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Britishness, Clubbability, and the Colonial Public Sphere: The Genealogy of an Imperial Institution in Colonial India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 January 2014

Mrinalini Sinha
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The ubiquity of the European social club in the European empires in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries has been widely recognized in both popular and academic writings on European, and particularly British, imperialism. The “European” ascription of imperial social clubs derived from their predominantly whites-only membership policy in which all elite Europeans, whatever their nationalities, were potentially included. Although each individual club often catered to a very different and distinctive clientele among elite Europeans in the empire, the “clubland” as a whole served as a common ground where elite Europeans could meet as members, or as guests of members, of individual clubs. These clubs, it has been argued, represented an oasis of European culture in the colonies, functioning to reproduce the comfort and familiarity of “home” for Europeans living in an alien land. The popular narrative of the club, as is evident from the account by the official historian of the Bengal Club, one of the oldest social clubs in India, easily oscillated between an understanding of the club as a broadly European cultural institution and as a specifically British one. Either way, the cultural values that it represented were understood as transplanted to the colonies: “It is the practice of European peoples to reproduce as far as possible in their settlements and colonies in other continents the characteristic social features of their natural lives …. For more than a century no institution has been more peculiarly British than the social club.”

Type
Research Article
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Journal of British Studies , Volume 40 , Issue 4: At Home in the Empire , October 2001 , pp. 489 - 521
Copyright
Copyright © North American Conference of British Studies 2001

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References

1 The focus of this article, for reasons that will be obvious, is on the “gentleman's clubs” as opposed to the far more numerous “working men's clubs” in Britain and their counterparts in the empire. The emphasis here, moreover, is on social clubs as opposed to clubs that were formed for specific purposes such as the numerous “sporting clubs.”

2 During the outbreak of war, however, some of the clubs in India, as in Britain, imposed certain restrictions on members from enemy countries. The Bengal Club, like the Oriental Club in London, put a ban on Europeans of German or Austrian descent in 1916; see Club Committee Meeting, 27 June 1916, Committee Proceedings of the Bengal Club, 1906–1919, Bengal Club Archives, Calcutta, India (BCA).

3 Panckridge, H. R., A Short History of the Bengal Club, 1827–1927 (Calcutta, 1927), p. 1Google Scholar, emphasis added.

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7 There has been little serious scholarship on the clubs despite the recent proliferation of work on “imperial culture.” Rich's, Paul J., Chains of Empire: English Public Schools, Masonic Cabalism, Historical Causality and Imperial Clubdom (London, 1991)Google Scholar remains one of the few books to engage with the implications of clubland in the empire. Also see Chan, Wai Kwan, The Making of Hong Kong Society: Three Studies of Class Formation in Early Hong Kong (New York, 1991), pp. 38–40Google Scholar.

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11 My thinking about a distinctively “colonial public sphere” draws, of course, from the analysis of the classic bourgeois public sphere in the work of Jürgen Habermas; see his The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere: An Inquiry into a Category of Bourgeois Society, trans. Burger, Thomas (Cambridge, Mass., 1991)Google Scholar; originally published in Berlin in 1962. See also Calhoun, Craig, ed., Habermas and the Public Sphere (Boston, 1992)Google Scholar. For the literature on “the public” in colonial India, see the editor's introduction and the essays in Freitag, Sandra B., ed., special issue on the “public,” South Asia, 14, no. 1 (1991), esp. 1–13Google Scholar; also see Sarkar, Tanika, “Talking about Scandals: Religion, Law and Love in Late Nineteenth Century Bengal,” Studies in History 1, no. 1 (1997): 63–95CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

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15 See Clark, Peter, British Clubs and Societies, c. 1580–1800: The Origins of an Associational World (Oxford, 2000)Google Scholar. Unfortunately, I was unable to make use of this book in time for this article.

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21 See Panckridge, , A Short History, pp. 1–2Google Scholar; and Pioneer (30 April 1880) on the East India United Services Club. See also Forrest, Denys, The Oriental Life Story of a West End Club (1968; reprint, London, 1979)Google Scholar.

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40 Partha Chatterjee, in a different context, has already complicated the usefulness of the public/private dichotomy when extended to civil society in colonial India; see his “The Nationalist Resolution of the Women's Question,” in Recasting Women: Essays in Colonial History, ed. Sangari, K. and Vaid, S. (New Brunswick, N.J., 1990), pp. 235–53Google Scholar.

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42 For the implications of changing attitudes toward interracial sex and interracial unions in the colonial empires, see Stoler, Ann, “Making Empire Respectable: The Politics of Race and Sexuality in Twentieth-Century Colonial Cultures,” American Ethnologist 16, no. 4 (November 1989): 634–60CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For colonial India, see Ballhatchett, Kenneth, Race, Sex and Class under the Raj: Imperial Attitudes and Policies and Their Critics, 1793–1905 (New York, 1980)Google Scholar.

