Discuss the role of gender in British India.
What will be an ideal response?
Answers will vary. Students should reflect an understanding of the paternalism that was part and parcel of the colonial project, particularly in India, a relationship that set the British up as a father-figure who needed to teach the barbarians how to improve. Nevertheless, the group most receptive to British culture, the middle-class Bengali babus, was mocked as being effeminate and incapable of independent action. The word babu, which in Bengali denoted a respected educated figure, when used by the British meant a half-educated, slavish, and rather contemptible figure who was neither British nor Indian and neither man nor woman.The gendering of British colonialism differentiated sharply between the manly "martial races" such as the Sikhs and the "effeminate" Bengalis. Predictably, imperialists equated manliness with strength, goodness, and progress, while so-called effeminate tendencies bore a negative connotation of corruption, weakness, and backwardness. The British ascribed to themselves manly virtues such as bravery, decisiveness, and energy. The Indian masses, in contrast, were denigrated as passive, backward, and unambitious.
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