Editing Warren Hastings (section)

==Administrative ethos and legacy==
[[File:Warren Hastings by Johan Joseph Zoffany.jpg|thumb|right|200px|Hastings painted by [[Johann Zoffany]], 1783–1784]]
[[File:Warren Hastings.jpg|thumb|200px|Hastings in the late 18th century, as painted by [[Lemuel Francis Abbott]]]]
[[File:Memorial to Warren Hastings St Peters Church Daylesford - geograph.org.uk - 1100655.jpg|thumb|200px|His memorial in [[Daylesford, Gloucestershire|Daylesford]] churchyard]]

In the last quarter of the 18th century, many senior administrators realised that to govern Indian society it was essential to learn its various religious, social, and legal customs and precedents. The importance of such knowledge to the colonial government was in Hastings' mind when he remarked in 1784, in his introduction to the English translation of the [[Bhagavad Gita]] by Wilkins:<ref>{{cite web |title=The Bhagavat-Geeta, Or, Dialogues of Krishna and Arjoon in Eighteen Lectures |url=https://archive.org/details/bhagavatgeetaor00humbgoog/page/n17/mode/2up?view=theater |access-date=28 December 2022}}</ref>
{{blockquote|text=Every accumulation of knowledge and especially such as is obtained by social communication with people over whom we exercise dominion founded on the right of conquest, is useful to the state... it attracts and conciliates distant affections; it lessens the weight of the chain by which the natives are held in subjection; and it imprints on the hearts of our countrymen the sense of obligation and benevolence.... Every instance which brings their real character... home to observation will impress us with a more generous sense of feeling for their natural rights, and teach us to estimate them by the measure of our own. But such instances can only be obtained in their writings: and these will survive when the British dominion in India shall have long ceased to exist, and when the sources which once yielded of wealth and power are lost to remembrance.<ref>{{Cite book |first=Bernard S |last=Cohn |year=1997 |title=Colonialism and its forms of knowledge: The British in India |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=45 |isbn=978-0-19-564167-7}}</ref>}}

During Hastings' term as governor-general, much administrative precedent was set, which profoundly shaped later attitudes towards the government of British India. Hastings had great respect for the ancient scripture of [[Hinduism]] and set the British position on governance as one of looking back to the earliest precedents possible. This allowed [[Brahmin]] advisors to mould the law, as no Briton thoroughly understood [[Sanskrit]] until [[William Jones (philologist)|Sir William Jones]], and even then, a literal translation was of little use: it needed to be elucidated by religious commentators well versed in the lore and its application. This approach accentuated the [[Hindu caste system]] and to an extent the frameworks of other religions, which had at least in recent centuries been somewhat more flexibly applied. So British influence on the fluid social structure of India can largely be seen as a solidification of the privileges of the Hindu caste system through the influence of exclusively [[Brahmin|high-caste Hindu scholars]] advising the British on their laws. Where British translators or interpreters read in the [[Arthashastra]] a ''caste system'' in India, the actual wording speaks of ''varna'' and ''jati'': skin-colour and birth, i.e. clan, and it speaks of the four societal classes, not castes: from upper-class Brahmin to lower-class Shudra.{{citation needed|date=September 2023}}

In 1781, Hastings founded [[Madrasa 'Aliya]] at [[Kolkata|Calcutta]] (transformed in 2007 into Aliah University by the [[Government of West Bengal]]).<ref>[https://www.aliah.ac.in/history-of-aliah-university University History. Retrieved 21 April 2020.]</ref> In 1784, he supported the foundation of the Bengal Asiatic Society, now the [[Asiatic Society of Bengal]], by the oriental scholar Sir William Jones. This became a storehouse for information on the subcontinent and has remained in various institutional guises to the present day.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Keay |first=John |author-link=John Keay |year=2000 |title=India: A History |publisher=[[Grove Press]] |page=426 |isbn=0-8021-3797-0 |quote=Not the least of Warren Hastings' achievements had been the foundation in 1784 of the Bengal Asiatic Society which, under the presidency of [Sir William] Jones, became a veritable clearing-house for intellectual data about India.}}</ref> Hastings' legacy as an administrator has been somewhat dualistic: as governor, he instituted reforms that would change the path India followed in subsequent years, but he retained the distinction of being also the "architect of British India and the one ruler of British India to whom the creation of such an entity was anathema."<ref>{{Cite book |first=John |last=Keay |author-link=John Keay |year=1991 |title=The Honourable Company |place=New York |publisher=[[Macmillan Publishers (United States)|Macmillan]] |page=394 }}</ref>