India As It Is: A Description of Life in British India Under the East India Company
Book Details
Author(s)British East India Company
ISBN / ASINB013HNB1PE
ISBN-13978B013HNB1P5
Sales Rank525,847
MarketplaceUnited States 🇺🇸
Description
“India As It Is†is a description of India in the 1840s. The article was published in a periodical of the British East India Company, and the unnamed author seems to have been a Company employee who spent a great deal of time in India.
In the article, the author tries to clear up the misconceptions that Europeans hold about life in India. He seems to have spent most of his time in the country with the Company-commanded British Indian army, because most of his descriptions of India are related to the army.
He includes some passages from a journal he kept when he was in India. Among other things, he recorded the story of a lawsuit brought against a British soldier by a high-caste Hindu Brahmin. The British soldier had walked into the Brahmin’s house, uninvited, out of curiosity to see what the inside of a wealthy Indian’s home looked like.
The author complains a great deal about the heat and disease in India. The heat in some places, the author said, reached 89 degrees Fahrenheit (over 31 degrees Celsius) in the shade.
Diseases were also a serious problem, especially for the East India Company’s military force. Many of the sepoys or ‘native soldiers’ suffered from cholera and other diseases. In the article several suggestions are put forward to try to reduce the risk of disease. Unfortunately for the people of the time (the 1840s) there was very little understanding of the real causes of cholera and other infectious diseases.
Cholera is caused by bacteria that are spread through contaminated water, but in the 1840s Europeans did not know the cause of the illness. The author of “India As It Isâ€, however, believed that the disease was spread by eating contaminated food- a theory that was not far from the truth.
Cholera seems to have originated on the Indian Subcontinent. From there it spread around the world, thanks to the movement of colonists, administrators, soldiers, and migrants. In the 19th century, cholera epidemics hit big, densely-populated cities in Europe and North America, including London.
In the article, the author tries to clear up the misconceptions that Europeans hold about life in India. He seems to have spent most of his time in the country with the Company-commanded British Indian army, because most of his descriptions of India are related to the army.
He includes some passages from a journal he kept when he was in India. Among other things, he recorded the story of a lawsuit brought against a British soldier by a high-caste Hindu Brahmin. The British soldier had walked into the Brahmin’s house, uninvited, out of curiosity to see what the inside of a wealthy Indian’s home looked like.
The author complains a great deal about the heat and disease in India. The heat in some places, the author said, reached 89 degrees Fahrenheit (over 31 degrees Celsius) in the shade.
Diseases were also a serious problem, especially for the East India Company’s military force. Many of the sepoys or ‘native soldiers’ suffered from cholera and other diseases. In the article several suggestions are put forward to try to reduce the risk of disease. Unfortunately for the people of the time (the 1840s) there was very little understanding of the real causes of cholera and other infectious diseases.
Cholera is caused by bacteria that are spread through contaminated water, but in the 1840s Europeans did not know the cause of the illness. The author of “India As It Isâ€, however, believed that the disease was spread by eating contaminated food- a theory that was not far from the truth.
Cholera seems to have originated on the Indian Subcontinent. From there it spread around the world, thanks to the movement of colonists, administrators, soldiers, and migrants. In the 19th century, cholera epidemics hit big, densely-populated cities in Europe and North America, including London.
