Despite streaming on Netflix India, ‘Beecham House’, a British TV show that has been criticized heavily in the UK for its subpar writing and acting, has not ruffled any feathers among reviewers and critics based in India, even though it is set in 18th century Delhi and features prominent Indian actors like Lara Dutta, Arunoday Singh and Tisca Chopra. And, when I watched the show, I realized why that was the case.
‘Beecham House’ is a show meant primarily for white British viewers who, instead of dealing with their country’s horrific colonial past, want to dissociate and absolve themselves from it. The show features Tom Bateman as John Beecham, a Lieutenant who left the East India Company because of its violent ways, and is now settled in Delhi after falling in love with India and its people. John Beecham even has a half-Indian and half-British child and ultimately has “India’s interests at heart”. If his loyalty towards India wasn’t clear, it is hammered into the viewer as the protagonist and other characters speak about it in every single episode.
Despite streaming on Netflix India, ‘Beecham House’, a British TV show that has been criticized heavily in the UK for its subpar writing and acting, has not ruffled any feathers among reviewers and critics based in India
Unlike those involved with the East India Company who want to exploit India’s riches and ultimately rule the country, John Beecham wants to conduct trade fairly in a way that supposedly benefits both locals and himself. Beecham is upright and virtuous and is ultimately the personification of how a woke white orientalist would imagine themselves to be. Woke because he has severed his ties with the Company and its project of colonialism, and orientalist, well, because of his sheer love and fascination for India, to the point where he wants to make it his permanent home.
However, under colonialism, is it ever possible for a white person, let alone a Brit, to be truly woke and exist as an equal among locals? This contradiction is evident as Beecham is constantly surrounded by hordes of brown servants at his command, clearly unequal to Beecham in their position. Unfortunately however, the show fails to investigate the grey areas in Beecham’s character and his situation, and instead portrays him as a flawless hero in a very “white savior-y” light.
In addition, the problem with the show is the very decision to portray an exceptional person like John Beecham as opposed to the reality of colonialism, a system that was necessarily run by cruel and profit-hungry colonizers. While watching ‘Beecham House’, British viewers are not confronted with the trauma that British colonialism caused and hence, do not have to deal with any discomfort and guilt. Instead, what they get is an avenue to fulfill their fantasies in the form of a sanitised and comfortably packaged portrayal of a love story set in the exotic location of colonial India.
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The show isn’t all bad, of course. Directed by Gurinder Chadha, who also directed the famous movie ‘Bend it Like Beckham’, the show has powerful and complex women characters, both white and brown. Baby Beecham’s aunt Chandrika, played by Pallavi Sharda, commands any room she enters often taking the spotlight and attention away from John Beecham’s British mother. Chanchal, Baby Beecham’s caretaker, goes through a range of emotions from love to sadness and anger and is allowed to have agency and express them on screen, to the point where she is visibly upset even with her master’s brother.
While watching ‘Beecham House’, British viewers are not confronted with the trauma that British colonialism caused and hence, do not have to deal with any discomfort and guilt.
Overall, the show isn’t egregious and is a bingeable length of 6-episodes. However, I can’t help but question who it is meant for and what work that it is doing, especially given how little the British currently learn about colonialism and its aftereffects. Scholars have spoken about the ‘historical amnesia’ that the British educational system propagates as it does not adequately teach students about the role of the country in plundering the Global South and ultimately, completely transforming the world.
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At a time when the UK and other former colonial powers are becoming increasingly xenophobic and racist towards immigrants and refugees, most of whom are in the position they are partly due of colonialism, do we really need a show like ‘Beecham House’ that shies away from showing British rule in its true colours? Or do we need one that adequately portrays the horror of colonialism and the immense wealth and power that Europe gained because of it, thus enabling us to contextualize the world that we live in today?
Featured Image Source: New Statesman America
‘and hence, do not have to deal with any discomfort and guilt’ – White Guilt is a moral swindle, where people who haven’t actually suffered anything demand money, privileges and grovelling atonement from people who haven’t actually wronged them. All whites held collectively responsible for the acts of some white people, whilst all non-whites claim collective aggrievement because of the suffering of some non-whites at white hands x amount of years ago.
Funny isn’t it how White Guilt merchants feel it’s legitimate for whites to feel collective guilt but don’t feel it’s legitimate for whites to feel collective pride. Should those British folk watching tv at home get credit for Isaac Newcon and Louis Pasteur? How subversive that would be, if we began tallying up all the things we should be proud of. Next time you take antibiotics you should say a big thank you to Europeans.
Does collective guilt of the kind you like to push only apply to whites? Presumably cruel and profit hungry empire builders in India never existed because before evil whitey came you were all a bunch of Ghandis cycling everywhere.
I am glad that the tide is turning against you. Long may it continue.