When the British chose pragmatism as strategy

In the 17th century Visvagunadarsana by Venkatadhvari, two celestial beings go on a tour of India. Flying from the Himalayas to Kanyakumari, they review the land's many towns and holy sites, with one gandharva noticing only bad, the other more good.

- MANU S PILLAI

In the 17th century Visvagunadarsana by Venkatadhvari, two celestial beings go on a tour of India. Flying from the Himalayas to Kanyakumari, they review the land's many towns and holy sites, with one gandharva noticing only bad, the other more good. Much is discussed: Islamic rule in the country, Brahmins preferring worldly attractions to the Vedas, the beauty of Gujarati women, and so on. The gandharvas conduct an aerial survey of British-ruled Madras too. The first of them is furious: the villainy of the white man, to him, is "inexpressible at the end of the tongue". The other, though, is more circumspect: Europeans also had virtues. They imported "curious" articles and did not "extort" unjustly. They had an impressive sense of justice too. There was good and bad both about these white-faced foreigners, that is, and the gandharvas departed without arriving at a categorical conclusion.

It might have interested these divine commentators that white men too had complicated feelings about India. To begin with, they were foreign Christians in a land of "idolaters"—they struggled to understand Hindu culture and its customs. Shrewdly, they erred on the side of pragmatism. As interlopers in another country, they needed the cooperation of "natives", opting, therefore, to operate on Indian terms. In Madras, thus, white officials arbitrated caste disputes, minted coins featuring Hindu gods, and even found brown spouses. Their Indian aides grew wealthy, pumping funds into the construction of grand temples, into the halls of courtesans, and sponsoring poets. In a roundabout way, white rule—given that the British were mimicking Indians—catalysed a flowering of Hindu culture. Of course, they still remained aliens, but there was a concord that allowed the "native" and foreigner to pull on to mutual advantage.