Imperial Responsibilities: Britain’s Destitute Indians and Questions of (Un)Belonging, 1834-1914 Raminder K. Saini Department of History and Classical Studies Faculty of Arts McGill University, Montreal August 2017 A thesis submitted to McGill University in partial fulfillment of the requirements of the degree of Doctor of Philosophy © Raminder Saini 2017 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abstract ......................................................................................................................................... iii Résumé .......................................................................................................................................... iv Acronyms and Abbreviations .........................................................................................................v List of Tables, Figures, and Illustrations ...................................................................................... vi Acknowledgements ...................................................................................................................... vii Introduction ...................................................................................................................................1 Historiography: Britain’s South Asian Past ...........................................................................8 Scope of Study: Towards a History of Destitute Indians .....................................................16 Chapter One – “Protection for Lascars”: Creating Spaces for Relief ...................................24 The East India Company and Distressed Lascars in the Early 1800s ..................................27 Indians in the Workhouse .....................................................................................................40 Finding a Solution: A “Home” for “Strangers” ....................................................................43 The Opening of the Strangers’ Home for Asiatics ..............................................................51 Conclusion: Cultivating a Social Responsibility to Help .....................................................60 Chapter Two – In and Out of the Strangers’ Home: The Experience of Indians in London’s East End ......................................................................................................................62 1857: From Rebellion to Racial Discourse .........................................................................66 The Residents of the Strangers’ Home ................................................................................74 Helping Indians Outside of the Strangers’ Home ................................................................87 Conclusion: Protecting Indians or Protecting Britons? .......................................................98 Chapter Three – “There is a work to be done at home”: Missionaries and their Work Among Britain’s Destitute Indians ..........................................................................................101 Imperial Missions within the Metropolis ...........................................................................103 Joseph Salter: The First Missionary to Asiatics, 1857-1876 ..............................................112 George Small and Carl Haupt: Strangers’ Home Missionaries, 1876-1896 ......................122 The Asiatic Rest ................................................................................................................129 Conclusion: The Impact of Missions to Britain’s Domestic “Heathens” ..........................138 Chapter Four – The India Office: Evading Institutional Responsibilities ..........................140 Seeking Institutional Relief at the India Office .................................................................143 The 1880s: Reconsidering Repatriation and Responsibility .............................................152 Indian Performers and Policy at the Turn of the Century .................................................163 Conclusion: The Fissures of Imperial Policy ....................................................................170 Chapter Five – New Challenges at the Turn of the Century: Zemindars, Sailors, and Students ......................................................................................................................................174 A Moral Dilemma: The Indian “Petitioner Class” ............................................................177 Towards an Inquiry: African Sailors and Indian Students ................................................189 1910: A Government Inquiry and Official Reports ...........................................................197 Conclusion: Reinforcing an Ambiguous Status Quo .........................................................210 Conclusion .................................................................................................................................213 Bibliography ................................................................................................................................221 ii ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the history of destitute Indians in Britain from 1834 to 1914. It focuses particularly on sailors and servants who worked on ships bound for Britain in hopes of good wages and promises of return. On arrival, many of these individuals were abandoned by their British employers, and were left without food, shelter, and resources. This dissertation investigates the experiences of these abandoned Indian migrants through a study of their interactions with Britons in the metropole. It looks specifically at the intervention, or lack thereof, of social and political institutions. Chiefly, it studies the contrast between the treatment of destitute Indians by administrators at the Strangers’ Home for Asiatics, Africans, and South Sea Islanders, and officials within the India Office. Whereas the India Office persistently evaded any responsibility for the destitute, the Strangers’ Home became a refuge where charity was offered in the form of food, lodging, and repatriation. In examining Anglo-Indian interactions and questions of social, political, legal, and moral responsibility, the dissertation simultaneously sheds light on how and where Indians fit within the notion of British subjecthood, a concept that remained undefined and contested throughout this period. At once belonging to and being separate from Britain, destitute Indians occupied an ambiguous zone of (un)belonging in the British world. iii RÉSUMÉ Cette thèse examine l’histoire des Indiens démunis en Grande-Bretagne de 1834 à 1914. Elle se concentre spécifiquement sur les marins et les domestiques qui ont travaillé au bord des navires destinés à la Grande-Bretagne dans l’espoir d’y retrouver un salaire décent et un retour à leur terre natale. Dès leur arrivée, plusieurs de ces travailleurs ont été abandonnés par leurs employeurs britanniques et laissés sans nourriture, abri ou ressources. Cette thèse considère les expériences de ces migrants indiens délaissés en analysant leurs interactions avec les Britanniques en métropole. Elle s’intéresse surtout à l’intervention, ou la non-intervention, des institutions sociales et politiques. Elle expose principalement les différences entre le traitement des Indiens démunis par les administrateurs du « Strangers’ Home for Asiatics, Africans, and South Sea Islanders » et les officiels travaillant au sein du « India Office ». Alors que le « India Office » a continuellement évité d’assumer la responsabilité pour les démunis, le « Strangers’ Home » est devenu un refuge, c’est-à-dire un endroit où la charité était offerte sous forme de nourriture, d’hébergement et de rapatriement. En examinant les relations anglo-indiennes, ainsi que les questions politiques, légales, morales et de responsabilité sociale, la thèse explore le contexte et les méthodes empruntées par les Indiens pour se conformer aux principes de la citoyenneté (« subjecthood ») britannique, malgré la nature contestée et changeante de ceux-ci à cette époque. À la fois intégrés et à l’écart de la Grande Bretagne, les Indiens démunis ont occupé une zone ambiguë de (non)appartenance dans le monde britannique. iv ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS Acronyms BMS Baptist Missionary Society CMS Church Missionary Society EIC East India Company LCM London City Mission LCMM London City Mission Magazine LMS London Mission Society ODNB Oxford Dictionary of National Biography SPG Society for the Propagation of the Gospel SPCK Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge Archival Abbreviations BL The British Library, London CMS Church Missionary Society, Archives, Cadbury Research Library, Birmingham IOR India Office Records, British Library, London LSE London School of Economics SOAS School of Oriental and Asian Studies, University of London THLHA Tower Hamlets’ Local History Library and Archives TNA The National Archives, Kew WRR Wolfson Reading Room, Special Collections, University of Aberdeen, Scotland v LIST OF TABLES, FIGURES, AND ILLUSTRATIONS Illustration 1.1 – The Strangers’ Home for Asiatics, Africans, and South Sea Islanders ……… 54 Table 2.1 – Occupations of residents of the Strangers’ Home, 1864-73 ……………………..... 78 Figure 2.1 – Admissions into the Strangers’ Home for Asiatics from 1857-1915 …………….. 82 vi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Writing a dissertation is not easy, but it would have been impossible without the boundless amount of support I have received during my time at McGill University. First and foremost, I owe a huge debt of gratitude to my supervisor, Elizabeth