3 - Negotiating Fear

Summary

The peak of high-imperialism brought with it a resurgence of commemoration aimed at the events of 1857. Portraying the mutiny as a victory won by archetypal Victorian soldier heroes, these new forms of commemoration witnessed in the 1890s and early 1900s are best understood as attempts to embolden the colonial community at a time when the rise of Indian nationalism seemed to make a 'Second Mutiny' more likely than ever before. Lionising the imperial heroes who had 'Saved India' in her time of greatest need, commemoration was designed to reassure the British whilst simultaneously inducing them to be ready to emulate the glorious deeds of a past generation. As is explored in this chapter, however, colonial sites of memory remained deeply ambivalent for the visitors who experienced them. When attention is paid to the travelogues and diaries written by British tourists who travelled to these sites during the ‘high noon’ of empire, it becomes apparent that the excessive triumphalism of commemoration over this period was in reality only ever superficial and belied deep-seated anxieties concerning the threat of further insurrection in the mould of the mutiny.