Forging the Raj: Essays on British India in the Heyday of Empire

This set of essays written over a span of forty years from 1961 to 2002, examines the structure and working of the British Raj in India during the first half of Crown Rule (1858-1914). The essays are grouped under three general headings: land tenure and land policy, colonial architecture, and migration. Two themes dominate. One is an assessment of what the British thought they were doing in India, and second, how India ought to be ruled. In these essays, Thomas Metcalf examines British policies towards India and the way the British, as rulers, endeavoured to sustain and legitimate the imperial structure. He also explores the consequences of the ideas and policies as they affected the lives of ordinary Indians, from the landed elite to lowly policemen and labourers. Many of the essays- both those that examine policy and those that assess its consequences- take as a central turning point the revolt of 1857. The essays provide insight into varied ways in which the massive structure of the British Raj in India functioned in the heyday of empire. They give the reader some sense of the Raj as a functioning imperial government, and at the same time attempt to critically assess the various strategies that it devised to justify its rule.