User:Aphers/Effeminate babu

Effeminate Babu
Not to be confused with the term Babu.

The term Effeminate Babu, was used during the time of Colonial India to describe a stereotype of Bengali men. The stereotype did not apply to all Bengali men, but to Western-educated men who created a new middle class. These males differentiated themselves from traditional religious elites and landowners as well as from those of a lower class. When the British Crown took over following the Revolt of 1857 against the inept administration of the East India Company, it needed Western-educated Indians within its structure, reflecting the famous goal of creating “a class of persons Indian in colour and blood, but English in tastes, in opinions, in morals and in intellect” articulated by Lord Macaulay two decades earlier in his Minute on Education (1835).

It was by the late nineteenth century when the Western educated Middle-class Indians wanted privileges that had previously accorded only to colonizing elites. The late nineteenth-century stereotype of the effeminate Bengali babu modified a mid-century stereotype of Bengalis as feeble, languid, cowardly, and avoiding conflict. By late century, the term Bengali babu had come to connote for the British, “the grandiose pretensions and the economic impotence of the potentially disloyal anglicized or English educated Indian.”

Effeminate vs. Babu
The meaning for the word “Babu” was changed, reflecting the colonial racial politics during this time. The term originally acted as a title of respect but was later changed to imply negative connotations (such as social climbing and greed). In the late nineteenth century it was described as “the grandiose pretensions and the economic impotence of the potentially disloyal Anglicized or English educated Indian”.

Ilbert Bill
During the time of the Ilbert Bill (1883), Anglo-Indians mobilized to combat legislation and by doing so, changed the imagery of the ‘effeminate babu’. By claiming that the effeminate babus were weak and unmanly, the Anglo-Indians were making a claim that they were unfit to rule a race that was stronger than them. A Glance in Advance or What’s in Store for ’84, claimed that the Bill’s policy of placing a weakling race over manlier ones would lead to a total collapse of law and order in India.