Part II — The British Crown
Chapter the Last Constitutional Government — 1858-1886
§1. Awakening of the British Nation. §2. Government Education in India: Toleration. §3. British Rule after the Mutiny: Legislative Council of 1854 and Executive Council: Wrongs of Non-Official Europeans. §4. Mr. James Wilson and his Income-Tax. §5. New Legislative Council of 1861-62. §6. New High Court: proposed District Courts. §7. Lord Canning leaves India. §8. Lord Elgin, 1862-63. §9. Sir John Lawrence, 1864-69: Governments of Madras and Bombay: Migrations to Simla: Foreign Affairs. §10. Lord Lawrence leaves India. §11. Lord Mayo, 1869-72. §12. Lord Northbrook, 1872-76: Royal visits to India. §13. Lord Lytton, 1876-80: Empress Proclaimed. §14. Second Afghan War. §15. Political and Judicial Schools. §16. Constitution of British India: proposed Reforms.
Extinction of the East India Company.
The great and grand East India Company was brought to a close after a busy life of two centuries and a half, extending from the age of Elizabeth to that of Victoria. It was still in a green old age, but could not escape extinction. The story of mutiny and revolt raised a storm in the British Isles which demanded the sacrifice of a victim, and the Company was thrown overboard like another Jonah. In July, 1858, India was transferred to the Crown by Act of Parliament. In the following November proclamation was made throughout India that Her Majesty Queen Victoria had assumed the direct government of her Eastern empire. The Governor-General ceased to rule in the name of the East India Company, and became Viceroy of India. The old Court of Directors, which dated back to the Tudors, and the Board of Control, which dated back to William Pitt the younger, were alike consigned to oblivion. Henceforth India was managed by a Secretary of State in Council, and Great Britain was an Asiatic power.
Alarm and panic in Great Britain.
§1. The sepoy mutinies awakened the British nation from the lethargy of forty years. At one time it was aroused by the discovery that the East India Company had acquired an empire larger than that of Napoleon; but was soon immersed once more in its own insular concerns. The sepoy revolt of 1857 stirred it up to its innermost depths. The alarms swelled to a panic. Exeter Hall clamoured for the conversion of Hindus and Mohammedans to Christianity. Some called aloud for vengeance on Delhi. The inhabitants were to be slaughtered as David slaughtered the Ammonites; the city was to be razed to the ground and its site sown with salt. Others, more ignorant than either, denounced the East India Company and Lord Dalhousie; demanded the restoration of British territory to Asiatic rulers, and the abandonment of India to its ancient superstition and stagnation.
British ignorance.
In the olden time India was only known to the bulk of the British nation as a land of idol-worshippers, who burnt living widows with their dead husbands, tortured themselves by swinging on hooks, thrust javelins through their tongues, prostrated themselves beneath the wheels of Juggernauth’s car, and threw their dying and dead into the holy Ganges, under a child-like faith that the safest way of going to heaven was by water. Educated men knew that the greater part of India had been previously conquered by Mohammedans, just as Syria and Persia were conquered by Arabs and Turks. It was also known that Mohammedans hated idolatry, broke down idols and pagodas, built mosques in their room, and forced many Hindus to accept Islam. But few, excepting those who had lived in India, knew anything of its affairs, or cared to know anything about them, except when war was declared against Afghans, Sikhs, or Burmese, or when Parliament was about to renew the charter of the late East India Company.
Missionary and educational movements.
But the instincts of the British nation are generally healthy and sensible. It subscribed largely to missionary societies, and was led by flaming reports to expect the speedy conversion of Hindus and Mohammedans. Such aspirations, however, were not to be realised. The devout were obliged to wait and pray; the sensible urged the East India Company to provide for the secular education of the masses. For centuries the rising generation had learnt something of reading, writing, and arithmetic from village schoolmasters, mostly Brahmans. These hereditary schoolmasters taught the village boys from generation to generation, in the same old-world fashion, with palm-leaves for books, sanded boards and floors for writing lessons, and clay marbles for working out little sums. Christian missionaries had established schools from an early period, especially in Southern India; and to this day nearly every Asiatic servant in the city of Madras can speak English indifferently well. Meanwhile the East India Company had done little or nothing for the education of the masses, nor indeed had much been done by the British government for its own people in those illiterate days.
Government High Schools, 1841: Hindus and Mohammedans.
