Rajiva Wijesinha

“ They have to stand up for him even when they know he has behaved appallingly, and conversely they cannot unbend with the Indians they see as comparatively a threat. What softness they display extends only to those they do not fear, the unsophisticated and helpless, as with the woman Robin White remembers as feeding him curds when he was sick. ”

“ Conversely, Scott illustrates the civilized aspects of British colonialism through a series of women, young ones who have affairs with Indians, older ones who express their commitment even more strikingly through gestures that establish their alienation from their own countrymen.
Interestingly enough, the men who see themselves as very different from Merrick are incapable of such gestures. Scott makes clear how they see Merrick as their dark side, something to be deplored, but at the same time they cannot do without him. ”

“ Underlying this is the notion, which British women in both cases enunciate, that the Indians have learnt only too well British lessons about good form. Yet the interpretations Sarila provides of interactions in the last days of empire suggest something more. Where the British, either naturally, or because they were trained for an empire in which they had to stand aloof, controlled their softer feelings, the Indians naturally gave them free rein. As Verma suggests, this was part of a mindset that did not dichotomize, that saw even practitioners of empire as human. ”