Entangled Histories of Reforms: Scottish Radicalism of Joseph and Allen Octavian Hume and Indian Education

Abstract

Thus wrote a retired officer about his opposition to the British elitist policies. This was no anomaly. Hume, like most of the Scottish officers in India, defended Indian interests before the colonial administration since his arrival in 1849. In 1854, as a young officer of Etawah district in North India, Hume countered the Orientalist idea that the people of Etawah were uncivilised. He established schools and interacted with Indians very closely. Unable to tolerate his reformist endeavours, he was transferred out of the district, and his schools were destroyed. His father, Joseph Hume, too had defended Indians on more than one occasion in the House of Commons and attempted to empower them by giving direct representation. This paper looks at the Scottish radicalism carried forward by the father and son duo, which dispels the conventional historical narratives that place all colonial officials as instruments of imperialist oppression.