ABSTRACT
In May 1876 Britain’s Queen Victoria claimed for herself a new title, Empress of India-a position that had never before been held, by a British monarch or anyone else. Her claim, urged in London by her prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, but not legitimated by a popular vote in India (or for that matter in England), had nevertheless been years in the making. Nearly two decades earlier, in 1857, the British East India Company, a nominally private enterprise that had seized control of much of South Asia, faced an armed rebellion among thousands of local troops, known as sepoys, whom it had hired for defense. The revolt spread quickly, and it took almost two years to defeat this rebellion (or “mutiny,” as the British called it). Afterward the government in London decided that it had no choice but to assume direct control of India, seen as the crown jewel in Britain’s worldspanning colonial empire. The Crown’s presence grew stronger, as many of the most important political decisions affecting millions of South Asians came to be made thousands of miles away, in London,
by royal edict or by parliamentary representatives elected by the citizens of Britain, not those of India. Most of India’s accumulated wealth, natural resources, human capital, economic output, and military capacity officially served British interests, and on the surface at least, South Asians found themselves subordinated and placed into an almost child-like position relative even to junior colonial officials, soldiers, and businessmen. Not all Britons thought this was a good idea. Victoria’s own son, the Prince of Wales, Albert Edward, took a trip to India in 1875-1876. He sickened at seeing how his countrymen treated the “natives,” complaining in a letter to his mother about the “rude and rough manner” with which political officers treated even princes, and denounced their use of racial epithets and religious denigration. “It is indeed much to be deplored,” he concluded, “and the system is, I am sure, quite wrong.”1
