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VIEW: Women: an episode from history —Anjum Altaf

It is fascinating to speculate on the direction of Indian history had the opening of Egypt been delayed another 100 years. As it was, just like the arrival of Eve in the Garden of Eden, the arrival of British women in India irrevocably altered the course of events

Relax. I am not going to argue that women are the root of all evil or the cause of our misfortunes. Even though my personal interaction with women has been bitter, that could be just as much my fault as theirs. And I quite enjoy their fussing and preening. I don’t think that has held back our national development any more than the fussing and preening of men.

No. What caught my attention was an interesting bit of history and a passing reference to a rare sociological experiment that provides a particularly stark illustration of the influence of women on society. The aim is to depict the power of the influence; no judgement is intended as to whether the influence was for the better or the worse.

This particular natural experiment was made possible by the shortening of travel time between England and India following the opening of Egypt at the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815. Prior to the opening, ships had to go around the Cape of Good Hope, a journey that consumed five to six months. Access through Egypt cut the time by more than half. One consequence was a major increase in the number of British women travelling to India.

From a gender perspective, this event divided British Indian society into two distinct eras — with and without a significant presence of British women. And, to read one account of the times, they were very different worlds indeed.

GS Cheema has written a valuable book on the history of the later emperors of the house of Babur (The Forgotten Mughals, Manohar Publishers, New Delhi, 2002). I will be referring to this book in a future column because, as the author remarks in the preface, “the great lessons of history are derived, if at all, from its darker periods... and fascinating parallels can be drawn with the political scene of today.” But, for the moment, let us confine ourselves to sociology and the arrival of the mem sahib in India.

Cheema writes that “in the old days, there were very few European women and the officers of the Company rarely went ‘home’ on leave. Usually they returned only on superannuation or when compelled by ill health. In India they lived like the Indian umara, and took to wife Indian ladies who were sometimes ladies of quality. From them they learnt the language and customs of the people, and acquired a much more sympathetic understanding of the complexities of the Indian world.”

The gentlemen of the old school “maintained Indian households with bibi-ghars and were perfectly at home in Persian and Hindustani.” For example, Lt-General Sir David Ochterlony, the first Resident at the court of Shah Alam II (1759-1806) lived the life of an oriental ameer “complete with hookah, oriental robes and a bibi-ghar well stocked with dusky beauties.” Ochterlony, who had been away from England for over 50 years, had thirteen Indian wives and every evening he escorted all of them around the Mughal capital, each on the back of her own elephant.

Ochterlony’s assistant William Fraser had six or seven wives. William Dalrymple writes in The White Mughals that at the beginning of the 19th century, such behaviour was far from unusual. During this period one in three British men in India was living with or married to an Indian woman. Ochterlony’s assistants included Edward Gardner and William Fraser, and, according to one shocked mem sahib, “both wear immense whiskers, and neither will eat beef or pork, being as much Hindoos as Christians, if not more; and, having come to this country early they have formed opinions and prejudices, that make them almost natives”.

Cheema depicts the Residency as an important centrr of social life. “Members of the imperial family... nawabs, rajas, and courtiers of the Qila-e-Mualla would be guests at entertainments which were of the traditional type... There was no attempt to replicate English garden parties or formal dinner-balls. Liquor flowed freely. In the background could be heard the gentle gurgle of the water-pipe or hookah, while the nautch girls danced to Persian or Hindostani songs.”

With the arrival of the white mem all this changed. “The bibi-ghars were shut down, concubinage went into the closet, and the mem laid down the law in her house.” In addition, “the onset of every cold season in India brought a number of unmarried English maidens — the ‘fishing fleet’ — who would come visiting relatives in India in the hope of hooking a husband.” This gave rise to an entirely new set of interests and the old social interactions became increasingly impossible to sustain.

It is easy to imagine the tensions building up as the aggrieved and shocked white women entered into competition with the dusky beauties to reclaim what they must have felt was legitimately theirs. The resentments and lack of knowledge of Indian languages must have aggravated and coloured their other interactions with the natives. As Cheema writes, “the easy intercourse between Indian and British officers became a thing of the past.”

It is fascinating to speculate on the direction of Indian history had the opening of Egypt been delayed another 100 years. As it was, just like the arrival of Eve in the Garden of Eden, the arrival of British women in India irrevocably altered the course of events. The dusky Indian beauties proved no match for the imperious British mems and the white Mughals crawled home with their tails between their legs. Perhaps they also grew to see India through the prejudiced eyes of their women.

Email: anjumaltaf@hotmail.com

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