1 - The Origins of Reform

Summary

Adopting a sociological perspective, Chapter 1 examines the rise of the professional public moralist and situates early India reformism among concurrent campaigns such as transatlantic abolitionism, free trade, and aboriginal protection. It addresses the reformers’ acquisition of social and symbolic capital, the possibilities for “link-ups” between groups, and the controversies that inhibited cooperation. Agents of the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, for instance, clashed with the reformers over their approach to the abolition of indigenous slavery in India and their connections to the heterodox American Garrisonians. Delving into these conflicts demonstrates that early advocates of “conservationist” reform were an embattled lot, contending with the obstructionism of a reactionary Company-state and the derision of detractors within the metropolitan philanthropic community as well.