Clash of cultures between British and Indians Flashcards
What was the Company’s main focus by 1829?
What had white officials felt about the people and societies they governed?
How did Evangelical Christians judge other religions? What did Missionaries do in response?
What did British women go to India for?
What agenda did the Company take on from 1829-57?
What did this eventually lead to?
-The Company focused increasingly on administration and taxation by 1829.
-Company officials felt racially superior and sought to change societies they governed.
-Evangelical Christians judged other religions to be inferior.
-Missionaries attempted to convert Indians to Christianity, destabilising local society.
-The arrival of more and more British women meant that racial intermingling went from being normal to being a taboo as women went to India to find husbands.
-The Company adopted a ‘modernising’ agenda between 1829-57, creating a number of grievances that split out in the Rebellion.
What were the Thagi?
When did the Company begin an assault against this custom?
What did it become justification for?
How many were hanged or transported?
How many were punished in some way?
What was the campaign based on?
Who led the campaign? When did it begin?
What did he do following the campaign making him an imperial hero?
What was it portrayed as due to the issue not affecting British people?
When was most of the Thagi activity largely dealt with by Sleeman?
Was eliminating the thagi resented by Indians?
What effect did it have on the British?
-A creed of highway robbers & murderers.
-The Company began a legal assault on the practice during the 1830s
-It became a justification for further modernisation by the British.
-1,000 were hanged and transported.
-3,000 were punished in some way.
-The campaign was based on capturing thagi and using confessions to find others.
-William Sleeman led the campaign in 1815?
-Sleeman wrote a book on his campaign and became an imperial hero.
-It was portrayed as altruistic as British people were not affected by it.
-Actual activity was largely dealt with by Sleeman during the 1830s.
-Eliminating thagi was not resented by Indians.
-The effect that it had on the British in encouraging them to undertake further modernisation was more important.
How did the offence taken by Indians in the removal of the Sati compare with the Thagi?
What was the Sati?
How many deaths a year resulted from this practice?
Who was the Act of Abolition in 1829 driven by? What did it do?
Before this what were Company officials weary of in regards to the Sati? Bentick?
Despite petitions against the law what did the Privy council do in 1832?
Where was the law originally only applied? What followed? When was it banned everywhere?
What did Indian’s of high caste feel regarding the banning?
-Indians were far more offended by the banning of sati than by that of thagi.
-Sati was the self immolation of Hindu widows due to the belief in the sanctity of marriage.
-It was estimated that 600 deaths a year resulted from this practice.
-The Act of Abolition in 1829 was driven by the personal agendas of Bentinck and the campaigns of evangelicals like Wilberforce.
-Under it, anyone assisting with sati could be tried for culpable homicide.
-Company officials had always tried to discourage the practice but were extremely wary of cultural interventions. Even
-Bentinck was against the law but supported it once in practice.
-The Privy Council upheld the law against petitioners in 1832.
-The law only applied in Company territory but princely states followed due to British pressure. It wasn’t banned everywhere until 1861.
-For Indians of high caste, the interference of sati was a deliberate attack by Britain on caste purity.
Who enforced laws against female infanticide strongly?
Why was the practice common in certain regions?
What were the benefits of his intervention?
Similar to the banning of the Sati what did this add to?
-Bentinck enforced existing laws against female infanticide strongly.
-The practice was common in certain regions due to the difficulty of providing dowries and the shame of having unmarried children.
-Bentinck’s efforts improved the lives of a lot of women in India
-Like the abolition of the Sati, this contributed to rumbling discontent during the 1830s and 1840s.
When did British missionaries first arrive in India?Did the Company support this?
What mindest did Company administrators tend to have?
What Christian group were the first Missionaries that arrived? Where did they settle?
Who campaigned to have the ban on missionaries lifted? What Act was this permitted in? Successful?
What were missionaries primarily engaged in? Other issues?
What was required of missionaries to preach and convert Indians?
-British missionaries began to arrive from the late 18th century, despite the opposition of many Company officials.
-Company administrators tended to be pragmatic and avoided trouble.
-The first missionaries to arrive in Bengal were Baptists and were forced to settle in Danish territory at Serampore.
-William Wilberforce campaigned to have the ban on missionaries lifted in the 1813 Charter Act & were successful.
-They were primarily engaged in education in native languages but also influenced issues like Sati.
-Missionaries had to be competent linguists in order to preach and convert Indians.
What did Missionaries believe higher education for Indians would do for Western culture?
What did Bentinck Pass to support this? What year?
What did the activities of early missionaries stimulate regarding philosophy and culture?
However, what did Missionaries further disrupt in India?
What was the difference between where administrators lived & missionaries?
What did missionaries believe they were doing?
-They also contributed to a debate on Indian education as they wanted to fund higher education for Indians in the hope that a new educated class would rise up to spread Western practices.
-This led to Bentincks 1835 Education Act.
-The activities of early missionaries stimulated the Bengal Renaissance which included new ideas fusing Western and Indian culture. Indian culture was not swept away.
-Missionaries further disrupted India’s social mix.
-Missionaries lived alongside Indians and as such destabilised Indian society.
- They were driven by the belief that they were doing God’s work and were hard for the Company to manage.
