Footwear, power, and colonial politics in British India

Mint

12-07-2025

In 1805, a British official visited the court of the Peshwa in Pune. Writing later, he described his host as 'much the handsomest Hindu I have seen", with a perfect 'gentlemanlike air". His appearance, James Mackintosh added, 'had more elegance than dignity" and didn't quite fit his preconceptions of what a leading prince would look like. The Peshwa was dressed in simple garments, and his 'throne", in an equally unassuming durbar hall, was just a sheet of white, with a few pillows thrown over it. But Mackintosh had another specifically interesting comment to make: 'no lady's hands, fresh from the toilet and the bath," he wrote, 'could be more nicely clean than (the Peshwa's) uncovered feet." The white man's attention to feet need not surprise us, for this part of the human anatomy played a significant role in colonial politics. Mackintosh himself, as he entered the Peshwa's presence, had had to remove his 'splendidly embroidered slippers", and go in with toes (nearly) exposed (he probably kept his stockings on).
Across the centuries of their presence in India, issues around shoes and feet would haunt the British repeatedly. For instance, in 1633 when Ralph Cartwright, an English envoy, sought permission to trade from the Mughal governor of Orissa, the latter 'presented his foot to our Merchant to kisse". Twice Cartwright refused to bend, but in the end 'was faine to doe it". The symbolism is obvious: one party was the superior, the other a supplicant. In Mughal court culture this was not necessarily an insult: as the historian Harbans Mukhia observes, imperial foot-kissing was often a privilege, and most had to make do with touching lips on carpets or the ground instead. It is likely that by offering his foot to Cartwright, the Mughal governor was indicating favour. Yet, the same ritual could also, of course, be deployed to humiliate. In 1520, when the Bijapur sultan sued for peace after losing to Krishnadevaraya of Vijayanagara, the emperor agreed—provided the sultan kiss his feet. Bijapur declined and the war continued.
The British, coming from a different culture, saw things decidedly from the insult side of things. It was common courtesy in India, for example, to take off one's shoes when entering any space of importance; white officials, though, saw exposed feet as improper. For generations, therefore, they negotiated for special treatment, success and failure depending on political winds. The second governor-general, Lord Cornwallis, thus, was able to meet a Mughal prince on his own terms: 'his lordship," we read, 'went into the imperial presence with his shoes on". This, when only four years before, Cornwallis's predecessor had to 'yield" to a whole series of 'indignities", such as 'going into the presence with his shoes off, sitting behind the prince on his elephant, and fanning him". What had changed was that the Mughal prince was visibly weaker; he could no longer insist on imperial protocol. In time, the British would assume the right to keep shoes on even inside temples and mosques.
It was an uphill battle, though. In Gwalior, for example, an agent took umbrage to how the formidable anti-British queen, Baiza Bai, summoned him 'any day at any hour to dance attendance", making him 'sit on the ground without shoes", on the 'left side instead of the right side" of her throne (the left being less honourable). It would be 12 years—and after Baiza Bai's ouster from power—before the British would succeed, at last, in having the Gwalior durbar modify custom; in 1844, it was reported, 'we all sat on chairs with our boots on." Of course, this was also due to altered political realities, given that the state was now under more thorough British control, and had to, therefore, accept white officials' diktats. The location of the chair upon which British officers sat also mattered—in the 1870s, when the ruler of Baroda sought to have the governor of Bombay sit on his left during a proposed visit, it was stoutly resisted. The maharajah pursued the matter to London—and failed.
In Hyderabad, meanwhile, it took until 1869 for the British to be able to wear shoes in the court of the nizam, let alone use chairs. An earlier ruler, when requested by a Company official for a chair, is said to have sneered that he continue to sit on the floor, but with a pit dug 'to dangle his feet in". But in the late 1860s, the reigning nizam was a child, and the British saw a window to force change. So, at the boy's installation in 1869, the white men sat on chairs, with shoes on. This was, however, as The Times of India recalled later, 'met with very considerable opposition". Indeed, according to one account, the British went to the extent of keeping troops ready to 'sack Hyderabad" should there be trouble due to the shoe-and-chair controversy. Interestingly, The Times of India writer ended with a lament that while in Hyderabad things were settled as 'the Europeans desired it", the British in Burma still had to 'leave (their) shoes outside the palace". In 1875, refusal to continue this led to a serious impasse with the Burmese king.
Ultimately, though, it was not a question simply of shoes and chairs but the political messages encoded here. Having a British official sit on the right side of the throne, often at the same level, advertised 'native" vassalage and the white man's imperial might. Refusal of British officials to appear barefoot, even though their predecessors once complied, signalled how power equations had tilted in their favour. Ironically, the British were reluctant to let Indians enter their spaces with shoes; that is, the white man defied local tradition, but the brown man was expected to maintain local displays of deference. When once a 'Bengali of rank" is said to have appeared before the notorious Lord Dalhousie with slippers on, he received such a glare that the 'Oriental (sic) gradually sunk down and down until his flowing garments touched the ground, and his feet were completely concealed from sight." Reportedly, Dalhousie kept him 'in this painful position" for a while before moving on.
Yet as Indians grew anglicised in dress and etiquette, the British had to modify their stance, not least because leading 'natives" began to boycott imperial events, as in 1857 in Calcutta. Some groups like the Parsis argued, besides, that unlike Hindus, they kept slippers on everywhere; to ask them to display feet was unreasonable. Sir John Lawrence, viceroy in the second half of the 1860s, ultimately decided that if brown visitors to government offices and courts 'conformed to English notions" by wearing 'patent leather shoes", they could be excused from having to remove their footwear. The decision, one commentator wrote, 'caused much grumbling" but 'prevented unpleasant altercations"; why, one group of people even benefited from Lawrence's command—'manufacturers of patent leather". In the end, though, it would take till the close of the 19th century for the issue to fizzle out: this grand, decades-long political headache called the 'Great Shoe Question" of India.
Manu S. Pillai is a historian and author, most recently, of Gods, Guns and Missionaries.