§2. In 1841, when a British army was still at Cabul, the British government established high schools at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay. Hindu boys flocked to the new schools, but Mohammedans kept aloof. The followers of the Prophet would not accept an education which rejected the authority of Mohammed and the Koran. Meanwhile there was an agitation for teaching the Bible in the government schools. Had it succeeded, respectable Hindus would probably have followed the example of the Mohammedans.
State education, 1854.
At last, in 1854, a State system of education was introduced, beginning with primary schools and middle-class schools, and ending in British colleges with professors and lecture-rooms. The whole system in every presidency, and gradually in every province, was placed under the control of a Director of Public Instruction. Grants in aid were made to schools established by missionaries and others, according to the educational results of their teaching. A University was established at Calcutta, another at Madras, and a third at Bombay, for the conduct of examinations and the granting of degrees. In a word, secular education was proceeding on a liberal scale, and some Hindus, who took high degrees, got appointments in the revenue and judicial departments, whilst others entered the service of Asiatic rulers, and rose to the rank of ministers.
Bible teaching.
Then followed the terrible sepoy mutinies, and wild cries from the British Isles for teaching Christianity and the Bible in every government institution. Had British statesmen yielded to the demand, the general population would have felt that the rebel sepoys were in the right; that they had fought, not from childish terror, but for the defence of their religion and caste; that they were martyrs to their faith, who had been crushed by the European red-coats to clear the way for the conversion of helpless Hindus and Mohammedans who were without arms.
Toleration proclaimed, 1858.
Fortunately, the Royal Proclamation of 1858 was drafted by a statesman who felt that the machinery of government had no more to do with religious movements than the machinery of workshops. It announced, in clear and unmistakable language, that the British government had neither the right nor the desire to interfere with the faith of its Asiatic subjects, and the question of religious toleration in India was settled for ever.
Hostility of non-official Europeans.
§3. The sepoy mutinies had paralysed the executive government of India. To make matters worse, the non-official Europeans—the merchants, bankers, planters, and lawyers—had been hostile to the government of Lord Canning from the very beginning of the outbreak. The cause of this collision is important. It suggested the necessity for future reforms. It will be seen hereafter that something was done in this direction in 1861-62; but something else was undone, and further reforms are still needed.
Representation in the legislative council.
The legislative assembly of 1854 has already been described as the earliest germ of representative government in India. This was due to the fact that in addition to the executive members of council, the legislative chamber included four representative members, each one chosen from the civil service of one or other of the four Presidencies; also two judges of the old Supreme Court, who were not in the service of the East India Company, but were appointed by the British Crown, and were consequently independent legislators.
Controlled by the executive.
In every other respect, however, the executive government, including Lord Canning and the members of his executive council, exercised supreme control over the Indian legislature. They introduced what measures they pleased. They excluded what measures they disliked. Being mostly Bengal civilians, they were accused of ignoring the representative members from Madras and Bombay, and Madras and Bombay had some ground of complaint. No member of the legislative council of India had the power to introduce a bill without the consent of the Indian executive; nor even had the power, common to every member of the British parliament, to ask any question as regards the acts of the executive.
Class legislation.
At this period there was a nondescript body in England known as the “Indian Law Commissioners.” These gentlemen prepared an act cut and dried, and the Court of Directors sent it to India in 1857, and recommended that it should be passed into law by the legislative council of India. This act began with asserting the equality of Asiatics and Europeans in the eyes of the law; but laid down a still more invidious distinction between non-official and official Europeans. It proposed to subject all non-official Europeans to the jurisdiction of Asiatic magistrates, but to exempt from such jurisdiction all Europeans who were members of the Indian civil service, or officers of the army or navy.
Agitation and withdrawal.
The first reading was followed by alarm and indignation. The press thundered, outside orators raved in public meetings, and European petitions against the bill poured in like a rushing stream. For a long time not a single member of the legislative chamber raised a voice against such vicious legislation. The Penal Code had not become law, and judges and magistrates, whether European or Asiatic, administered the law very much at their own discretion, by the light of “equity and good conscience,” and voluminous regulations. Then, again, the time was out of joint for such an innovation. Mutiny and revolt were at work in the upper provinces, and isolated European planters might soon be at the mercy of Asiatic magistrates who sympathised with the rebels. At last, however, Sir Arthur Buller, one of the ablest judges of the old Supreme Court, rose from his seat in the legislative chamber, and virtually tore the bill to shreds. From that day it was doomed. Bengali baboos vainly petitioned the British government to pass the bill in all its integrity. It perished in the maelstrom of the mutiny, and was then formally withdrawn by the Court of Directors.
