The Oriental Annual[s]: Colonial Representations of Indian life and Culture

Abstract

This paper highlights how two early nineteenth-century British colonial writers Rev. Hobart Caunter and Thomas Bacon represented Indian life and culture in The Oriental Annual[s]. The Oriental Annual was the common title given to a series of seven volumes, which were published every year between 1834 and 1840. Combining anecdotes, short sketches and accounts of first-hand travel experiences of the writers, these volumes sought to present India and its people to readers back home in Britain. This paper shows how British colonial ideology shaped the representations of India and its people in these books. It specifically foregrounds how, in depicting India, both writers highlighted those aspects of Indian cultural and religious life that foreigners usually found disagreeable. It is argued that they did this to construct a vision of India which seemed to call for urgent reforms. This in turn helped them vindicate British colonialism in India, which both authors presented as being benign and reformative in nature. The paper thus demonstrates that these volumes were not mere innocuous travelogues, but works complicit in the colonial project of dominance and control.