The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj

Marvellous picture of how British India was run. Detailed, fabulously well researched, thorough and endlessly enjoyable. Whatever one's views on the role of the British in India - and of colonialism generally - this book paints a vivid picture of an exceptional administrative service, a 'Ruling Caste', made up largely of very dedicated and hard-working men, that was in many ways benign and well intentioned and which helped make India the global player it is today.

There still seems to be an enduring fascination with Britain's colonial history, a certain glamour and exoticism that survives despite the criticism and disapproval of the reasons for being there in the first place. This book fully exposes how little glamour and exoticism there actually was in the service of the Raj, how hard and gruelling the life of an Indian Civil Service officer (known as Civilians to distinguish them from the Army) could be, how lonely and isolating. Some men thrived, others sickened or went mad; some rose to the challenge, others were disorganised, inefficient and incompetent. Some were never promoted to the level they believed they deserved; others went all the way up to Viceroy. David Gilmour's book follows the life of an ICS Civilian from recruitment to pension, charting the rise and fall of trends and empire-building, ranging from holidays at hill stations like Sinda and Ooty, to the 'frontiers' of the North-West Provinces, Burma and Aghanistan. It looks at the kind of men attracted to the ICS, how they were chosen, what their postings involved, the different roles and stations, their leisure time and personal lives. I could have done with more of a focus on the lives of their families, particularly the women - it must have been an incredibly lonely life for a new wife or mother. But the focus in this is very much on the men, not their dependants. You wouldn't have thought a book about a civil service, even the Indian Civil Service, could be so interesting, but I thoroughly enjoyed this. Gilmour takes a very balanced approach, at no point approving of Britain's colonial past, but by the same token not condemning the men of the time by today's standards. The majority of the men in the ICS felt they were doing their very best for the people of India; some even went on to support independence. It would be unfair to dismiss all their motives as racist and self-serving, despite the inherent paternalistic oppression in the very nature of colonialism.

An excellent read.

Interesting but one-sided

nostalgic history.

I much enjoyed this picture of Civil Service lives in the British Raj. I'm currently trying to reconstruct the life of one of my ancestors, and this book gave me the real flavour of British lives in India.'The Ruling Caste' is extensively researched and explores the British Library's rich collection of manuscripts and government records to create a tapestry of stories from individual lives. Beautifully written,scholarly, entertaining and politically balanced,the book was only slightly marred for me by an irritatingly limited index. Other books from David Gilmour: The Long Recessional: The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling ; Curzon

EXCELLENT

This is an excellent book on how the men of the Indian Civil Service worked and lived from chota hazri to sundown; how a mere 100,000 men governed 300 million people in British India ; a story of how young men from Britain adapted to life in India as griffins , district officer, magistrates etc, of gymkhana , tiffin , punkah and pig-sticking. Gilmour has written a wonderful history full of anecdotes. Anyone interested in the history of the British Raj should read this book.

Yet to read a proud collection in my library in the British India section well researched and well written work of the author read introduction and acknowledgements found intriguing

"The Ruling Caste" by David Gilmour gives an excellent and evocative account of how British civilian officials lived their lives in the Raj (ie not the military, business people or missionaries). He covers how they were trained, their working routines, how they found wives, entertainment, sports and much else. Many books on the history of British India focus on the big picture and the comings and goings of the senior officials in the Government and Military. Gilmour's book describes how the majority of officials lived and worked at the grassroots level of villages and districts: what exactly they did each day, how a magistrate did his job and so on. Kipling's stories describe many of the same types of people, but of course they are fictionalised accounts which may be overly sympathetic or exaggerated in other ways. However, contemporaries in India frequently commented on their generally accurate portrayals. Colonialism is often criticised because of our understandable repugnance of one country imposing its rule over the population of another. In principle this is fair, but criticism by historians is often taken to the extreme of refusing to accept that anything good ever came out of colonialism. This is especially unfair to the British, who did not behave with the rapacity and cruelty of other colonial powers of the day. Gilmour's book and others like it redress the balance somewhat by describing lives of duty, sacrifice and affection for the people they ruled. Others became internationally respected for their work as historians, linguists and protectors of Indian cultural heritage. Another paid for the construction of a canal out of his own pocket - one of many similar, if less spectacular, examples of personal largesse. Reading this book one cannot escape the feeling that there was a certain nobility and decency about the work of many officials of the Indian Civil Service, especially those working in Districts where they were in intimate contact with villagers. District Officers were mostly young men in their twenties in charge of a District of up to a million people, with perhaps only a few other British officials - or even none at all. The opportunities for corruption, oppression or debauchery are obvious, but by and large these young men were incorruptible and behaved with great honour. These decent lives deserve to be better known and Gilmour's book does them justice. Today, mere "celebrity" is often applauded as heroism and talent, so it is good to read about true heroes and genuinely talented people who did not court publicity but just went about their unsung work in India, often for a lifetime. Of course they were not all hard-working saints and Gilmour gives sufficient examples to make this clear. India had its share of "bad bargains", eccentrics and mavericks and Gilmour describes their exploits with sympathy and dry humour. Some of these tales are gems. Readers interested in how the Raj was run and the people who ran it will love this book. I also recommend it as an antidote to contemporary celebrity worship, so we may compare the enduring, worthwhile qualities of the best of those who served the Raj, with the ephemeral appeal of many celebrities, whose fleeting reputations depend on media attention to create and sustain them.

