who themselves were not unanimous. Most notably, while the Company tradi-
tionally held that its position required it to refrain from interference in Indian
society, some of its high officials thought that reform of society was a positive
duty, without which its presence in India would be unjustified. Such officials
included Lord Bentinck (1774–1839), Governor-General from 1828 to 1835,
who came to India imbued with the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham, and Sir
Charles Grant (1746–1832), a member of the evangelical Clapham Sect, who
believed that society could only be reformed by conversion to Christianity.
Besides the Company’s employees, the British in India included independent
entrepreneurs, journalists, and missionaries, all of whom were regarded with
hostility by the Company. Matters of public policy were debated by members of
all these groups, and by an increasing number of Indians. Debate was carried
on in print and in public meetings; and these, together with formal petitions,
influenced the Governor-General and his subordinates to the extent to which
they were willing, or considered themselves obliged, to listen. One of the recur-
rent questions was whether there was, or ever could be, a truly representative
public opinion in India.
New Communications
The nineteenth century saw rapid increases in communications, spreading from
the three seaports in which British power was based: Bombay (Mumbai), Madras
(Chennai), and Calcutta (Kolkata), the capital of British India and seat of the
Governor-General until 1911. The Grand Trunk Road linking Calcutta with the
upper Ganges basin was developed from 1836 onwards. The first telegraph line
was laid in 1852, from Calcutta to Diamond Harbour, and the first 200 miles of
railway were built between 1853 and 1856, starting at Bombay; by 1880 the
railways had reached 4,300 miles (Schwartzberg 1978: 61; Bayly 1988: 198).
Besides facilitating the movement of goods and people, the railways provided
men from the presidency towns with employment opportunities elsewhere,
which facilitated the spread of ideas: for instance, many of the branches of the
Bra ̄hmo Sama ̄j which opened in the second half of the nineteenth century were
formed by Bengali railway officials from Calcutta (Damen 1983). Developments
in international communications included the opening of the Suez Canal in
1869, and a telegraph link to Britain in 1870.
The transmission of ideas was revolutionized by printing – in English, the ver-
nacular languages and Sanskrit. Though missionaries had pioneered printing in
Indian languages, starting with Tamil in 1577, there was no printing in
Calcutta, even in English, until 1777 (Nair 1987: 26). English-language news-
papers soon followed, in Bombay and Madras as well as Calcutta. Vernacular
newspapers began in Bengali in 1818, followed by Gujarati in 1822 and Marathi
in 1832 (Schwartzberg 1978: 105).
Another important development was in communication with the past. The
study of the ancient Sanskrit literature of India had been carried on for centuries
modernity, reform, and revival 511