Fellow British Subjects or Colonial “Others”? Race, Empire, and Ambivalence in Canadian Representations of India in the Early Twentieth Century

Abstract

early twentieth century, English-Canadian schoolchildren learned to divide British Empire into the man's and the coloured man's country. According to one geography textbook, India clearly belonged in latter category. In vast peninsula of India we find [a] ... coloured man's country, densely populated by nearly one fifth of world's whole population, all of dark skin, but varying in civilization from most degraded savage to highly-cultured Hindu. Following from this division, a region's facility for self-government was explained in terms. While all white man's lands of Empire have Parliaments of their own and a citizenry free to elect members of government, in the coloured man's country natives have no such rights, for in many cases they are mere savages, and in others they could not yet be trusted with such power. (1) The imperial logic that associated absence of home-rule in India with racial character mirrored broader currents of understanding in Canada. A strong affection for Mother among Canadians of British descent, and a firm belief in Britain's divinely inspired benevolence, fueled a racialized rhetoric of empire. According to a popular imperialist narrative, Britain had brought order, enlightenment, and civilization to a formerly backward territory of globe, and Britain's imperial project in India was an inevitable outcome of march of Anglo-Saxon race. (2) These depictions reflected intellectual and political trends in Britain. Quasi-scientific theories of difference--increasingly popular in Europe and North America in latter half of nineteenth century--combined with mythology surrounding Indian Mutiny of 1857 (British heroism versus Indian barbarism), confirmed British ideas about Indian inferiority. Such sentiments, as South Asian historian Judith Brown observes, bred an elaboration of stereotypes of Indians which helped to justify imperial rule.... Indians were, for example, often described as weak and effeminate, deceitful and deficient in character, and incapable of leadership: and thus needing and benefiting from rule by Anglo-Saxons displaying opposite and desirable qualities. (3) Coupled with Britain's considerable strategic and economic interests in region, these attitudes created tremendous obstacles along India's path to self-government. The political demands of India's growing educated classes from 1860s on, and work of Indian National Congress after 1885, brought some concessions, including limited enfranchisement, election to municipal government, and opportunities to join Indian Civil Service, if only as minor officials. (4) Yet by turn of century, scant gains had been made in direction of self-government, and Britain's grip on India showed few signs of faltering. This article explores discursive production of an imagined India in work of English-Canadian educators, intellectuals, politicians, and other public commentators in first three decades of twentieth century. (5) Intellectuals such as Alfred Baker, James Morison, George Wrong, J. Castell Hopkins, and George Sidney Brett, for example, wrote enthusiastically about Britain's imperial project in India. These men, and many other commentators, identified themselves as imperialists--or, at very least, loyal British subjects. Particularly influential were Wrong's various books on history of Britain and Empire (almost always including content about India), which circulated in public schools across Ontario and, to a lesser extent, in Manitoba and British Columbia during first half of twentieth century. The ideas of these authors, moreover, were generally disseminated through organizations and publications that were imperialist in orientation (or at least imperial-friendly), such as Empire Club of Canada, Globe and Mail, and Canadian Annual Review of Public Affairs. …