Chapter 10 - British India in the 1850s

Summary

Máire ní Fhlathúin considers how colonial narratives circulate in India, and how they intersect with British power. We read of the East India Company’s annexation of the state of Awadh in 1856, and the outbreak of revolt that brought about the Government of India Act’s transfer of powers from the East India Company to the British Crown in 1858, precipitating a massive mobilisation of British soldiers and their families to India. Ní Fhlathúin revitalises this familiar story by examining contemporary para-literary texts and poetry published in British Indian newspapers and periodicals during and immediately after the rebellion. Much of this material is newly available, and enables us to gain a more holistic view of events across the subcontinent. This broad range of texts and writers bears witness to the inherent instability of British representations of its Empire, and exposes the shaping influence of the British imagination on accounts of India