Executive council remodelled.
When the mutiny was over, Lord Canning remodelled the executive council into the form of a cabinet. He divided the administration into six branches, namely:—foreign, home, legislative, military, financial, and public works. The Viceroy was the prime minister, who sat as president of the council. He took charge of “foreign affairs.” The other members were ministers; each had charge of a separate department, and transacted the bulk of its business. All important business, however, was transacted by the whole cabinet of ministers, which held its regular sittings at Government House, as it had done in the days when the governor or president was only the head of a factory.
Ministers and secretaries.
The post of minister was not, and is not, doubled up with that of secretary, except during the earlier years of the public works department. In the present day there is a minister for every department. Every minister transacts the business of his branch at his own house; leaving the secretary and under-secretary to control the office of his particular department, conduct the correspondence, and carry out orders.
Mr. Wilson, Finance Minister, 1860.
§4. In 1860 an English financier, the late Mr. James Wilson, was sent out from England to put the Indian budget to rights. He was a famous man in his day; a noted leader of the anti-corn law league, and had a large reputation as a sound financier. He freely conferred with Calcutta merchants and bankers, and so far poured oil on the troubled waters; but in those days the merchants of Calcutta were as ignorant of India outside the city of palaces as Mr. Wilson himself, who was sent out to tax the people.
Income-tax.
Mr. Wilson quoted the laws of Manu in the legislative chamber, and proposed an income-tax. It was not an ordinary tax on incomes above 400l. or 500l. per annum, with which India has since been burdened. It included a tax on Asiatic incomes rising from eight shillings a week to twenty shillings. It was as oppressive as the poll-tax which drove Wat Tyler and Jack Cade into rebellion. But India was prostrate. British red-coats were masters; and British financiers might do as they pleased.
Protest of Sir Charles Trevelyan.
Sir Charles Trevelyan was Governor of Madras and knew India well. He protested against the tax and sent his protest to the newspapers. The Viceroy and the Secretary of State were filled with wrath at an act of insubordination which amounted to an appeal to the public opinion of India against the ukase of the supreme government. Sir Charles Trevelyan was removed from the government of Madras, but within two years he was revenged. The obnoxious clause had filled 600,000 households with weeping and wailing, in order to collect 350,000l., of which 100,000l. was spent on the work of collection. Accordingly the clause was repealed.34
Independent Judges.
Later on, the two judges who sat in the legislative chamber were guilty of a still more flagrant act of insubordination. Whilst 350,000l. was exacted from 600,000 poor Asiatics in the shape of income-tax, the Secretary of State for India overruled a previous decision of Lord Dalhousie, and capitalised half a million sterling, in order to improve the pensions of the descendants of Tippu! The controversy is obsolete; the two judges ventured to question the justice of this measure, and the heinous offence was punished in due course.
Legislative council remodelled, 1861-62.
§5. In 1861-62 the legislative council of India was reconstituted by act of parliament. The two judges were excluded from the legislative chamber, and European merchants, and Asiatics of wealth and influence, were nominated in their room. The control of the executive was thus stronger than ever, but it is doubtful whether the legislature has profited by the change.
Legislative councils at Madras, Bombay, and Bengal.
Legislative councils, on a similar footing to that of India at Calcutta, were granted to the governments of Madras and Bombay, as well as to the Lieutenant-Governor of Bengal. They include both European and Asiatic members, who are nominated by the local government. They legislate on purely local measures, such as port dues, hackney carriages, canal tolls, and municipalities. They are, however, under the immediate control of the executive, and have no power to make laws, or to initiate legislation in the legislative council of India.
New High Courts.
Judges in council.
§6. A still more important measure was carried out at this period. A new High Court of Justice was created at Calcutta, and also at Madras and Bombay, by the amalgamation of the Supreme Court and Sudder, which had been separate and rival courts ever since the days of Warren Hastings. In other words, the barrister judges appointed by the British Crown, and the civilian judges appointed by the Indian governments, sat together in the new High Court. Moreover, as a crowning innovation, an Asiatic judge was appointed to each High Court, to sit on the same bench as the European judges. The amalgamation of the two courts is an epoch in British rule in India. The coalition of barrister and civilian judges, and the presence of an Asiatic judge on the same bench, enlarged and strengthened the High Court. It was, however, unfortunate that a European and an Asiatic judge did not also sit in the legislative chambers. Such an addition would have converted the chambers into schools of legislation. An Asiatic judge, who had graduated in the High Court, would have taught something to his Asiatic colleagues in the legislative council; whilst a European judge would have smoothed away many of the asperities which have sprung up of late years between the acts of the Indian executive and the rulings of the High Court.
