ABSTRACT
This chapter explores ideas about governing that operated using a conception of time that was continuous and accretive, animated by the stadial notion of progress that was emblematic of eighteenth-century thought. It shows that these ideas came into conflict with an India that was difficult to understand. It was for a long time accepted that the laws and customs that had evolved there should be respected, but in the everyday reality of trying to govern, this led to profound perplexity, which appeared to derive from the lack of a shared history. The chapter suggests that – given the importance of freedom and the tradition of the city-citizen matrix for British ideas about governing – the new, abstracted forms of governmental rule created significant unease about the legitimacy of this new shepherd-flock configuration in India which did not appear to allow for the participation of the governed.
