Is the TV show Beecham House a case of Raj nostalgia? Two British historians weigh in - Hindustan Times
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Is the TV show Beecham House a case of Raj nostalgia? Two British historians weigh in

Hindustan Times | ByManik Sharma
Aug 03, 2019 05:58 PM IST

The series is critical of the East India Company, but has received negative reviews for it’s White saviour complex.

Gurinder Chadha’s latest series, Beecham House, is set in late 18th century India. Its protagonist is a former East India Company soldier John Beecham who returns to Delhi to become a trader. A host of other motley brown and white characters surround Beecham who anchors the series. Beecham House, available on Netflix in India, from 22nd July has come out in interesting times. On one hand England is struggling to arrive at a Brexit deal a year after if voted to leave the European Union and on the other its relationship with former colonies is being re-romanticised in popular culture. Beecham House follows Indian Summers (2015) and The Good Karma Hotel (2017) in situating British stories and characters in India, a trope that peaked in the 80s, with what is now known as ‘Raj Nostalgia’.

Beecham House follows a former East India Company soldier, John Beecham, as he returns to Delhi to become a trader in the late 18th century.
Beecham House follows a former East India Company soldier, John Beecham, as he returns to Delhi to become a trader in the late 18th century.

Nostalgia for the Raj hit a ceiling during the ’80s, with films like A Passage to India (1984), Heat and Dust (1983) and the mammoth TV series Jewel In the Crown (1984). “Firstly, this isn’t the Raj. This is the East India Company, a period in the late 18th century while the French were still in India. It is in that sense novel and shows a period that at least I haven’t seen before on television. Also we must note it has been directed by a British Indian and is quite critical of the East India Company,” historian William Dalrymple says about the series that has received underwhelming reviews even in the UK.

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Chadha’s series criticises the East India Company, but makes sure its White characters are packed with nobility and heroism.
Chadha’s series criticises the East India Company, but makes sure its White characters are packed with nobility and heroism.

WHAT IS RAJ NOSTALGIA?

For decades, the White man in colonial India has been presented on screen as the befuddled do-gooder, the civiliser, the savior, or some combination of all three. The films themselves may be works of art, but their bias is glaring in retrospect. Here are just three examples

The Jewel in the Crown (TV series, 1984): Based on a series of novels by the author Paul Scott, this series somehow manages to turn the British into heroes, much-put-upon ladies, and gallant gentlemen even though it’s set in the last days of the Raj, during and after the second world war.

A Passage to India (1984): Based on EM Forster’s 1924 novel of the same name, this tale has an Indian man falsely accused of sexually assaulting a woman. She later nobly admits she was mistaken, hallucinating from the effect of all the exoticness she faced in this wild country. The Indian and the firangs are friends by the end.

Heat and Dust (1983): There is, of course, the title. And then the fact that the protagonist is a good White woman and loving wife who fights all the biases of her peers only to be seduced by a lustful nawab. Strong female characters notwithstanding, the irony of inherent bias remains.

A large chunk of these negative reviews criticised the show’s white saviour complex. In the first scene itself, Beecham saves an Indian family from dacoits. “The saviour complex exists because all popular drama needs heroes, and broadcasters (even Gurinder Chadha) think enough of those heroes need to be white to get their series commissioned and watched; that’s the laziness I’m talking about,” historian Jon Wilson says before adding “They are obsessed with mixed race relationships, and children. It’s the ‘Kim complex’, a fantasy about having a familiar relationship with India which was – because of empire and its aftermath – impossible in practice.”

Chadha’s series openly criticises the East India Company, but makes sure nobility and heroism remains the preserve of its white characters. Most Indians make up the numbers. Strangely, Chadha’s last project, Partition 1947, was similarly kind on its white characters as well. Dalrymple believes that Indians also needs to acknowledge the disregard most men of the Raj showed towards affairs related to India. “There was definitely a period in the 80s when nostalgia for the Raj was high. But something that often goes unacknowledged is the lack of interest the British showed in their operations in India even during the Raj. Debates about India’s affairs were relatively few in the House of Commons,” he says .

 

Why then did something like nostalgia for the Raj surface during the 80s? “Empire reoccurs as Britain’s political unconscious, used as a stage on which Britons can play out their fears, hopes, fantasies and anxieties about themselves. Empire, and India, is a safe place to do that because they are so irrevocably in the past. Ultimately though, it’s all very narcissistic. The representation of India in the British media is about Britain and not India,” Wilson says. That a show like Beecham House, with its design-heavy sets and period paraphernalia is still getting a fair share of attention is indication of the fact that there is a sizeable audience for such projects in UK.

While Beecham House is superficially critical of the East India Company, it simply fails to rise over standard clichés that seem permanently stitched to the fabric used to represent India’s shared history with the empire. Whites were bad, but the good ones were greater than the greatest. That said, both Wilson and Dalrymple agree Raj nostalgia isn’t making a comeback. “In the UK I don’t think there has simply been resurgence of nostalgia for the Raj. We’ve seen the emergence of a new polarised debate about the Raj, with arguments for and against both strengthening,” Wilson says.

The problems both believe run far deeper. “I don’t think romance for the Raj is re-emerging. In fact, I think people in Britain are so ill-qualified and shockingly ignorant of the history of the empire that they probably cannot contemplate their own past. It is natural to take pride in your ancestors, to believe they were benign, which explains the lens most Britons look at India with,” Dalrymple says. While shows like Beecham House are likely to only hurt a conversation that needs to be driven by sensitivity, not clichéd exoticism, things need to change on a granular level. “I’d like to see serious collaboration; how about jointly produced TV programmes, or co-written history textbooks or syllabi that are taught in both British and India (as well as Pakistani and Bangladeshi) schools. In doing so, both sides would need to be willing to question their presuppositions,” Wilson says.

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