Sahib

Colonial and modern use

Sahib was commonly used in the Indian subcontinent as a courteous term in the way that "Mister" (also derived from the word "master") and "Mrs." (derived from the word "mistress") is used in the English language. It is still used today in the sub-continent just as "Mister" and "Mrs." and continues to be used today by English-language speakers as a polite form of address. It was used on P&O vessels which had Indian or Pakistani crew to refer to officers, and in particular senior officers. On P&O Cruises and Princess Cruises vessels, the term continued to be used by non-Indian and non-Pakistani junior officers to refer to the senior deck and engine officers for many years, even when no Indian or Pakistani crew featured in the ship's company. It is also appended to the names of holy places associated with the Sikh gurus such as Nankana Sahib, Patna Sahib, Anandpur Sahib.

In the British Indian Army, a British officer would address a viceroy's commissioned officer (i.e., a native Indian officer) as "<rank> sahib" or "<name> sahib". In turn Indian soldiers would address British or Indian superiors with this term as a substitute for "sir". This form of address is still retained in the present-day army of independent India.

The term was applied indiscriminately to any person whether Indian or non-Indian. This included Europeans who arrived in the sub-continent as traders in the 16th century and hence the first mention of the word in European records is in 1673.

Memsahib

The authentic feminine form of Sahib is Sahiba. Under the British Raj, however, the word used for female members of the establishment was adapted to memsahib, a variation of the English word "ma'am" having been added to the word sahib.

Pukka sahib

Pukka sahib was also a term used to signify genuine and legitimate authority, with pukka meaning "absolutely genuine".

Literary reference

The term is used exclusively to refer to any white European on the Indian subcontinent, throughout Rudyard Kipling's 1901 novel Kim. Kim is ethnically a 'sahib', but was raised as a low-caste native boy. Most sahibs in the novel are British, but there is also a Russian and a Frenchman.

The term is used in a similar manner in George Orwell's essay "Shooting an Elephant", which is used to accentuate his isolation in Colonial Burma (now Myanmar), and throughout his novel Burmese Days.

The term is used throughout the children's novel A Little Princess by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

In Herman Cyril McNeile's 1920 novel Bulldog Drummond, an Indian magician was performing tricks in front of a crowd and drew attention to a mysterious box.

'You don't mean the fourth dimension, do you?' demanded a man incredulously.

'I know not what you call it, sahib,' said the Indian quietly. 'But it is the power which renders visible or invisible at will.'

Edward Morgan Forster also employed the term in his 1924 novel A Passage to India. His Anglo-Indian characters refer to the Collector as Burra Sahib, implying they respect felt for him.

The following dialogue in Dorothy Leigh Sayers's 1926 novel Clouds of Witness shows what the term implied in British society at the time.

Coroner: "What kind of a man was Captain Cathcart?"

Duke of Denver: "Well – he was a Sahib and all that. I don't know what he did before joining up in 1914. I think he lived on his income; his father was well off. Crack shot, good at games, and so on."

It is noteworthy that the character referred to had never been in India and had no connection with India.

It is used in Agatha Christie's 1934 novel Murder on the Orient Express in a similar way.

"About Miss Debenham," [Colonel Arbuthnot] said rather awkwardly. "You can take it from me that she's all right. She's a pukka sahib."

Flushing a little, he withdrew.

"What," asked Dr. Constantine with interest, "does a pukka sahib mean?"

"It means," said Poirot, "that Miss Debenham's father and brothers were at the same kind of school as Colonel Arbuthnot."

In Bruce Marshall's The World, the Flesh, and Father Smith, the protagonist serves as a military chaplain in the trenches of WWI and gives absolution to soldiers and officers about to go into battle. A major tells him: "God's a bit hard on a chap at times. Still, I am sure God's too much of a Sahib to run a fellow in for ever and ever just because he got messed up with a bit of fluff" (i.e. had casual affairs with women).

Later, the same major is mortally wounded. As the priest is about to administer last rites, the major says: "It's all right, Father; I still think God is a Sahib".

Jim Davis uses the term in a 1983 Garfield comic strip in which Garfield refers to Jon Arbuckle as "sahib" after Jon asks Garfield to retrieve his newspaper, and again in a 1989 strip after Jon asks Garfield to go outside and see if it is still raining.

The term is frequently used throughout the short stories of Robert E. Howard, mostly by Indian or Arabic characters—e.g. a Sikh manservant addresses the guests of his employer as "sahib" in The Noseless Horror.

Musahib

This title (pl. musāhibān), etymologically the active part. of to associate, or consort (with), means originally companion, associate, friend (the abstract term is musāhabat); not unlike the Hellenistic-era Greek Philos and the Latin Comes in the Roman Empire, it became a title for a favourite (of a Sahib, especially a prince), and such 'personally close' positions as aide-de-camp, in some princely states even a minister.

Other compound titles

• Burra sahib (Hindi: बड़ा साहब, romanized: baṛā sāhab) "big man" or important person (Burra meaning big in Hindi)