what was James Mill's view about Indian society before the British rule
Answers
James mill periodized Indian history ,before the British rule, as Hindu and Muslim .
Answer:
JAMES MILL AND INDIA
James Mill spent twelve labourious years writing the History of British India, and it was as its author that he was chiefly known to the contemporary reading public. It was largely as a result of his examination in this book, of Indian society and of the problems facing the British administration, that in 1819 he obtained the important position with the East India Company which he held for seventeen years.1 Mill was accused of having betrayed his principles by accepting an appointment with the Company, but at no stage did he ever question the value of the Company as an instrument of government.
The History of British India
Mill's magnum opus was conceived and written according to the canons of ‘philosophical history’ popular towards the end of the eighteenth century. It shows clearly the influence exerted on Mill's intellectual outlook by his Scottish education: Hume, Robertson and Gibbon were Mill's models. He believed that the historian's task was to delineate the natural laws of man's progress in society and avoid ‘a dry statement of vulgar, historical facts’; that it was his duty to ‘inflame the public virtues’ and show ‘the natural rewards of virtue and the punishments of vice’.4 These aims were further justified in his letters, his reviews of the works of others, and above all, in the Preface to his History,