Connecting British and Indian, elite and subaltern: Arthur Crawford and corruption in the later nineteenth century Western India

Abstract

This article aims to investigate connections between British and Indian, and elite and subaltern, by exploring the career of colonial administrator Arthur Crawford. The level of separation between British and Indian as portrayed in post-colonial studies is challenged by Crawford's intimate connections with various Indian groups. A particular manifestation of these connections was the Crawford Scandal of 1889. Dubbed as the ‘most notorious case of corruption in Victorian India’ it involved Crawford receiving pecuniary gifts from Indians involved with the colonial administration, ranging from village accountants to Princely Chiefs. The corruption, it is argued here, was a system of transaction between a high-level British administrator and Indians that was modelled on pre-colonial political idioms. The involvement of intermediate groups such as moneylenders and the lower level of colonial administration in village India demonstrate how the colonial state could connect with deeper levels of the Indian society on the underside of colonial rule, i.e. outside of the official halls of colonial rule. While the Crawford scandal does not deal directly with subaltern groups, it demonstrates points of connection between elite and subaltern. These connections were used in the mobilization of support for and the articulation of an early Indian nationalism, here involving the Poona Sarvajanik Sabha and Bal Gangadhar Tilak with the case.