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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 March 2023
Conspicuous consumption and display were central to the Residents’ representational strategies at court. Britons in India are often assumed to have dismissed gift-giving as mere bribery and regarded regal pageantry as empty spectacle; in fact, the opposite is true. Residents were very aware of the symbolism of gifts and their efficacy at securing relationships both vertically and horizontally; this awareness is clearly manifest in their efforts to monitor and regulate these exchanges at court. The attempt on the part of the Company to impose a rigid, contractual framework on gift-giving was therefore not a sign of ignorance or disregard, nor was it simply an attempt to preclude corruption at court. By situating these debates within wider disagreements about the Residents’ expense claims, it becomes clear that there were other, more abstract issues at stake. These squabbles about money were a product of ambivalent attitudes about conspicuous consumption and display and reflect serious differences of opinion regarding the basis of the Company’s legitimacy in India.
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