This book is a very readable and attractive account of the daily lives of the members of the Indian Civil Service over the last hundred years or so of the British Imperial presence in India. The astonishing small number (about 1000 members at any one time) of the British civilian government administration of India was a marvel in its time, and this book outlines the conditions of the work, the day-to-day activities, the rules and ideals that distinguished the behaviour of the governing class. The author looks at the hardships and rewards of their lives and those of their families both in India and afterwards, living out their days in English suburbs still haunted by India. Out of tune with the modern 'evils of imperialism' trend, it is nevertheless a useful corrective in its detailed assembling of facts and numbers. The author concludes with the inscription on the memorial plaque in Westminster Abbey: 'They served India well.' A book well worth reading for its judgement and balance.

日本語でもいくつか類書はでています。これは本家本元の作品です。3億人とも言われるインドの行政を実質的に担ったindian civil service（ICS)の官僚たちがこの作品の主人公です。それもどちらかというと１９世紀が中心となっています。ICS自体はもちろんインド独立まで存在したのですが、独立運動の高まりと共に明確にその終わりが意識されだした時代は避けられています。彼らのリクルート、背景、教育、仕事、キャリア、異端者、収入、余暇の過ごし方、夫婦生活、家族関係そして引退が細かくたどられています。数多くのICS官僚の未発表のprivate papersが参照されています。著者は明確にいわゆるカルスタ流の角度からこの素材にアプローチすることを否定しており、あくまでも当時の現実の中でのICS官僚の姿をたどるという禁欲的な姿勢に達しています。決して宗教や部族間対立を引き起こすことなく、インフラと法制度を整備し、教育を推進したICSの功績をたたえる著者のアプローチはたしかに厚顔といえるものですが、これはイギリス人の本音なのでしょう。ただ途中でそのディテールに閉口してしまう部分も見受けられます。ICS官僚の引退後の生活の部分はこれまで余り取り上げられることなく、非常に参考になりました。引退後の彼らの英国での生活は、世界における存在感の喪失と英国の現実との接点の喪失という退屈で報われないものです。そういう意味では最後に挙げられているエリザベス女王のmemorial tabletは象徴的なものです。

At the outset let me say that The Ruling Caste is a valuable book for those serious about learning some of the ins and outs of the system and personalities that ruled India in the Victorian era: academics and the merely interested. Author Gilmour has consulted a tremendous number of sources both official and personal and the sheer volume of his research adds considerable value to his study. In addition the book is extremely readable. Though it may not necessarily be a page turner for the average reader, Gilmour's facility with language combined with thorough research reminds me of--dare I say--many of the books by Bill Bryson. (That's praise.) Nevertheless I have some quibbles. While the book contains a tremendous amount of information, one all too often feels that the author isn't trying to make any important points. Yes, life in India was difficult, separation from home was keenly felt, there were some awesome achievements by stellar personalities, the responsibilities were tremendous, and when it was all over and people went "Home" they too often found themselves misfits and griped that nobody really cared about what they had done. None of these points is terribly new or revealing. Moreover, when the author chooses to tread on tricky ground--tackling the question of whether or not the Anglo-Indians in the Indian Civil Service were racists--he tends to drop the ball. I was disappointed to read that because low opinions about some of the people they ruled were not based on physical characteristics, but rather reflected a belief that British civilization was of a higher order than Indian civilization, those who held such views should not be considered racist. In fact, it doesn't make those people heroes, either. Ethnocentric stereotypes, whether based on physical characteristics or cultural traits, are just plain wrong and deserve condemnation, not a gloss. Finally, putting characters such as Arthur Travers Crawford in a section about "black sheep" trivializes the serious effects of their wrongdoing on others whose lives they affected. In sum, this isn't necessarily a book for all specialists. If the non-specialists can deal with some of the weak points, it's a tome worth a read.