In the Victorian Raj, Some Took Their Gin With Integrity - NY Times By WILLIAM GRIMES Published: February 17, 2006
In the palmy days when the sun never set on the British Empire, India was, in Disraeli's famous phrase, the jewel in the crown. Its vast territory, encompassing modern India, Pakistan, Myanmar and Bangladesh, was home to more than 300 million people, speaking hundreds of languages and dialects, divided by caste and religion and separated into a profusion of princely states. What they all had in common, in the Victorian era, was Britain, their imperial ruler. And Britain, in practice, meant the Indian Civil Service, the 800 or so government employees who kept the jewel polished. In "The Ruling Caste," David Gilmour takes a close look at this band of emissaries and the administrative machinery that made it possible for so few to rule so many. It is, in a way, a spinoff, or a series of outtakes, from "Curzon," his biography of India's most famous viceroy. It is also his opportunity to challenge the picture of the British administrators in India as the boorish, gin-swilling clubmen described by E. M. Forster in "A Passage to India." Read the rest at : http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/17/books/17book.html? ex=1141189200&en=1e403f33c682d3ed&ei=5070&emc=eta1