Class, Identity and Empire: Scotsmen and Indian Education in the Nineteenth Century

India is the corn chest for Scotland, where we poor gentry must send our youngest sons as we send black cattle to the south, – Walter Scott, 1821.

The monolithic construction of identities by the imperialist and anti-imperialist historiographies of Indian education undermines the specific regional and class identities of historical actors. In other areas, the Scottish-Indian connection, as distinct from the British-Indian connection, has been explored by several historians. G. J. Bryant, Victor Kiernan, Douglas Peers, Andrew Mackillop and T. M. Devine have explored the Scottish -Indian connection in terms of the contribution of Scottish soldiers and officers in the process of building the British Empire and the consequent economic advantage that Scotland derived from it.