The official arrival of the British in the Eastern Orissa in 1803 brought in its wake negative changes such as Zamindari system; the printing and circulation of the New and Old Testaments; the opening of the Missionary schools; and evangelization. There were also positive changes such as secular education and the shaping of new genres and canon in the Oriya Language and literature; the emergence of the new literati that espoused the various reformatory movements. Based on archival material recently acquired from the Bengal Asiatic Society and other important sources, it is suggested in this essay, citing the example of the British scholar administrator John Beames, that the trope `English' operated in a complex and many-sided manner in British India—especially, in Orissa. Postcolonial scholars have often held scholarship by Englishmen in the field of comparative philology and linguistics, beginning with Sir William Jones and others, as suspect. Much of the study of the colonial discourse, in the recent past has, with credible evidence, unmasked the nexus between knowledge and power. It seems, however, that the time has come to take a more considered and balanced view of the matter that eschews politically correct Good/Evil Manichean binaries. In this sense, the archives become a crucial corrective to opinionated judgment. John Beames in this sense becomes a test case of my contention.

Despite the passage in time, the moral and psychological universe of the Raj remains obscure and inscrutable. In neither political history nor public discourse (William Dalrymple's The Last Moghal is the latest example of this phenomenon) is there a definite verdict about the nature of the British rule in India.

The Raj's impact on India was complex and many-sided. From the Royal Charter of 1600 to the Regulatory Act of 1773 which saw the emergence of the Governor General, to the dissolution of trade monopoly in 1813, and finally, the uprising of 1857 that witnessed power passing into the hands of the Crown, British administration triggered profound changes in the Indian subcontinent.