THE RUINS OF EMPIRE: British Responses to Ruins in Colonial India

Abstract

The different and changing meanings of the ruined form in the European consciousness point to its position as a discursive space, expressed in ideas of a ‘ruin motif’. However, most historical investigations into ruins have been concerned with classical structures in the European context. This thesis examines the operations of the ruin motif in the setting of nineteenth century-century colonial India through a study of John Benjamin Seely’s travel text The Wonders of Elora (1824) and James Fergusson’s The History of Architecture in All Countries (1874). It argues that the ruin motif was an important means by which the aims, difficulties and tensions in colonial discourses were articulated.