Colonial ideology:

 From the beginning of British colonial rule in India, British regarded Indian society as inferior
to western concepts and ideas of civilization.
 Modernised/civilise
 All European powers claimed to pursue civilizing project in their colonies- what they initially
called “improvement” or “betterment” is defined under the term “civilizing mission”. (An
imperial/colonial ideology)
 The idea of civilizing mission is based upon the assumption that their culture is more
superior and the colonial subjects were too backward to govern themselves and they had to
be uplifted.
 The legitimacy of British colonial rule was based on the claim to improve the country and to
bring fruits of progress and modernity to the people.
 This civilising mission agenda was used for self-legitimation of colonial rule.

Orientalist and Anglicists.

Orientalist:

 Orientalism has two basic meanings:

 Firstly, it was a scholarly study of the languages, literatures, art, religion,
philosophies and cultures of the orient (Middle East and Asian). (Later named as
Asian studies to distant themselves from its colonial association)
 Secondly the term also refers to the 18 th century school of thought among a group of
British colonial administrators who argued that India should be ruled according to its
own traditions and laws.
 Orientalism emerged as a scholarly attempt in the late 18 th century, where the European
tried to understand the cultures, languages, laws etc of their colonial outpost. One of the
most significant discoveries of this scholarship was the relationship between Sanskrit and
many other European languages which implied Europe and India shared historical origins.
 Orientalism was painted with a political meaning when the scholarship was used by East
India Company bureaucrats in the late 18 th century to argue that India should be ruled by its
own laws, traditions and customs.
 The orientalist wanted to reform India’s degenerate civilization through the highly esteemed
Indian cultures and traditions.
 The orientalist insisted on the primacy of local laws and traditions and made the effort to
codify in order to govern them according to their own local traditions.
 The period of orientalism in India can be said to begin from 1773 when Warren Hastings was
appointed as the Governor General of EIC until 1834 when the EIC made English education
compulsory in India and brought the Orientalist phase to a close.
 Warren Hastings, who found himself in charge of a corrupt and degenerate government, saw
the Indianization of the civil servants as a means to improve the administration of the newly
acquired territories. Thus, for Hastings the quickest way to increase the efficiency and
honesty of the civil servant was to develop in them a love and affection for India, to love
India one must communicate with her people and to communicate with her people it was
necessary to learn her languages and her culture and history
 The Orientalist made attempt to understand Indian society and learn Indian languages.
 While Orientalism was a collaborative intellectual exercise between colonial officials and
Indian commentators and native informants, Indians occupied a subordinate position and
seldom had control over the final outcome of this process.
 With increasing power and stability of the East India Company state, one sees a progressive
marginalization of the native informant in the 19th century.
 A case in point being that of C.V Letchmia, the Brahmin assistant of Colin Macinzie (first
surveyor general of India) who after his master’s death applied to the Asiatic Society in
Bengal for permission to take up the completion of the Macinzie collection, however the
Asiatic Society refused him permission as they felt that an oriental could perform only
managerial and clerical tasks.
 The concept of orientalism took a radical shift when Edward Said, a Palestine-American
scholar, who published a book in 1978 called orientalism and argued that Orientalism was
not knowledge of the Orient produced by Englishmen sympathetic to the cultures of the East
but it was knowledge meant to serve the power structures of colonialism.
 Said argued that orientalism was used to establish dominance over the orient whereby the
Europeans appropriated for themselves the authority to make any pronouncements on the
Orient and deemed Orientalist knowledge as natural and self-evidently true.
 After Said argument, many scholars also accused orientalist of romanticising India in an
attempt to colonise them.
 Gyan Prakash (1990), argues that ‘Orientalism was from the beginning a European enterprise
with Indians as objects of knowledge. The Orientalist scholar saw Indians as outside and
opposite to the European Self – the rational and materialist British and the emotional and
spiritual Indian, appeared as essential and natural entities. Orientalist texts saw this
representation of India as objective and ‘true’ thus, providing a justification for colonialism’
 The impact of Orientalism, whether as a policy position or scholarly pursuit on Indian
society, was often contradictory and unintended.
 A significant example being the impact of Orientalist policies on Hindu civil law, which
reflected an European case law. William Jones, who initiated the compilation of the Digest of
Hindu Laws, was trained in English case law which was based on precedence and was open
to multiple interpretations by judges. However, Jones viewed Indian laws as being eternal
and timeless and thus considered any difference of opinions amongst the pundits as arising
from ignorance. While English jurisprudence sought certainty in law by resorting to
precedence or the natural law, Hindu jurisprudence sought to resolve conflicting
interpretations of the same law on the basis of commentaries or digest on legal texts.
Gradually this developed into a curious form of English case law, complete with precedents
from which a judge had to select a suitable one. What had started with Warren Hastings’s
search for the ‘ancient Indian constitution’ ended up with what he wanted to avoid – English
law as the law of India.
 Later in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Orientalist knowledge contributed to the
emergence of a middle class, proud of its culture, and in the development of a national
consciousness in them.
 Orientalism was instrumental in preparing the background for the ‘Bengal Renaissance’ of
the early 19th century. The ‘rediscovery’ of India’s ancient past brought pride in Indian
culture and traditions among the educated Indians in Calcutta.
 Balgangadhar Tilak, V.D Savarkar, K.P Jayaswal and Jawaharlal Nehru all wrote extensively on
the ‘glorious’ ancient Indian past and advocated a return to it by throwing out the English
yoke.
  Lastly, though the Orientalist project was undoubtedly motivated by imperial concerns,
however one cannot ignore the various contributions of the Orientalists in furthering our
knowledge of Indian history and society.

Anglicist:

 Anglicist is the ideology which believes that India should be ruled according to British laws
and institutions.
 In the course of improving India, the construction of differences between Orient and
Occident took a new shape and paved way for Anglicist.
 Ideological influences such as Evangelicalism, Utilitarianism and free trade thinking
contributed to the shift.
 While the Utilitarians began to talk of appropriate social engineering and authoritarian
reformism, the Evangelists argued about the necessity of government intervention to
liberate Indians from their religions that were full of superstitions, idolatry and tyranny of
the priests.
 The free trade thinkers too wanted government intervention to free Indian economy from
the shackles of tradition to ensure a free flow of trade.
 This ideology was based not on internal concepts like the Orientals but rather on external
concepts which became more aggressive in terms of civilising and modernising India.
 Anglicists such as Charles Grant and T.B Macaulay were influenced by the liberalism,
evangelicalism, utilitarianism and free trade thinking of the 19 th century. (1833- est. of law
commission)
 The introduction of CPC, CrPC, TPA and Evidence Act in 1860’s reflect the transformation.
 The liberal and utilitarian view of India was epitomized by James Mill who saw India as ready
for change in her customs and institutions.
 The philosophy was the assumption that all human nature was fundamentally the same and
could be transformed by English education, free trade and the rule of law.
 Evangelicals such as Charles Grant saw India as a land of barbarism and the only way to end
her perpetual degradation was to rid her of priestly domination and despotism. He saw
English education as a means to pave the way for the spread of Christian knowledge in India.
 For the free traders India was an extensive market for goods and as a supplier of raw
materials thus English education was a means to strengthen British control over India.