43 See Pearson, R., Eastern Interlude, A Social History of the European Community in Calcutta (Calcutta, 1954), p. 22Google Scholar.

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47 Panckridge, , A Short History, p. 1Google Scholar; Pearson, , Eastern Interlude, p. 204Google Scholar. Also see Memorandum and Articles of Association of the Bengal Club, Limited, with Bye-Laws and List of Members [corrected to 1st Oct. 1917] (Calcutta, 1917), pp. 55–57Google Scholar.

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61 The work of Ann Staler has been especially useful in de-naturalizing the constructs of “colonizer” and “colonized”; see her “Rethinking Colonial Categories: European Communities and the Boundaries of Rule,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 31, no. 1 (January 1989): 134–150CrossRefGoogle Scholar, “Sexual Affronts and Racial Frontiers: European Identities and the Cultural Politics of Exclusion in Colonial Southeast Asia,” Comparative Studies in Society and History 34, no. 3 (July 1992): 514–51CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and “Making Empire Respectable.”

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66 An anonymous British soldier, describing his life in late nineteenth-century India, contends that the social chasm dividing the “upper” and “lower” class Europeans was greater in India than in Britain; see H.S., The Young Soldier in India: His Life and Prospects (London, 1889), pp. 202–5Google Scholar. For the military, which accounted for the majority of the European presence in India, see Stanley, Peter, White Mutiny: British Military Culture in India, 1825–1875 (London, 1998)Google Scholar.

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68 For the construction of a white British self in India in such abstract and unspecifiable terms, see Mohanty, “Kipling's Children.” For the Englishman's ability to be as one with the natives and yet their superior, see also Dawson, Graham, “The Blond Bedouin: Lawrence of Arabia, Imperial Adventure and the Imagining of English-British Masculinity,” in Manful Assertions: Masculinities in Britain since 1800, ed. Roper, Michael and Tosh, John (London, 1991), pp. 113–44Google Scholar.

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81 For an account of the controversy over the Ilbert Bill, named after the Law Member C. P. Ilbert, see Hirschmann, Edwin, “White Mutiny”: The Ilbert Bill Crisis in India and the Genesis of the Indian National Congress (Delhi, 1980)Google Scholar; for the race and gender politics of the “white mutiny,” see Sinha, Mrinalini, “‘Chathams, Pitts and Gladstone's in Petticoats’: The Politics of Gender and Race in the Ilbert Bill Controversy, 1883–84,” in Western Women and Imperialism: Complicity and Resistance, ed. Strobel, Margaret and Chaudhuri, Nupur (Bloomington, Ind., 1991), pp. 98–116Google Scholar.

82 Cited in Bengalee (18 August 1883), p. 385Google ScholarPubMed. For the club as the center of the opposition against the bill, see Kipling, Rudyard, Something of Myself for My Friends Known and Unknown (New York, 1937), p. 57Google Scholar. For some contemporary news reports on Anglo-Indian protest meetings held in the clubs, see Englishman (13 April 1883); Bengalee (3 November 1883), p. 495Google ScholarPubMed; and Pioneer (7 March 1883), p. 4Google ScholarPubMed.

83 The leading opponents of the bill in Calcutta were all important members of the Club Committee of the Bengal Club, including J. J. J. Keswick, the president of the Club; J. C. MacGregor, the Calcutta correspondent of The Times; J. H. A. Branson, a leading Calcutta barrister; G. H. P. Evans, a member of the Viceroy's Council; and General Wilson and Colonel George Chesney, of the Army; see Committee Proceedings of the Bengal Club, 1869–1888, BCA, pp. 347–49.

84 For the patronage of the governor-general and then the viceroy, see ibid., p. 70. For a brief history of the European and Anglo Indian Defence Association, see Renford, Raymond K., The Non-Official British in India to 1920 (Delhi, 1987)Google Scholar.

85 Englishman (8 March 1883), p. 2Google ScholarPubMed.

86 See Renford, , Non-Official British in India, p. 335Google Scholar.

87 Pioneer (28 April 1883), p. 1Google ScholarPubMed.

88 Committee Proceedings of the Bengal Club, 1906–1919, BCA, p. 245.

89 Cited in Allen, , Plain Tales, p. 104Google Scholar.

90 Horne, , Work and Sport in the Old ICS, pp. 101–2Google Scholar. White women were just as likely to offer similar defenses of the club; see the similarity in Ethel Savi's defense of the club quoted in Greenberger , Allen J., “Englishwomen in India,” British History Illustrated 4 (1978): 46Google Scholar.

