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LIBERALISM, LOCAL GOVERNMENT REFORM, AND POLITICAL EDUCATION IN GREAT BRITAIN AND BRITISH INDIA, 1880–1886

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 April 2017

BENJAMIN WEINSTEIN
BENJAMIN WEINSTEIN*
Affiliation:
University of Edinburgh
*
University of Edinburgh, School of History, Classic and Archaeology, William Robertson Wing, Old Medical School, Teviot Place, Edinburgh, eh8 9agBen.Weinstein@ed.ac.uk
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Abstract

This article attempts to shed new light on the character of late Victorian Liberalism by investigating its political priorities in British India. It takes as its particular focus the debates which raged between 1881 and 1883 over the Government of India Resolution on Local Self-Government. Along with the Ilbert Bill, the Resolution comprised the centrepiece of the marquis of Ripon's self-consciously Liberal programme for dismantling Lytton's Raj. When analysed in conjunction with contemporaneous Liberal discourse on English local government reform, the debates surrounding the Resolution help to clarify many of the central principles of late Victorian Liberalism. In particular, these debates emphasize the profound importance of local government reform to what one might call the Liberal project. Beyond its utility in effecting retrenchment, efficiency, and ‘sound finance’, local government reform was valued by Liberals as the best and safest means of effecting ‘political education’ among populations, in both Britain and India, with increasingly strong claims to inclusion within the body politic.

Type
Research Article
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 61 , Issue 1 , March 2018 , pp. 181 - 203
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Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2017 

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