Editing James Mill (section)

===''The History of British India''===
{{Main|The History of British India}}

Mill was a proponent of British imperialism, justifying it on [[Utilitarianism|utilitarian]] grounds.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |last=Pitts |first=Jennifer |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=szeU8olEDewC |title=A Turn to Empire: The Rise of Imperial Liberalism in Britain and France |date=2005 |publisher=Princeton University Press |isbn=978-1400826636 |pages=123–126 |language=en}}</ref> He considered it part of a [[civilising mission]] for Britain to impose its rule on India.<ref name=":0" /> Mill saw his own work for the East India Company as important for the improvement of Indian society.<ref name=":0" /> Mill portrayed Indian society as morally degraded and argued that Hindus had never possessed "a high state of civilisation".<ref>{{Cite book |last=Elkins |first=Caroline |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=3icqEAAAQBAJ |title=Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire |date=2022 |publisher=Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |isbn=978-0593320082 |pages=43–44 |language=en}}</ref>

Mill preferred to take a more theoretical approach to social subjects than the [[Empiricism|empirical]] one common at the time. His best known literary work is his ''History of British India'', in which he describes the acquisition of the [[British India|Indian Empire]] by England and later the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|United Kingdom]]. In the work, he characterises Indian society as barbaric and Indians as incapable of self-government.<ref name=":0" /> He also brings political theory to bear on the delineation of the [[Hinduism|Hindu]] civilization, and subjects the conduct of the actors in the successive stages of the conquest and administration of India to severe criticism. The work itself, and the author's official connection with India for the last seventeen years of his life, effected a complete change in the whole system of governance in the country.{{sfn|Chisholm|1911|p=453}} Mill never visited the Indian colony, relying solely on documentary material and archival records in compiling his work. This fact has led to severe criticism of Mill's ''History of India'' by notable economist [[Amartya Sen]].<ref>[[Amartya Sen]]'s address given to the Millennium Session of the Indian History Congress [https://newhumanist.org.uk/articles/458/history-and-the-enterprise-of-knowledge]</ref>

According to [[Thomas Trautmann]], "James Mill's highly influential ''History of British India'' (1817) – most particularly the long essay "Of the Hindus" comprising ten chapters&nbsp;– is the single most important source of British Indophobia and hostility to Orientalism".<ref>{{cite book |title=Aryans and British India |pages=117 |first=Thomas R. |last=Trautmann |location=New Delhi |publisher=YODA Press |edition=2nd Indian |year=2006 |orig-year=1997 |isbn=8190227211 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=jR_LPnEH3GsC&pg=PA117}}</ref> In the chapter titled General Reflections in "Of the Hindus", Mill wrote "under the glosing exterior of the Hindu, lies a general disposition to deceit and perfidy".<ref>{{cite book |title=The History of British India |first= James |last=Mill |publisher = Madden |year=1858 |url=https://archive.org/details/historybritishi24wilsgoog|page=[https://archive.org/details/historybritishi24wilsgoog/page/n170 150] }}</ref> According to Mill, "the same insincerity, mendacity, and perfidy; the same indifference to the feelings of others; the same prostitution and venality" were the conspicuous characteristics of both the Hindoos and the Muslims. The Muslims, however, were perfuse, when possessed of wealth, and devoted to pleasure; the Hindoos almost always penurious and ascetic; and "in truth, the Hindoo like the eunuch, excels in the qualities of a slave". Furthermore, similar to the Chinese, the Hindoos were "dissembling, treacherous, mendacious, to an excess which surpasses even the usual measure of uncultivated society". Both the Chinese and the Hindoos were "disposed to excessive exaggeration with regard to everything relating to themselves". Both were "cowardly and unfeeling". Both were "in the highest degree conceited of themselves, and full of affected contempt for others". And both were "in physical sense, disgustingly unclean in their persons and houses".<ref>Dharampal, ''The Beautiful Tree''.</ref>

[[Max Müller]] argued against the opinion that Indians were an 'inferior race', not only because such a view was wrong but because it made an Englishman's life there a 'moral exile'. One source of such mistaken notions and 'poison' had been, and still was, Mill's ''History of British India'', which in his view was 'responsible for some of the greatest misfortunes' that had happened to India. Those who were going out to rule India 'should shake off national prejudices, which are apt to degenerate into a kind of madness'.