Righteousness And Colonial Repressions In Punch

While Punch heaped praises on the British forces putting down colonial revolts in India and Jamaica, it also presented a counter-narrative to this depiction of righteousness and legitimate repression. The magazine mercilessly bashed the Britons whose actions somehow benefitted the cause of the rebels and their dissenting countrymen who vilified the way the repressions were handled. In fact, in both colonies, ‘the uprising had disrupted not only the formal structures of imperial rule but also the imperial representations that had legitimized such rule’ (Blunt 422).

Punch's trademark satire was the perfect means for highlighting the mistakes and personal faults that it felt had turned colonial tensions into riots. For example, the administrators of the British East India Company, who were in charge of Indian affairs at the time of the Mutiny, were the butts of many attacks. Punch renames them ‘the old frumps in Leadenhall Street’(“Punch's Essence of Parliament”, 8 Aug. 1857) after the location of their office, and contends that they ‘like a large batch of dispatches, because they look fussy and business-like, and so everything is done in writing, instead of officials being brought face to face, and settling matters in ten minutes.’ A ludicrous image of the Company is created here; the administrators are ‘old gentlemen [...] caught napping in [their] easy chairs’ (“Room Required of Company”) and who like to feel important, but they are completely disconnected from the realities of supervising a colony caught in the middle of a mutiny. …show more content…
Robins notes that ‘the Rebellion exposed the Company’s anachronistic position, a commercial body ruling over tens of millions of Indians, but always with an eye to the dividend,’ (25) and Punch's depiction of its administrators does underline the gap between what is expected of them and what they actually do. Their main occupation is said to be sending each other letters about the menu of their meals, which leads to a caustic overall conclusion: ‘And on this system the Company makes its servants act, and then wonders that nothing is done.’ (“Punch's Essence of Parliament”, 8 Aug. 1857) The uselessness of the employees matches the inadequacy of their director. Robert Vernon Smith was the President of the Board of Control of the Company, which amounts to say that he was technically the best-acquainted person with Indian affairs in London. Yet Punch publishes a pretend advertisement which reads: ‘Emigration – Mr Vernon Smith is to be allowed, …show more content…
Randall notes that ‘the antagonism between Britain and India is recast as one between Christianity and Hinduism; between England, as a Christian nation, and India, as a nation of atrocious idolaters. It is not finally imperial interests but Christian faith and morality that oblige England to oppose Indian insurgency’ (10). In this interpretation, the focus is not on the economic argument that underpins Britain's subjection of India, but instead on how the metropolis selflessly acts for the sake of its ‘undiscerning’ colony (Boisen 344). What Punch's ironical remark implies is that, if the divinities of Hinduism are as incompetent as Smith is, it says a lot about how invalid and ridiculous a religion this must be. From a Eurocentric perspective, this adds weight to the idea that Christianity is the only true religion, and that Britain is right in trying to convert the Indians out of a supposedly absurd