Victory of the Victorians!-1.

            POEMS  AND POETS

             39.VICTORY OF THE VICTORIANS!-1.

Victoria became the Queen in 1837. She died in 1901. Her reign has come to be known as the Victorian Age.It was characterised by unbounded belief in Progress, unstoppable expansion, and mobility.

We may say the age really began in 1830, when railway line opened between Liverpool and Manchester for scheduled passenger traffic. It annihilated our old notions of time and distance, and provided a new dimension to mobility. As the age advanced, momentous changes shook society, the chief being the scientific advances, with Darwin's ideas of evolution topping the list. The 1857 rebellion in India had been brutally crushed, and India became the crown-jewel of Britain's colonies, Victoria being proclaimed Empress! This had given the Englishmen ideas of their own racial superiority, prompting some of them to proclaim that it was England's mission to civilise the world! Rudyard Kipling wrote of "the White Man's Burden"!

British colonialism had been spreading since the 17th century. But some thinkers had noted the greed behind it. Thus even in 1785, William Cowper wrote:

 Doing good,

Disinterested good, is not our trade.

We travel far,'tis true, but not for naught.

The loot and mal-administration of the Company in India had prompted Edmund Burke to prosecute Warren Hastings for impeachment. However the over all mood was one of imperialistic ambition, and Britain's role to civilise the world. Wilkie Collins, in his 1868 novel The Noonstone depicts how greed propelled imperialism. The story centres around a big diamond stolen from an Indian temple.  We are surprised to see even Romantic poets like Wordsworth and Coleridge expressing imperialist  sentiments. In 1814, Wordsworth wrote in Excursion:

So the wide wide waters, open to the power,

The Will,the instincts, and appointed needs

Of Britain, do invite her to cast off

Her swarms, and in succession to send them forth;

Bound to establish new communties

On every shore whose aspect favours hope

Of bold adventure.....

Your Country must complete

Her glorious destiny. Begin even now.

Similarly, Coleridge later said:

"Colonisation is not only a manifest expedient- but an imperative duty on Great Britain. God seems to hold out his finger to us over the sea."

It was not lost on the people that this meant a cultural conquest. Thus, Anna Barbauld wrote in Eighteen Hundred Eleven:

Wide spreads thy race from Ganges to the pole'

O'er half the western world thy accents roll:

....Thy stores of knowledge the new states shall know,

And think thy thoughts, and with thy fancy glow;

Thy Lockes,thy Paleys shall instruct their youth,

Thy leading star direct their search for truth;

Beneath the spreading Platan's tent-like shade,

Or by Missouri's rushing waters laid,

'Old father Thames' shall be the port's theme,

Of Hagley's woods the enamoured virgin dream,

And Milton's tones the raptured ear enthral,

Mixt with the roar of Niagara's fall.

And this is exactly what happened when Macaulay introduced his scheme of education in India in 1836: we were taught to think their thoughts, imitate their manners- something which is continuing still, after we attained nominal Independence over 60 years ago! (Anna Barbauld was actually a radical and supported non-conformist causes, and predicted the collapse of Britain's dreams of wealth.) But Kipling's 'The White Man's Burden' beats all.

The White Man's Burden  (1899)

Take up The White Man's burden, Send forth the best ye breed,

Go bind your sons to exile, to serve your captives' need;

To wait in heavy harness, On fluttered fold and wild-

Your new caught sullen peoples, Half-devil and half-child.

Take up the White man's burden, No tawdry rule of kings,

But toil of serf and sweeper, The tale of common things,

The ports ye shall not enter, The roads ye shall not tread,

Go mark them with your living, And mark them with your dead.

Take up the White Man's burden, ye dare not stoop to less-

Nor call too loud on Freedom, To cloke your weariness;

By all ye cry or whisper, By all ye leave or do,

The silent, sullen peoples Shall weigh your gods and you.

Take up the White man's burden, have done with childish days-

The lightly proferred laurel, the ungrudged praise,

Comes now to search your manhood, Through all the thankless                                                                                                    years,

Cold, edged with dear-bought wisdom, The  judgment of your                                                                                                    peers!

This poem has been interpreted in various ways. Some feel it is just a satire. Some see philanthropic ideas in it. But given the overall approach of Kipling to imperialism, it is clear that it speaks of a political and cultural mission on the part of Britain to civilise the world- where people are half-devil, half-child! Such views combined with Christian missionary activities to perpetuate the myth of the British empire where the sun never set.

However, the gods mock at our puny efforts. Kipling wanted Britain to send the best it bred. But the likes of Clive and Warren Hastings did not represent the best breed! It is certainly a great irony that perhaps the best bred Briton to come to India was Lord Mountbatten with his Royal blood, and he came to liquidate the empire!  He was so eager to get rid of the burden of India!Jai Hind!