Skip to main content Skip to navigation

Race and the Late Colonial Order

This topic is partly intended as a review of the discussion so far, but more especially as a way of assessing how far the issues and practices surrounding race had been transformed by the 1920s and 1930s, especially in the light of the growth of the Gandhi-led Indian nationalist movement. Had the racism of the high colonial period been replaced by a more accommodating attitude (as through Indianization of the services) or was the effect of the rise of nationalism to make racial hostility more entrenched than ever? On Indianization, see Potter [71]. Of relevance, too, is again the question of gender and how far sexual relations assuaged or accentuated racial antipathy and colonial difference (see Hyam’s controversial study [47] and Forbes’ more gender-sympathetic account [41]).