The Meaning of White Race, Class, and the 'Domiciled Community' in British India 1858-1930

by Mizutani, Satoshi

• ISBN13: 9780199697700
• ISBN10: 0199697701
• Format: Hardcover
• Copyright: 2012-02-01
• Publisher: Oxford University Press

Summary

From 1858 to 1930 the concept of whiteness in British India was complex and contradictory. Under the Raj, the spread of racial ideologies was pervasive, but whiteness was never taken as self-evident. It was constantly called into question and its boundaries were disciplined and policed through socio-cultural and institutional practices. Only those whites with social status, cultural refinement, and the right level of education were able to command the respect and awe of colonized subjects. Among those who straddled the boundaries of whiteness were the 'domiciled community', made up of mixed-descent 'Eurasians' and racially unmixed 'Domiciled Europeans', both of whom lived in India on a permanent basis. Members of this community, or those who were categorized as such under the Raj, unwittingly rendered the meaning of whiteness ambiguous in fundamental ways. The colonial authorities quickly identified the domiciled community as a particularly malign source of political instability and social disorder, and were constantly urged to furnish various institutional measures - predominantly philanthropic and educational by character - that specifically targeted its degraded conditions.The Meaning of Whitereveals the precise ways in which the existence of this community was identified as a problem (the 'Eurasian Question') and examines the deeper historical meanings of this categorization. Dr Mizutani demystifies the ideology of whiteness, situating it within the concrete social realities of colonial history.

Author Biography

Satoshi Mizutani was educated at Sophia University (Japan), the University of Warwick, and St. Antony's College, Oxford before obtaining a DPhil from the History Faculty at Oxford.

Table of Contents

List of Maps and Illustrations	p. xi
Abbreviations	p. xii
Introduction. India's 'Domiciled Community': The Ambivalence of Whiteness under the British Raj	p. 1
Aims, themes, and focus of the book	p. 1
Historiographical preliminaries	p. 3
Scope, terminologies, and sources	p. 9
British Prestige and Fears of Colonial Degeneration	p. 14
Introduction	p. 14
Two faces of colonial racism: prestige and degeneration	p. 15
Colonials as personifications of prestige	p. 18
Bourgeois selves and their struggles against degeneration	p. 27
Conclusion	p. 45
The Origins and Emergence of the 'Domiciled Community'	p. 48
Introduction	p. 48
'Poor whites': their origins, lives, and perceived anomalies	p. 49
The domiciled community: its emergence and categorization	p. 59
Conclusion	p. 76
The 'Eurasian Question': The Domiciled Poor and Urban Social Control	p. 78
Introduction	p. 78
Imperialism and the ambivalence of civilizing	p. 79
Colonial Calcutta and Pauperism Commissions	p. 83
European pauperism diagnosed: alleged symptoms and suggested remedies	p. 94
Disciplinarian schemes and quests for alternative spaces	p. 103
Conclusion	p. 110
'European Schools': Illiteracy, Unemployment, and Educational Uplifting	p. 116
Introduction	p. 116
'European education': institutional evolution and ideological foundations	p. 117
Educational inclusion and its cultural and class ambiguities	p. 128
Conclusion	p. 135
Towards a Solution to the Eurasian Question: Child Removal and Juvenile Emigration	p. 137
Introduction	p. 137
St Andrew's Colonial Homes at Kalimpong: objectives and historical significance	p. 138
Domesticity and colonial child removal	p. 146
Labouring back into the Empire: domestic discipline and vocational training160
The limits to 'child-saving: India and its place within the British Empire	p. 176
Conclusion	p. 178
Disputing the Domiciliary Divide: Civil-Service Employment and the Claim for Equivalence	p. 181
Introduction	p. 181
Criteria for commanding positions: the historical background	p. 182
The associations of the domiciled community	p. 186
Fitness to rule: 'home-born' versus domiciled candidates194
'Britishness' and its discontents: confrontations with the Viceroy	p. 201
Constitutional reform and the 'minoritarian' claim for legal protection	p. 209
Conclusion	p. 218
Conclusion: Race, Class, and the Contours of Whiteness in Late British India	p. 219
Select Bibliography	p. 224
Index	p. 235
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