Officers, Gentlemen, and Murderers: Lord Curzon's campaign against ‘collisions’ between Indians and Europeans, 1899 –1905

Abstract

AbstractAs viceroy of India (1899–1905), George Curzon believed that unprovoked British assaults on Indians undermined the colonial state's authority to rule. These collisions1challenged Curzon's conception of moral empire and called into question one of the most important representations of British moral character—that of ‘officer and gentleman’. Aware of the strength of indigenous feeling in India and of liberal discontent at home, the viceroy engaged in what appears to have been a laudable defence of the rights of Indians. By doing so, he certainly risked the hostility of official and unofficial opinion in both Britain and India. The fundamental issue was: should the Raj be based on a ruling moral authority administered by men of character, in which collisions were reprehensible, or did it ultimately rest on force?