Thomas Metcalf argues that after the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, the character and direction of British rule in India fundamentally changed.
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QUESTION
Thomas Metcalf argues that after the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, the
character and direction of British rule in India fundamentally changed.
Rather than stressing the ways in which India might be reformed and remade
to eventually resemble Britain, the British began to emphasize
insurmountable differences between themselves and their Indian subjects.
The problem is that in living ever more closely with the peoples of India,
the British encountered serious difficulties in maintaining that difference. As
Metcalf puts it,
“… as they constructed their ‘India’, the British had always to negotiate
this disjuncture: between an acknowledgement of similarity, and an
insistence upon difference.” (Chapter 3, “The Creation of Difference, p.
66)
Please analyze closely at least ONE (1) concrete instance of a British
effort to assert a fundamental difference between themselves and their
Indian subjects after 1857. Notions of history, race, and gender played an
important role in this assertion of difference—one of these might be a good
place to start.
Then, following Metcalf’s thesis, please consider how this assertion of
difference was fragile or threatened by actual realities on the ground in
India. What prevented the British, in the instance you’ve chosen, from
maintaining the distance from their Indian subjects that their ideologies
demanded?
