British Classics Outside England: The Academy and Beyond

4: Greek, Latin, and the Indian Civil Service

61 iPhiroze Vasunia Greek, Latin, and the Indian Civil Service Chapter 4 The whole question of the future of the East is full of interest , and is, perhaps, the greatest political question in the world. —Benjamin Jowett1 . . . a corps of men specially selected, brought up in a rigour of bodily hardship to which no other modern people have subjected their ruling class, trained by cold baths, cricket, and the history of Greece and Rome. —Philip Mason2 In his essay “Comparativism and References to Rome in British Imperial Attitudes to India,” Javed Majeed shows how Greek and Latin figured prominently in the examinations for the Indian Civil Service, the prestigious administrative body that David Lloyd George called “the steel frame.”3 Greek and Latin were not just used to attract and shape a class of ruling “gentlemen,” but were also part of a complex structure of attitude and practice designed “to preserve the ICS as a monopoly of European 62 Phiroze Vasunia officers.”4 Majeed’s insightful essay sheds light on the role of the Indian Civil Service (ICS) examinations and on the function of classics in colonial contexts, although it is mainly about comparative approaches to the British and Roman empires. Much earlier, Robin Moore, J. M. Compton, and Clive Dewey also wrote about the examinations and the circumstances leading to their creation in the middle of the nineteenth century, and John Roach discussed them in the context of a larger Victorian interest in academic examinations.5 Richard Symonds, briefly and more recently, touched upon them in his Oxford and Empire, as did Christopher Stray in Classics Transformed.6 And there have been passing references in the scholarship here and there, and especially in ICS histories, to Lord Macaulay, Benjamin Jowett, and the rise of Greats. The time seems ripe to build on this work, to situate it more directly within the histories of empire and classics, and to explore details of the relationship that have remained obscure. My essay uses relatively neglected archival sources and critically develops this earlier material; it is offered as a contribution to our understanding of cultural reproduction, the politics of knowledge, and modes of colonial domination. Throughout the nineteenth century, the Indian Civil Service consisted largely of men who were born and recruited in Britain. Even after 1855, when it was thrown open to competitive examinations, the number of Indians who served in the ICS remained extremely low.7 By one count, the average number of recruits who attended Indian universities was never greater than four percent until about the end of the nineteenth century , and until the First World War the number of Indian servicemen still remained very low in comparison to their British counterparts. Despite the statements of many imperial policymakers in Britain, few real efforts were taken in the nineteenth century to increase substantially the number of native recruits, and the competitive examinations were not even held in India until 1922. Perhaps it is not surprising that the number of Indians in the ICS was kept low in the nineteenth century, given the role played by the bureaucracy in the maintenance of empire. The place, however, taken by Greek and Latin in this system of imperial control requires some comment. I do not say that Greek and Latin in themselves kept Indians out of the ICS. For a range of ideological reasons, the British imperial administration in the nineteenth century could never accept a large Indian presence in the Civil Service. After an Indian candidate , Satyendranath Tagore, the elder brother of Rabindranath Tagore, passed the competitive examination in 1864, for instance, the reaction of the authorities was to lower the maximum weight given to Sanskrit and Arabic in the examination.8 In this environment Indians were not likely to be encouraged to enter the ICS, and indeed many sections of the British government and press were explicitly against the opening of the service to Indian candidates. Greek, Latin, and the Indian Civil Service 63 At the same time, Victorian political and intellectual elites sought to manipulate admission to the Indian Civil Service and used it to further their own domestic agenda. As a consequence of their actions, Greek and Latin played a prominent part in the training and examination of recruits to the ICS, especially in the second half of the nineteenth century . It is true that Greek and Latin did have an important place in the...