History
Pre-colonial era
In the centuries before the "Second" British Empire, the motives of British individuals arriving in India generally centred around gaining wealth. [3] One example of contemporary British views of India can be found in Shakespeare's writings, whose mentions of India paint a picture of a mysterious, wealthy land. [4] [5] The Indian perspective of European travelers was less flattering, as they were seen as "wondrous" yet "untrustworthy"; [6] Emperor Akbar described them as an "assemblage of savages", and had considered trying to civilise them. [7]
When the East India Company, formed in 1600, began to trade with Indians, its officials generally showed respect towards Indian society, though in some cases they may have suppressed their criticisms as a way of facilitating trade. [8] Britons who went to India in this time period were apt to learn the local culture, as they were coming from a weaker polity and generally were only able to marry Indian women; [3] [9] British women were initially banned in Company settlements, being seen as distractions. British women started to come to India after the 1661 British acquisition of Bombay because of the need to populate the islands. [10]
Colonial era
Two centuries of effort and achievement, lives given on a hundred fields, far more lives given and consumed in faithful and devoted service to the Indian people themselves. All this has earned us rights of our own in India.
As the Company came to rise in Indian politics, a greater level of contemptuousness became apparent amongst Britons, [8] and they came to isolate themselves to a substantial extent from the local population. [11] The trauma of dominating a colonised population was a factor in pushing some British officials to isolate themselves from Indians' day-to-day life; [12] the failed 1857 Rebellion also played a role in encouraging tensions and racism, as it increased fear of the locals. [13] The rise of evangelicalism, encouraging negative views of non-Christian cultures, was another factor. [10] However, children raised in India were fonder of the local culture, and even though they were generally sent to Britain to receive education, they often returned as adults. [14]
The difficulty of travel to India, as well as poor health outcomes in the early colonial period, greatly challenged British visitors initially; after 1837, overland travel (after 1840, connecting to steam ships, and from the 1850s, involving newly built railways) [15] to India was popularised, with stopovers in places such as Egypt gaining appeal. [16] British women started to come in much greater numbers after the 1869 completion of the Suez Canal, which enabled a faster maritime journey between Britain and India; by then, British men's dalliances with the local "bibis" were seen as improper, and were being expunged from official records of earlier generations. [17] British men still outnumbered the women to a substantial degree for the entire period up until India's independence though, with gender and racial identities having a role in determining hierarchies. Some men enjoyed the ability to unconstrainedly flex their masculinity in a foreign land, and British families in India stratified based on how white (non-Indian) they were and how frequently they were able to visit Britain. [18]
By 1921, at the peak of the British Empire, 20,000 civil and military personnel had established themselves in India. [1] The British related their exploits in India to those of classical empires; they saw themselves as inheriting the Greco-Roman heritage, and compared their efforts in civilising India to those of the Romans in ancient Britain. [19] On the whole, they did not seek to settle on a permanent basis or to own land; as late as the 1860s, there were even arguments against opening up the sale of "waste" land, because it might encourage excessive European immigration. [20]
Contemporary era
India's 1947 independence from British rule saw the departure of British troops; the last regiment left in February 1948. [21] British-run firms also had rapidly lost ground in the Indian economy from World War I onwards. [22]
