ABSTRACT
John Gorst’s tenure at the India Office coincided with a mainly tranquil period of prosperity and some complacency on the sub-continent. In fact, the Viceroy, Lord Dufferin, perhaps a shade optimistically, told his successor Lord Lansdowne when handing over in 1888 that there was not a ‘cloud in the sky’. 1 While Burma had in 1885 been incorporated into the Indian Empire it was still in the process of being settled. Also, the Indian National Congress had just appeared on the scene but happily for Gorst had not yet begun to make its political presence felt. There was, though, one serious episode with which Gorst had to deal in his time. We will come to this presently.
