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Anthropologists and Viceroys: Colonial knowledge and policy making in India, 1871–1911*

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  13 October 2015

C. J. FULLER*
Affiliation:
Department of Anthropology, London School of Economics and Political Science, United Kingdom Email: c.fuller@lse.ac.uk

Abstract

The anthropology of caste was a pivotal part of colonial knowledge in British India in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Denzil Ibbetson and Herbert Risley, then the two leading official anthropologists, both made major contributions to the study of caste, which this article discusses. Ibbetson and Risley assumed high office in the imperial government in 1902 and played important roles in policy making during the partition of Bengal (1903–5) and the Morley-Minto legislative councils reforms (1906–9); Ibbetson was also influential in deciding Punjab land policy in the 1890s. Contemporary policy documents, which this article examines, show that the two men's anthropological knowledge had limited influence on their deliberations. Moreover, caste was irrelevant to their thinking about agrarian policy, the promotion of Muslim interests, and the urban, educated middle class, whose growing nationalism was challenging British rule. No ethnographic information was collected about this class, because the scope of anthropology was restricted to ‘traditional’ rural society. At the turn of the twentieth century, colonial anthropological knowledge, especially about caste, had little value for the imperial government confronting Indian nationalism, and was less critical in constituting the Indian colonial state than it previously had been.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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Footnotes

*

For helpful discussions and critical comments on an earlier draft of this article, I am particularly grateful to Johnny Parry, Norbert Peabody, Peter Robb, Nate Roberts, Tom Trautmann, Peter van der Veer, and participants in a seminar at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Religious and Ethnic Diversity, Göttingen, May 2014.

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37 Ibid., pp. 3–4, 9–10.

38 Ibid., p. 10.

39 Baines, Census of Bombay 1881, Text, pp. 120–23. Baines cited Auguste Comte on ‘differentiation of employments’.

40 Baines, J. A., ‘Occupation and Caste in India, as Shown in the Last Census’, Journal of the Society of Arts, 41Google Scholar, 31 March 1893, p. 466; cf. Census of India, 1891, Vol. 1, India, General Report, by J. A. Baines (London, 1893), pp. 189–90.

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47 Nesfield, Brief View, pp. 3–4.

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53 Baines, ‘Occupation and Caste’, p. 458; J. A. Baines, Ethnography (Castes and Tribes) (Strassburg: Karl J. Trübner, 1912), p. 2.

54 Census of India, 1911, Vol. 1, India, pt. 1, Report, by E. A. Gait (Calcutta, 1913), p. 381; E. A. Gait, ‘The Indian Census of 1911: Ethnography and Occupations’, Journal of the Society of Arts, 62, 5 June 1914, p. 631.

55 Census of India, 1911, Vol. 15, United Provinces, pt. 1, Report, by E. A. H. Blunt (Allahabad, 1912), pp. 360–1; Vol. 5, Bengal, Bihar and Orissa and Sikhim, pt. 1, Report, by L. S. S. O'Malley (Calcutta, 1913), pp. 517–20. See also Blunt, E. A. H., The Caste System of Northern India (London: Oxford University Press, 1931)Google Scholar; O'Malley, L. S. S., Indian Caste Customs (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1932)Google Scholar.

56 Dirks, Castes, pp. 50, 184.

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58 Risley and Gait, Census 1901, India, p. 538; Risley, People, p. 111.

59 Census of India, 1901, Vol. 6, Bengal, Report, by E. A. Gait (Calcutta, 1902), pp. 366–73.

60 Census of India, 1901, Vol. 16, North-Western Provinces and Oudh, Report, by R. Burn (Allahabad, 1902), p. 217; Vol. 15, Madras, Report, by W. Francis (Madras, 1902), p. 136; Vol. 13, Central Provinces, Report, by R. V. Russell (Nagpur, 1902), pp. 207–8; Vol. 9, Bombay, Report, by R. E. Enthoven (Bombay, 1902), p. 187; Vol. 18, Baroda, Report, by J. A. Dalal (Bombay, 1902), p. 484; Vol. 26, Travancore, Report, by N. Subrahmanya Aiyar (Trivandrum, 1903), pp. 257–8; Vol. 17, Punjab, Report, by H. A. Rose (Simla, 1902), pp. 337–40, 345–8.

61 Risley and Gait, Census 1901, India, p. 538; Risley, People, p. 112.

62 Risley and Gait, Census 1901, India, pp. 514–7, 543–4; Risley, People, pp. 62–8, 121–4.

63 The Warrant was published annually in The India List and India Office List (London: Harrisons and Co.).

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83 Ibid., ff. 131–3.

84 Ibid., ff. 124–9.

85 Ibid., ff. 135–44.

86 Enclosure no. 16, Memorial from public meeting, Calcutta, IOR/L/PJ/6/709, File 413, ff. 282–7.

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93 IOR/L/PJ/6/709, File 413, ff. 76–86.

94 Risley, People, pp. 294–8.

95 Dirks, Castes, p. 224; Risley, ‘The Race Basis of Indian Political Movements’, The Contemporary Review, May 1890, pp. 742–59.

96 Risley, People, pp. 279, 292–4.

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99 Enclosure no. 13, Curzon's address at Dacca, 18 February 1904, IOR/L/PJ/6/709, File 413, ff. 265–73.

100 Sarkar, Swadeshi, p. 418; Johnson, ‘Partition’, p. 550.

101 Risley and Gait, Census 1901, India, pp. 543–4; Risley, People, pp. 121–3.

102 H. H. Risley, ‘Note on Muhammadan Claims to Increased Representation’, 25 May 1909, p. 84, in ‘Correspondence of 1909 Regarding Councils Reforms’, pp. 59–87, Fourth Earl of Minto Papers (hereafter MinP), MS 12616, Manuscripts Collections, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh.

103 Gait, Census 1901, Bengal, pp. 166–70, 174–6, 439.

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111 Dispatch from Minto and Council to Secretary of State, 21 March 1907, MorP, D573/32, ff. 13–31.

112 Minto to Morley, 28 March 1907, MorP, D573/11.

113 Minto to Morley, 5 March 1907, MorP, D573/11; Minto to Morley, 19 August 1908, D573/17.

114 Minto to Risley, and Risley to Minto, 30 September 1908, MinP, MS 12769.

115 Proposal in Council of India by Lee-Warner, 13 April 1907, MorP, D573/32, ff. 46–8.

116 Morley's reply to dispatch, 17 May 1907, MorP, D573/32, ff. 54–61.

117 Dispatch from Minto and Council to Secretary of State, 1 October 1908, MorP, D573/33, ff. 5–22.

118 Morley's reply to dispatch, 27 November 1908, MorP, D573/33, ff. 44–51.

119 Minto's reply to Morley, 23 December 1908, MorP, D573/33, ff. 86–96; Minto to Morley, 31 December 1908, MorP, D573/18; Rothermund, ‘Emancipation’, pp. 146–7.

120 Das, India, pp. 199–203, 260–9.

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127 Risley, ‘Race Basis’, pp. 757–9; Risley, People, p. 300.

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129 Das, India, pp. 190–1, 228–31.

130 Dispatch from Minto and Council to Secretary of State, 1 October 1908, MorP, D573/33, ff. 5–22.

131 Gilbert, Servant, p. 189.

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