European and Asiatic magistrates.
The mixed constitution of the High Courts might be extended with advantage to the District Courts. If European and Asiatic judges sit on the same bench, why not European and Asiatic magistrates, deputy-magistrates, and subordinate judges? Such an amalgamation would prove a school for Asiatic magistrates and judges; whilst the evil spirit of race antagonism, which was raised by the unfortunate bill of 1857, and revived a few short years ago, would be allayed for ever.
Lord Canning leaves India, 1862.
§7. Lord Canning left India in March, 1862, and died in England the following June. His administration had been more eventful than that of any of his predecessors. At first he hesitated to crush the mutinies, and was named “Clemency Canning”; but he never lost his nerve. After the revolt at Delhi he rose to the occasion. Later on, non-official Europeans, as well as officials, learned to respect “Clemency Canning,” and his sudden death was felt by all as a loss to the nation as well as to the empire.
Lord Elgin, Viceroy, 1862-63.
§8. Lord Elgin succeeded Lord Canning. He was a statesman of experience and capacity, but cumbered with memories of China and Japan. Lord Elgin’s reign did not last two years. He died in November, 1863.
Sir John Lawrence, 1864-69.
§9. In those days of imperfect telegraphs, there was an interregnum of two months. Meanwhile, Sir William Denison, Governor of Madras, acted as provisional Governor-General. With great presence of mind, he sanctioned all the measures which he had previously sent up from Madras for the confirmation of the government of India. In January, 1864, Sir John Lawrence landed at Calcutta as Viceroy and Governor-General.
Sir William Denison at Madras.
Sir William Denison returned to Madras. He is said to have been hostile to competitive examinations, and anxious to govern Southern India without the help of an executive council. But his ideas of government were not in accord with those in power, and competitive examinations and civilian members of council have remained to this day.
Sir Bartle Frere at Bombay.
At this period Sir Bartle Frere was Governor of Bombay. He was an Anglo-Indian statesman of the first order, with capacity and experience combined with diplomatic tact. He had done good service as commissioner of Sind. Since then he had graduated in the Indian executive as Home member of Lord Canning’s cabinet. But, like many Indian civilians, he was too self-reliant, and fell upon evil times when Indian experiences could not help him.
American war: cotton famine.
Sir Bartle Frere was transferred from the cabinet at Calcutta to the government of Bombay at the moment when war was raging between the North and the South in the United States of America. A cotton famine was starving Manchester, and Indian cotton rose from threepence a pound to twenty pence. Bombay cultivators loaded their women with jewels, and shod their cattle with silver shoes. The spirit of speculation was rampant. Europeans and Asiatics, shrewd Scotchmen and cautious Parsis, rushed blindly into the wildest gambling. Mushroom companies sprung up in a single night like the prophet’s gourd, and flourished like the South Sea Bubble. Clerks and brokers woke up to find themselves millionaires, and straightway plunged into still madder speculations, dreaming, like Alnaschar, of estates as large as counties, of peerless brides, and of seats in the House of Lords.
Crash and panic.
Suddenly the American war collapsed, and cargoes of cotton were hurried from the States across the Atlantic. Prices fell to zero. There was joy at Manchester, but weeping and wailing at Bombay. The Bombay Bank had been drawn into the vortex of speculation, and loans had been advanced on worthless shares. How far Sir Bartle Frere was implicated is a disputed point; but the bank stopped payment, and Sir Bartle Frere lost his chance of becoming Viceroy of India.
Civilian experiences of John Lawrence.
The Viceroyalty of Sir John Lawrence was altogether exceptional.35 Most Viceroys are noble peers, who land in India with parliamentary and diplomatic experiences, but with no special knowledge of Asiatic affairs, beyond what has been “crammed up” at the India Office during the interval between acceptance of office and embarkation for Calcutta. In 1864 Lord Lawrence knew more about India than any previous Governor-General, Warren Hastings not excepted. He, and his foreign and home secretaries, the late Sir Henry Durand and the late Sir Edward Clive Bayley, were, perhaps, better versed in Indian history than any other men of the time. Lord Lawrence had gone through the ordeal of the mutiny with the salvation of the Empire in his hands. Since then he had sat on the council of the Secretary of State at Westminster, and learnt something of public opinion in the British Isles on Indian affairs.
