America, Australia, South Africa and the highlands of East Africa were 'settlement' colonies- i.e. European people planned to remain there as permanent settlers.India, because of its harsh climate, innumerable diseases, and alien culture was never a 'settlement' colony in that sense.
In general, the small number of Europeans who settled there became Indian within a generation.
Thus, in India, Britain- having moved from a commercial role to one of established suzerainty- sent out officials on fixed term contracts to exercise administrative, judicial and military authority with a view to protecting and enlarging the interests of British commercial ventures which were themselves increasingly run by Managing Agents on fixed term private contracts. The goal was always to work for a fixed number of years and then retire home with an ample competence.
There are some minor exceptions to this rule but in general there was a sharp division between these 'country bottled' Britisher who hadn't returned to England for his education and whose primary domicile was in India and the 'pukka Sahib' who had been educated in England and whose family owned property there. Most country-bottled Englishmen were expected to descend into the even lower 'Eurasian' class who were kept out of executive positions but entrusted with laborious jobs like being steam-engine drivers.
Some Europeans did behave badly in India- they became pirates or slavers. The Dutch in Sri Lanka were particularly cruel- the slaves they kidnapped were worked to death within a few months of capture and their womenfolk tortured slave-girls impregnated by their drunken husbands. This at any rate was the English justification for annexing Ceylon. Those Europeans who behaved in this way tended to get killed or die of disease because the capacity of the Indian natives to exercise a countervailing power was far greater than that of the American Indians- except in some more difficult terrains. The English had one great advantage- financial solvency and control over sea-routes- which made them dominant. However it was not military superiority so much as the ability to pay troops and reward allies, as well as superior esprit de corps, which gave them the edge.
In general, the vast majority of Indians remained subject to their own traditional laws and local elites and had little interaction with White people. Thus there was no occasion for racial friction except where a higher political purpose could be served. In the Americas, the Europeans took little trouble to preserve local languages and cultures whereas in India, the Colonial power invested heavily in a scientific study of the languages, ancient and modern, and law codes and philosophies and belief systems of the indigenous people. Moreover, Missionaries were curbed and encouraged to take a conciliatory approach. The British acknowledged that India could not be profitably ruled without the acquiescence- sullen or meretricious as it might be- of its own local elites and Religious authorities.
