Charles Grant
Observations on the State of Society among the Asiatic Subjects of Great Britain (1792)
MissionaryAnglican
Part I, Section III
The Hindoos err, because they are ignorant; and their errors have never fairly been laid before them. The communication of our light and knowledge to them would prove the best remedy for their disorders; and this remedy is proposed from a full conviction that if judiciously and patiently applied, it would have great and happy effects upon them — effects honourable and advantageous for us.
✦ Commentary
Grant's "Observations" (1792) is the foundational text of the civilizing mission. Notice the structure: Indians "err" because of ignorance (not malice), and "our light and knowledge" is the cure. This is the template that Nehruvian modernism would later secularize — India is backward because of ignorance, and Western-style education/science is the remedy.
Themes
Moral Character of IndiansIndia as Degenerate CivilizationChristianity as the Apex
Discursive Strategies
Heathen Darkness Metaphor
Source Type
Published Book
↯ Tracing the Causal Chain
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Missionaryinfluenced
Alexander Duff, India and India Missions
“The English language is the lever by which the edifice of Hinduism must be overturned. Through it, we introduce the youth of India to the sciences of the West, to the history of nations, and above all...”
Grant's diagnosis — Indians err because of ignorance, "our light and knowledge" is the cure — directly provides the rationale for Duff's program 47 years later. Duff makes explicit what Grant implied: English education is the "lever" to overturn Hinduism. The civilizing mission generates the conversion infrastructure.
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Missionaryinfluenced
William Carey, An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens
“Multitudes of them have perished, and are still perishing in their sins, and that notwithstanding the light of nature, and the remains of Noachic tradition, the heathens are universally given to idola...”
Carey's soteriological absolutism — all non-Christians are in "perdition" — provides the theological foundation for Grant's secular-sounding civilizational critique. Once eternal damnation is established, the diagnosis of ignorance and moral failure follows logically. The civilizing mission is conversion by other means.