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Abstract
The British Raj was not merely a period of colonial domination but also an era of complex cultural encounters, many of which were mediated through travel writing. This paper investigates interracial relationships between British officials and Indian women during the colonial period, analyzing how love, power, and imperial politics intersected within these unions. Focusing on William Dalrymple’s White Mughals and other colonial travel narratives, the study centres on the relationship between James Achilles Kirkpatrick and Khair-un-Nissa as a lens through which to examine how such liaisons both disrupted and reinforced racial hierarchies.
The paper further explores British and Indian societal perceptions of these relationships, as documented in travelogues, memoirs, and personal correspondence. Early colonial encounters often facilitated cultural exchange, with British travellers romanticizing—and at times eroticizing—India in their writings. However, as imperial ideology solidified racial boundaries in the nineteenth century, interracial unions faced growing stigmatization. By analyzing colonial travel literature, this study demonstrates how such texts both recorded and influenced shifting attitudes toward interracial love, situating them within broader debates on empire, identity, and colonial anxieties.
Drawing upon historical narratives, archival sources, and colonial travel accounts, this paper contends that interracial relationships in the Raj were not merely private affairs but deeply politicized sites of imperial tension. Their representation in historical records and travel writing continues to shape postcolonial discourses on love, identity, and cross-cultural engagement in South Asia.