use of philological terms such as grammar, syntax, and poetics in sociological
discourse. Vinay Lal declares that “the trope of effeminacy, the first element of
an Orientalist grammar of India, had a particular place in colonial discourse.”
Lal refers to Robert Orme’s essay on “The Effeminacy of the Inhabitants of
Hindustan” (1782), summed up in the confident assertion that “very few of the
inhabitants” of India were “endowed with the nervous strength, or athletic size,
of the robustest nations of Europe” (Lal 1996).
Most frequently cited on this subject are Macaulay’s words:
The physical organisation of the Bengalee is feeble even to effeminacy. He lives in
a constant vapour bath. His pursuits are sedentary, his limbs delicate, his move-
ments languid. During many ages he has been trampled upon by men of bolder
and more hardy breeds. Courage, independence, veracity, are qualities to which his
constitution and his situation are equally unfavourable. (Macaulay [1841] 1895:
611)Few bother with the context, his characterization of Warren Hastings’ implac-
able foe, the Maharajah Nand Kumar, whose composure and serenity in death
Macaulay honors. Nand Kumar “prepared himself to die with that quiet forti-
tude with which the Bengalee, so effeminately timid in personal conflict, often
encounters calamities for which there is no remedy.” Of the Bengali in general
Macaulay adds,
Nor does he lack a certain kind of courage which is often wanting to his masters.
To inevitable evils he is sometimes found to oppose a passive fortitude, such as the
Stoics attributed to their ideal sage.This is not slight praise from a devoted classicist. But otherwise Macaulay
was merely expressing with his incomparable trenchancy the general view of
European travelers. For instance, Bernier’s compatriot, the jewel merchant
Tavernier, noting that for one Muslim there are five or six Hindus, finds it aston-
ishing “to see how this enormous multitude of men has allowed itself to be
subjected by so small a number, and has readily submitted to the yoke of the
Musalman Princes,” but “the Idolators were effeminate people unable to make
much resistance.” Tavernier finds further explanation for their defeat in their
superstition which “has introduced so strange a diversity of opinions and
customs that they never agree with one another.” He also notes that the second
caste is that of warriors and soliders: “These are the only idolators who are
brave, and distinguish themselves in the profession of arms” (Tavernier [1676]
1925, vol. 2: 141, 137).
Insofar as there was caste specialization, it is perhaps only reasonable that
there should be specialization in bravery. McClintock claims that “imperialism
cannot be understood without a theory of gender power...gender dynamics
were, from the outset, fundamental to the securing and maintenance of the
imperial enterprise” (McClintock 1995: 6–7). This is to say that imperialism
necessitates feminizing the subjugated, that being colonized makes men effe-
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