91 For some salutary reminders of the importance of reinscribing class—as much as race and gender—into contemporary analyses of the working of colonialism, see Ahmed, Aijaz, In Theory: Classes, Nations, Literatures (London, 1992)Google Scholar; and Sarkar, Sumit, Writing Social History (Delhi, 1998)Google Scholar.

92 See Choudhury, Ranabina Ray, ed., Calcutta: A Hundred Years Ago (Bombay, 1988), p. 46Google Scholar.

93 Ibid. See also Statesman (23 March 1883), p. 3Google ScholarPubMed; and the report in the Illustrated London News (25 August 1887) on the maharaja's role in founding the club, cited in Vadgama, Kusoom, India in Britain: The Indian Contribution to the British Way of Life (London, 1984), p. 52Google Scholar. Dev's, Benay KrishanThe Early History and Growth of Calcutta (1905; reprint, Calcutta, 1977), p. 175Google Scholar, however, attributes the foundation of the club to Keshub Chunder Sen, the maharaja's father-in-law.

94 Statesman (24 March 1882), p. 3Google ScholarPubMed.

95 Among the Indian members some prominent names included the following: R. C. Mitter, Jotendra Mohun Tagore, Rajendra Lala Mitra, Nawab Abdool Luteef, H. M. Rustomjee, Keshub Chunder Sen, Bankim Chandra Chattterjee, and Rev. K. M. Bannerjee. Some prominent European members, included Sir Henry Harrison, chairman of the Calcutta Corporation; Sir Henry Cotton of the ICS; and Rev. Father Lafont. Harry Lee, Harrison's successor at the Calcutta Corporation, also played an active role in the club. See Choudhury, , Calcutta, pp. 132–33Google ScholarPubMed; Hindoo Patriot (16 June 1883), p. 280Google Scholar; and Hindoo Patriot (18 August 1890), pp. 390–91Google Scholar.

96 The membership on 31 December 1888 was 763; see Bengal Club Annual Accounts Book, 1860–1890, BCA, pp. 77.

97 Blunt, Wilfred Scawen, India under Ripon (London, 1909), p. 115Google Scholar.

98 Quoted in Choudhury, , Calcutta, p. 46Google ScholarPubMed.

99 Pioneer (28 April 1883), p. 1Google ScholarPubMed.

100 The incident was first reported in the Indian Daily News. It prompted one European member of the club to resign in protest, see Englishman (3 April 1883), p. 3Google ScholarPubMed. Indians present, however, denied that such an incident had taken place in the club, see Englishman (6 April 1883), p. 2Google ScholarPubMed.

101 See Gandhi, M. K., An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth, trans. Desai, Mahadev (Boston, 1957), p. 229Google Scholar; originally published in Ahmedabad, India, in two volumes in 1927 and 1929.

102 Brajendranath, De, “Reminiscences of an Indian Member of the ICS,” Calcutta Review 32, no. 2 (August 1954): 95Google Scholar.

103 Ananda Bazar Patrika (9 April 1993), p. 167Google Scholar, in Report on Native Papers Bengal Presidency (January-December 1883), no. 16.

104 See Shukla, J. D., Indianisation of All-India Services and Its Impact on Administration (New Delhi, 1982)Google Scholar. For the transformation of the ICS, also see Potter, David, India's Political Administrators, 1919–1983 (Oxford, 1986)Google Scholar. Several contemporary memoirs testify to the awkwardness created by the ban on entertaining Indian guests in the clubs; for Anglo-Indian accounts see Cotton, , New India, pp. 50–51Google Scholar; and SirLawrence, Walter Roper, The India We Served (London, 1928), p. 16Google Scholar; for accounts by Indians see the recollections of M. A. Hussein of the ICS (Punjab cadre) quoted in Hunt, and Harrison, , District Officer, p. 127Google Scholar.

105 Cited in Hunt, and Harrison, , District Officer, pp. 127–28Google Scholar.

106 Vira, Dharam, Memoirs of a Civil Servant (London, 1975), p. 16–17Google Scholar.

107 Cited in Sinha, M. K., In My Father's Footsteps: A Policeman's Odyssey, 1908–1980 (Delhi, 1981), p. 24Google Scholar.

108 See various individual memoirs, for example: Menon, K. P. S., Many Worlds: An Autobiography (London, 1965), esp. pp. 89–147Google Scholar; Chettur, S. K., The Steel Frame and I: Life in the ICS (London, 1962)Google Scholar; Rai, E. N. Mangat, Commitment My Style: Career in the Indian Civil Service (Delhi, 1973)Google Scholar; [Nehra, A.], Letters of an Indian Judge to an English Gentlewoman (London, 1934)Google Scholar; Rustomjee, Nari, Enchanted Frontiers (Bombay, 1971)Google Scholar; and Tyabji, Badr-ud-din, Memoirs of an Egoist, vol. 1, 1907–1956 (New Delhi, 1988)Google Scholar. See also the recollections of Indian ICS officers in Punjabi, K. L., The Civil Servant in India (Bombay, 1965)Google Scholar and Hunt and Harrison, District Officer.

