Up until recently there has been a widely held and romanticised view
that the last thirty years of the 18th century was a period of remarkable
inter-racial harmony and tolerance between the British and Indians.
This changed significantly to one of deliberate segregation on the part
of the British in the 19th century. In this remarkable and meticulously
researched book, Prasannajit de Silva considers how the British in India
imagined their lives through the visual context of paintings and prints.
He comes to rather different conclusions from the stereotypical view of
this period of transition and reveals a much more nuanced interpretation
of how the British identified themselves in their Indian colonial setting.
The study of these various visual images raises important questions
about identity - what distinguished the British in India from the British
at home, but also how they expressed their difference from their Indian
surroundings.
The first part of the book considers a small group of oil paintings by
artists in the narrow period from 1785 to 1805. These paintings, by
some of the most eminent painters ever to visit the subcontinent from
Europe, are portraits of members of mixed- race families and also
individual portraits of bibis (Indian wives and mistresses). Perhaps the
best known of these is the Palmer Conversation Piece - a painting that
is, to this day, much argued about. Many authors have seen this work
which shows William Palmer with his beautiful Mughal wife and their
three eldest children as evidence of a remarkable moment in the history
of British and Indian relations. De Silva argues that the reality was
much more complicated as the painting of these portraits coincided
with a period of increased social pressures on mixed race relations and
legal restrictions on the Eurasian population of British India. He
further contends that these paintings constituted an attempt to stabilise
extremely complex fluid identities but at the same time they are
characterised by underlying ambivalence. They do not simply reflect an
idyllic period in colonial history but mirror the changing attitudes
towards race and the position of the British in India.
The second part of the book examines printed images of the domestic
life of British residents in India in the first part of the 19th century. The
author particularly considers the publications by Sir Charles D’Oyly,
William Taylor and Mrs Belnos. These books were, of course, done
largely for an audience back home in Britain. What is most apparent
about almost all these printed images is the hybridity of the
colonialist’s existence. Exoticism and distinctiveness from Britain was
a major part of their appeal. They constitute an extraordinarily complex
statement about identity that was both different but at the same time
compatible with British mores of the time. One is struck by the fact that
middle-class civil servants in India were taking possession of
aristocratic modes of behaviour. In contrast with the oil paintings of
mixed-race families, most of these prints emphasise that although India
encroached on the lives of the British, there remained a much more
profound separateness between those depicted and their colonial
neighbourhood.
The last part of the book looks at a number of printed images of the
Nilgiris by clever artists like James Barron and Captain Peacocke. They
show a much more deep-rooted vision of Britishness and this is the
crucial element in the colonialist’s identity in the period of the 1830s
and 1840s. It is as if here in the cool hills that were not so different
from England itself, the British tried to lead a lifestyle that was
essentially independent of India when in fact the reality was so
different. Barron frequently showed Todas in the foreground of his
landscapes emphasising that this was still Indian soil. The hill stations
could never be just a recreation of life back in Britain. Indians are
always present in the plates, albeit in a subordinate role.
The images, which the author discusses in great depth, represent
lifestyles of the British in India during a period of flux and change.
They are also an essential part of fashioning them - that is they not only
observe but codify and are explanatory. This is particularly true of the
printed plates of British domestic life in India. This book is essential
reading for anyone interested in the lives of the British in India but also
for anyone seeking an interpretation of the images that have come
down to us. It is a very complex book and sometimes the author’s
language is unduly scholarly but overall I consider it a highly important
new look at a fascinating period in Indo-British relations. The
production of the book is impressive, with numerous clear albeit black
and white illustrations and a good text.
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