British Muslims: Past,Present and Future

Abstract: Around the European Union, the implication by large sections of society is that there is something intrinsically different about Islam that makes it difficult to integrate Muslims into European societies. Some of these sections of society are non‐Muslim, and are reluctant to allow such integration to take place; others are Muslim. These sentiments raise a number of issues relating to plural identities and their compatibility with modern day Europe and Islam, with such issues finding variable expressions in member‐states. The British example represents an illustrative case study, having a long history of interaction with Muslims and being the home of a large Muslim population. History bears witness that in terms of religious diversity, the U.K. was never a monolithic society based on a monoculture. From the Middle Ages until the beginning of the twentieth century, there is strong evidence to show that there was, at the least, British contact with Muslims. In Britain, just as all over Europe, Islam has a long lineage: “For British Muslims, the past does not have to be ‘another country.’”     

Review Article:Rediscovering India under the British

O.P. KEJARIWAL. The Asiatic Society of Bengal and the Discovery of India's Past 1784–1838. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Pp. xiv, 293. $24.95 (US);

TAPAN RAYCHAUDHUM. Europe Reconsidered: Perceptions of the West in Nineteenth Century Bengal. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989. Pp. xviii, 369. $39.95 (US);

JOAN G. ROLAND. Jews in British India: Identity in a Colonial Era. Hanover, N.H. and London: University Press of New England, 1989. Pp. xiii, 355. $40.00 (US);

NANCY GARDNER CASSELS. Religion and Pilgrim Tax under the Company Raj. Riverdale, Md.: The Riverdale Company, 1988. Pp. xiii, 184. $34.00 (US);

APARNA MUKHERJEE. British Colonial Policy in Burma: An Aspect of Colonialism in South-East Asia 1840–1885. Riverdale, Md.: The Riverdale Company, 1988. Pp. x, 559. $34.00 (US).     

The Long Goodbye: British Agency in the Creation of Navies for India and Pakistan

The armed forces of India and Pakistan draw legacies from a common British imperial past. British influence persisted in the navies that emerged from independence and partition on the South Asia subcontinent. Complaints over treatment and other grievances in the colonial Royal Indian Navy underscored a major mutiny in February 1946, prior to division of warships, shore-based establishments and personnel between the two countries. The transformation into truly national navies was long and involved, buttressed by continued reliance on British professional expertise and arms transfers. While the Admiralty offered warships on the basis of association with the commonwealth and defence cooperation in the Indian Ocean, navies in India and Pakistan led by senior British officers pursued distinct agendas and force structures that more and more looked towards potential war against each other. Louis Mountbatten, the last British viceroy, intervened often in naval matters before and after partition, encouraging Indians and Pakistanis to build up naval forces suited to national needs as well as serving British interests and imperial defence commitments during the early Cold War. Continued British presence impaired full nationalisation and the assumption of higher leadership roles by qualified indigenous naval officers in the newly independent commonwealth nations.     

James Mill's treatment of religion and the History of British India

James Mill's History of British India’ (1817) played a major role in re-shaping the English policy and attitudes in India throughout the nineteenth century. This article questions the widely held view that the ‘HBI’ heralded the utilitarian justification of colonisation found for instance in John Stuart Mill's writings. It suggests that James Mill's role as a proponent of ‘utilitarian imperialism’ has been overstated, and argues that much of Mill's criticism of Indian society arose from the continuing influence of his religious education as well as from his links with a network of Presbyterian and Evangelical thinkers. It is only after his death that the colonialist views put forward in the History of British India were re-interpreted in light of his later attachment to utilitarianism.     

论英国对印度殖民统治体制的形成及影响

从美国独立到拿破仑战争结束这32年时间内,英国调整了对印度的殖民统治政策。受工业革命以及福音教派运动的影响,英国政府改变了过去那种赤裸裸的殖民掠夺、殖民压迫政策,而在表面上代之以为土著人殖民地建立良好的政府,消除暴政、杜绝腐败、发展教育,这在一定程度上促进了殖民地经济文化的发展,从而“充当了历史的不自觉的工具”。英国对印度殖民新的统治体制的形成,对于英帝国的发展壮大意义重大。