese in this regard). The military commander of the expedition, Francis Younghusband, a doughty great-gamer, was apparently touched by the high altitude, as sometimes happened to spiritually inclined officers, becoming a mystic of amalgamated New Age and Victorian beliefs (while at least maintaining the appearance of a grey-moustached, tweed-waist-coated English gentleman).