Colonial Westernization in Nineteenth-Century British India

Abstract

Imperial coexistence between the Indians and the British during the nineteenth century led the former to imitate European culture on a large scale. The Indian society was increasingly submitted to the transplantation of Western thinking, spirituality, and technical science. During their long-term colonial presence in India, the British extended their domination and penetration there by means of great multifarious renovating contribution. India was persistently the scene of deliberate adaptation in both education and infrastructure after the fashion of the British metropolis in such a way as to meet the latter’s interests. While a series of historians are persuaded of the regenerative quality of this colonial contribution vis-à-vis the colonized, many others view it rather as destructive vis-à-vis India’s economy and moral or cultural ancestral values.