‘Divide and Rule’? Race, Military Recruitment and Society in Late Nineteenth Century Colonial India

There is scarcely a society, throughout the empire, that British imperialism left undivided. The view that colonial rule in India was based upon the strategy of ‘divide and rule’ might seem to be a nationalist cliché, but is nevertheless substantially correct. That by the beginning of the twentieth century ‘small-time’ animosities could so easily become contests not between ‘individuals or small groups but between comprehensive categories’ was sufficient to demonstrate the success of the strategy—a strategy that culminated in the horrific violence that accompanied independence and partition.