Jawaharlal Nehru once described British India as being like an enormous country house in which the English were the gentry living in the best parts, with the Indians in the servants’ hall: ‘As in every proper country house there was a fixed hierarchy in the lower regions—butler, housekeeper, cook, valet, maid, footman, etc.—and strict precedence was observed among them. But between the upper and lower regions of the house there was, socially and politically, an impassable barrier.’
