Charles Grant (British East India Company)

Charles Grant (Teàrlach Grannd in Scottish Gaelic; 16 April 1746 – 31 October 1823) was a British politician influential in Indian and domestic affairs who, motivated by his evangelical Christianity, championed the causes of social reform and Christian mission, particularly in India. He served as Chairman of the British East India Company, and as a member of parliament (MP), and was an energetic member of the Clapham Sect.

Quotes

• Of the Mahomedans, who mix in considerable numbers with the former inhabitants of all the countries subdued by their arms in Hindostan, it is necessary also to say a few words. Originally of the Tartar race, proud, fierce, and lawless ; attached also to their superstition,... they were rendered ... yet more proud, sanguinary, sensual, and bigotted.
  • Observations on the state of society [1]

• The Persians and Tartars, who have poured into it from early ages, have generally been soldiers of fortune, who brought little with them but their swords. With these they have not unfrequently carved their way to dignity and empire. Power has been, and is their darling object ; nothing was scrupled by them to obtain it; the history of Mahomedan rule in Hindostan is full of treasons, affaffinations, fratricides, even parricide is not unknown to it.
  • Observations on the state of society [2]

• Upon the whole, then, we cannot avoid recognizing in the people of Hindostan, a race of men lamentably degenerate and base, retaining but a feeble sense of moral obligation, yet obstinate in their disregard of what they know to be right, governed by malevolent and licentious passions, strongly exemplifying the effects produced on society by great and general corruption of manners, and sunk in misery by their vices, in a country peculiarly calculated by its natural advantages to promote the happiness of its inhabitants.
  • Charles Grant, in Craufurd, Quintin, Sketches Chiefly Relating To The History, Religion, Learning, And Manners of The Hindoos, 2 vols., 1977, first published 1792. quoted from Jain, M. (editor) (2011). The India they saw: Foreign accounts. New Delhi: Ocean Books. Volume IV Chapter2

• In contrast to the Orientalists, Grant ([1790] 1970) stressed the absolute difference, in all respects, between the British and the despicable natives of the subcontinent: "In the worst parts of Europe, there are no doubt great numbers of men who are sincere, upright, and conscientious. In Bengal, a man of real veracity and integrity is a great phenomenon" (21). Most significantly, he made absolutely no reference to the kinship of Sanskrit and the European languages except, possibly, to note that "the discoveries of science invalidate none of the truths of revelation" (71). Nor did Grant have any regard for enthusiastic depictions of India. Grant was quick to criticize scholars who had never even visited India, thereby undermining the relevance of their scholarship to the real world: "Europeans who, not having resided in Asia, are acquainted only with a few detached features of the Indian character" (24).
  • quoted in Bryant, E. F. (2001). The Quest for the Origins of Vedic Culture : the Indo-Aryan migration debate. Oxford University Press. ch 1