The Scandal of Empire: India and the Creation of Imperial Britain

by Nicholas B. Dirks

Many have told of the East India Company’s extraordinary excesses in eighteenth-century India, of the plunder that made its directors fabulously wealthy and able to buy British land and titles, but this is only a fraction of the story. When one of these men—Warren Hastings—was put on trial by Edmund Burke, it brought the Company’s exploits to the attention of the public. Through the trial and after, the British government transformed public understanding of the Company’s corrupt actions by creating an image of a vulnerable India that needed British assistance. Intrusive behavior was recast as a civilizing mission. In this fascinating, and devastating, account of the scandal that laid the foundation of the British Empire, Nicholas Dirks explains how this substitution of imperial authority for Company rule helped erase the dirty origins of empire and justify the British presence in India. The Scandal of Empire reveals that the conquests and exploitations of the East India Company were critical to England’s development in the eighteenth century and beyond. We see how mercantile trade was inextricably linked with imperial venture and scandalous excess and how these three things provided the ideological basis for far-flung British expansion. In this powerfully written and trenchant critique, Dirks shows how the empire projected its own scandalous behavior onto India itself. By returning to the moment when the scandal of empire became acceptable we gain a new understanding of the modern culture of the colonizer and the colonized and the manifold implications for Britain, India, and the world.

Genres: History, India, Nonfiction, Asia

416 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2006

Reviews

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 5 out of 5]

Any history that tells of the ugly foundations of the British empire has to be applauded particularly when, at this moment, October 2023, on UK TV there is a program entitles 'Why Does Everyone Hate the British Empire?'. Least you be in any doubt, the program is a humorous one which while not absolutely white washing Britain's empire, is determined to leave UK viewers with a warm and fuzzy feeling towards those long ago days.

What will not be mentioned is the way Britain destroyed and impoverished the province of Bengal in order to enrich the UK and provide a market for her unwanted and rather shoddy manufactured products. That the result was famine and death at the time and for generations to come is probably not likely to be mentioned.

Nome of this should come as surprise - the reason the UK needed export markets for its crap cotton goods is because the Americans had just fought a very successful war, in part to prevent the suffocation of their own nascent industries (what they did in Bengal was not at all different to what they did, on small scale, in Ireland to prevent rival manufacturers from prospering). The whole business of empire was about creating vast prosperity for the UK, or to be honest a tiny proportion of the UK's population but plenty crumbs that could be thrown to the masses least they come to resent their betters, and to ensuring that the UK was the top power in Europe. It was not created to 'evangelise' the world; spread the use of English; create a new 'Roman Civitas', certainly not to educate, advance or help any of the countries they conquered. If any of these things occurred it was to enable Britain to continue being 'the boss'. If they built railroads or infrastructure it was the locals who paid, always worth remembering as many Brits seem to think they 'gave' India her railway system.

This is an excellent book which begins at the very foundation events of Britain's 19th century imperial hegemony - it is a tale of extraordinary ugliness. If only more Britons would read books like this they might be more likely to cringe than laugh at comic programs like the one I mentioned. Seriously what would you think of someone making a program entitled 'Why Did Slaves hate being Slaves' as a comfy, comic turn?

[Becca w · Rating 4 out of 5]

The scandalous chancellor himself! Capacious and interesting. Helpfully articulates how empire was constitutive of modernity, corrupt, and exploitative. Not sure the scandal aspect was his most illustrative contribution, but lots of good material on the relationship between colony and metropole, history and power, and the like

[Jason Hough]

more research for my next novel

[Clivemichael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fairly academic, plenty of references and compelling arguments.