Despite efforts to prevent them, British women formed a part of the Indian empire almost from the start. Although the East India Company warned them off, citing difficulties of climate, disease, morality, religion and culture, a few managed to travel there all the same. By the late 18th century their numbers had increased considerably, making women some of the most interesting witnesses to the British Raj.
In this way, the white Christian woman became a significant face of imperial rule. She would usually be caricatured as one who, having failed to find a husband in London, cast her lot in with the ‘fishing fleet’ in Bombay; or portrayed (by E.M. Forster, for example) as the atrocious memsahib who could speak to Indian women in their own language, but whose only verbs were imperatives. Such women were a vulnerable presence. What were they doing there, and what are we to make of their behaviour?
Katie Hickman’s book about British women in India is a breathless, quite interesting, account, with two large, obvious gaps in its narrative.
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