109 See Hunt, and Harrison, , District Officer, pp. 126–27, 29Google Scholar.

110 Cited in Masani, Zareer, Indian Tales of the Raj (London, 1987), p. 53Google Scholar.

111 Cited in Ray, Rajat, Urban Roots, pp. 231–32Google Scholar.

112 The incident involving Willingdon is mentioned in Trevelyan, Humphrey, The India We Left: Charles Trevelyan, 1826–1865, Humphrey Trevelyan, 1929–1947 (London, 1972), pp. 112–13Google Scholar. Details are also given in Masani, , Indian Tales, pp. 51–52Google Scholar. While Indian princes were not allowed in the clubs in British India, they belonged to the same clubs as Europeans in their own princely states; see the recollections of the son of the Nawab of Palanpur in Allen, Charles and Diwedi, Sharada, Lives of the Indian Princes (London, 1984), p. 158Google Scholar.

113 See Calcutta Club: Memorandum and Articles of Association 1922, National Library, Calcutta, pp. 48, 51Google Scholar.

114 Quoted in Masani, , Indian Tales, p. 52Google Scholar.

115 Quoted in ibid., p. 68. For the decline in the popularity of the clubs see also Kincaid, , British Social Life, pp. 276–77Google Scholar. For one Anglo Indian's perception of the growing “crises of whiteness” in late colonial India, see Schwarz, Bill, “An Englishman Abroad … and at Home: The Case of Paul Scott,” New Formations, no. 17 (Summer 1992), pp. 95–105Google Scholar.

116 Cited in Bonnerjee, N. B., Under Two Masters (Calcutta, 1970), pp. 117–18Google Scholar.

117 Ibid.

118 Quoted in Masani, , Indian Tales, p. 16Google Scholar

119 Ibid., p. 25.

120 Ibid., p. 55. There were many others, of course, who made full use of the social opportunities for bridge, sports, and other activities that the clubs provided, see Sengupta, Padmini [Sathianadhan], The Portrait of an Indian Woman (Calcutta, 1956)Google Scholar.

121 See Rau, Dhanvanthi Rama, An Inheritance: The Memoirs of Dhanvanthi Rama Rau (London, 1977), pp. 99–100, 119Google Scholar.

122 See Letter From Sorabji to Elena [Alice Bruce] Richmond, dated 24 February 1926, in “Cornelia Sorabji Papers: Correspondence and Private Papers,” January-April 1926, India Office Library and Records, London, folder no. 40.

123 See report of the incident in Renford, , Non-Official British, pp. 309–11Google Scholar.

124 See the recollection of this episode in Dutt, Kalpana, Chittagong Armoury Raider's Reminiscences (1945; reprint, New Delhi, 1979), pp. 40–44Google Scholar. For Indian women's participation in revolutionary terrorist organizations, see Forbes, Geraldine H., “Goddesses or Rebels: The Women Revolutionaries of Bengal,” in Women, Politics and Literature in Bengal, ed. Seeley, Clinton B. (East Lansing, Mich. 1981), pp. 3–17Google Scholar.

125 For a recollection of this incident, see the writings of Indian suffragist Sen, Mrinalini, Knocking at the Door: Lectures and Other Writings (Calcutta, 1954), p. 150Google Scholar.

126 The Lyceum Club was founded on 20 June 1904 as a place where “women of every nationality meet in a freedom of intercourse hitherto unavailable;” see the report on the tenth anniversary of the club in its paper, The Lyceum (June 1914), in Papers of Lady Strachey [longtime vice president of the Lyceum Club/, Fawcett Library, London Guildhall University, London, Box 92. Sarojini Naidu was, perhaps, among its earliest and most famous Indian members. Many important connections among Indian women, such as those among Naidu, Kamala Sathianadhan, Padmini Sengupta, and Hansa Mehta, had been cemented first in 1919 in the Lyceum Club in London, see Sengupta, Padmini [Sathianadhan], The Portrait of an Indian Woman (Calcutta, 1956), pp. 114–16Google Scholar; Sengupta, Padmini, Sarojini Naidu (Bombay, 1966), p. 158Google Scholar; and Mehta, Hansa, Indian Woman (Delhi, 1981), p. 188Google Scholar.

127 Vittachi, Varindra Tarzie, The Brown Sahib (London, 1962), p. 10Google Scholar; see also his The Brown Sahib Revisited (New Delhi, 1987)Google Scholar.

128 Midgley, Clare, “New Imperial Histories,” Journal of British Studies 35 (1996): 547–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar.