The ‘Civilisational Mission’

Description

India and the subcontinent stimulated the curiosity of the British who came to India as traders. Each aspect of life in India – its people, customs, geography, climate, fauna and flora – was documented by British travelers, traders, administrators, soldiers to make sense to the European mind. As they ‘discovered’ India and occupied it, they also attempted to ‘civilise’ the natives.
The present volumes focus on select aspects of the imperial archives: the accounts of “discovery” and exploration – fauna and flora, geography, climate – the people of the subcontinent, English domesticity and social life in the subcontinent, the wars and skirmishes – including the “Mutiny” of 1857-58 – and the “civilisational mission”.
Volume 5 The ‘Civilisational Mission’ documents England’s social reform and other efforts at ‘improving’ the colonised. The British, like other Europeans in Africa and Asian colonies, explained, defended and promoted their presence and action by presenting themselves in the role of the civilisers.

Pramod K. Nayar teaches at the Department of English, University of Hyderabad, India.

Prefatory Note General Introduction: Archive and Empire Introduction Acknowledgements1. T.B. Macaulay. ‘Minute on English Education, 2nd February 1835’. In Selections from Educational Records Part I, 1781–1839, edited by H. Sharp. Calcutta: Government Printing, 1920.
2. Claudius Buchanan. An Apology for Promoting Christianity in India. London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1813.
3. Alexander Duff. India, and India Missions. Edinburgh: J. Johnstone, 1839.
4. Priscilla Chapman. Hindoo Female Education. London: R.B. Seeley and W. Burnside, 1839.
5. Irene Barnes. Between Life and Death: The Story of C.E.Z.M.S. Medical Missions in India, China, and Ceylon. London: Marshall Brothers, 1901.
6. W.S. Caine. ‘The Temperance Problem in India’. In Indian Social Reform, edited by C. Yajnesvara Chintamani. Madras: Thompson and Co., 1901. 87–97.
7. John W.D. Megaw. ‘The Public Health Activities of the Government of India’. In Social Service in India: An Introduction to Some Social and Economic Problems of the Indian People, edited by Edward Blunt. London: His Majesty’s Stationer’s Office, 1938. 191–194.
8. C.F. Strickland. ‘Voluntary Effort and Social Welfare.’ In Social Service in India: An Introduction to Some Social and Economic Problems of the Indian People, edited by Edward Blunt. London: His Majesty’s Stationer’s Office, 1938. 380–398.
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