{"id":76762,"date":"2026-03-19T16:00:02","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T07:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2026\/mar\/19\/british-empire-photography-to-control-india-colonialism"},"modified":"2026-03-19T16:00:02","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T07:00:02","slug":"manure-dryers-and-devil-dancers-the-british-empires-attempt-to-use-photography-to-control-india","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/?p=76762","title":{"rendered":"Manure dryers and devil dancers: the British empire\u2019s attempt to use photography to control India"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In a new exhibition, the featured images reflect Britain\u2019s attempts to classify and curb the subcontinent\u2019s population, but they also demonstrate the nobility of their subjects \u2013 and the futility of the task<\/p>\n<p>At first, and without the context, someone looking at this collection of 150-year-old photographs of Indian men and women might think they were looking at compelling portraits. The faces are of individuals with piercing eyes and a striking presence.<\/p>\n<p>But context changes everything. The images were taken by British colonialists as part of a great project of photographic ethnography, intended to classify and categorise their subjects.<\/p>\n<p>Untitled (Indian family in Singapore), late-19th century, GR Lambert &amp; Co<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/global-development\/2026\/mar\/19\/british-empire-photography-to-control-india-colonialism\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In a new exhibition, the featured images reflect Britain\u2019s attempts to classify and curb the subcontinent\u2019s population, but they also demonstrate the nobility of their subjects \u2013 and the futility of the taskAt first, and without the context, someone lo&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5224,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sns_share_botton_hide":"","vkExUnit_sns_title":"","_vk_print_noindex":"","sitemap_hide":"","_veu_custom_css":"","veu_display_promotion_alert":"","vkexunit_cta_each_option":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2230,749,59,62,92,61,42],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-76762","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-british-empire","category-colonialism","category-global-development","category-india","category-photography","category-south-and-central-asia","category-world-news"],"veu_head_title_object":{"title":"","add_site_title":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76762","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5224"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=76762"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76763,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76762\/revisions\/76763"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=76762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=76762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eastasianews.net\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=76762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}