Yearly migrations to Simla.
Lord Lawrence hated Bengal, and could not endure her depressing heats and vapour-baths.36 He was the first Governor-General who went every year to Simla, and he was the first who took all his cabinet ministers and secretaries with him. Old Anglo-Indians disliked these migrations, and likened them to the progresses of the Great Mogul with a train of lords and ladies, in tented palaces, escorted by hosts of soldiers and camp-followers, from Agra to Lahore, or from Delhi to Cashmere. But the migrations of the British government of India required no army of escort, and entailed no expense or suffering on the masses. Railways shortened the journeys; telegraphs prevented delays; and civilian members of government, whose experiences had previously been cribbed and cabined in Bengal, began to learn something of the upper provinces.
Sir John Lawrence and Sir Henry Durand.
Lord Lawrence, like his immediate predecessors, took the Foreign Office under his special and immediate charge. At that time Colonel, afterwards Major-General Sir Henry Durand, was foreign secretary to the government of India. Both Lawrence and Durand were firm to the verge of obstinacy, but Sir John was sometimes hasty and impetuous, whilst Colonel Durand was solid and immovable.
Foreign and political.
The main business of the Foreign Office is that of supervision. It directs all negotiations with the Asiatic states beyond the frontier, such as Afghanistan, Cashmere, and Nipal. It controls all political relations with the feudatory states of Rajputana and Central India, which are carried on by British officers known as political agents and assistants. In like manner it controls the political relations with other courts, which are carried on by “Residents.” It also overlooks the administration in newly-acquired territories, which, like the Punjab, are known as “non-regulation” provinces.37
Afghanistan: death of Dost Mohammed Khan.
The main question of the day was Afghanistan affairs. Dost Mohammed Khan died in 1863, after a chequered life of war and intrigue, a labyrinth which no one can unravel. He had driven his enemy Shah Shuja out of Cabul; he had been robbed of the coveted valley of Peshawar by Runjeet Singh; he had coquetted with Persia, Russia, and the British government. He had abandoned his dominions on the advance of the British army in 1839-40; fled to Bokhara; then surrendered to Macnaghten; was sent to Calcutta as a state prisoner; played at chess with the ladies at Government House; and finally returned to Cabul. He seized the valley of Peshawar during the second Sikh war. Finally he had become friends with the British government, and made no attempt to take advantage of the sepoy mutinies to recover Peshawar.
Jacob versus Esau.
But old Dost Mohammed had a patriarchal weakness for youthful wives. He had been beguiled by a blooming favourite into nominating her son as his successor, to the exclusion of the first-born. It was nearly a case of Jacob versus Esau, and when the old man was gathered to his fathers, the younger son and the first-born, with their respective partisans, tried to settle the succession by force of arms. The British government did not interfere, but left the brothers to fight on, until the elder was carried off by death, and the younger, the late Shere Ali Khan, gained the throne.
Mysore.
Mysore was another vexed question. Lord Wellesley had acquired Mysore by the conquest of Tippu in 1799. He incorporated some provinces into the Madras Presidency, but formed the remaining territory into a little Hindu state, and placed a Hindu boy, a kinsman of the Raja who had been supplanted by Hyder, on the throne of Mysore. The boy grew to be a man, and turned out a worthless, extravagant, and oppressive ruler, deaf to all remonstrances and warnings. His subjects rebelled against his tyranny and exactions. Even Lord William Bentinck, a sentimental admirer of Asiatic principalities, was disgusted with his conduct and deposed him, and placed Mysore territory in charge of a British commissioner, and brought it under British rule.
Restoration of Hindu rule.
Thirty years passed away. There was an outcry in the British Isles against annexation. It was proposed to restore the ex-Raja to his throne, but Mysore had become to all intents and purposes a British province. In the teeth of these facts, it was determined to restore this flourishing territory to the rule of the worthless Hindu who had been deposed by Lord William Bentinck a generation previously. Sir John Lawrence fought against the measure, but was overruled. At last there was a compromise. It was decided to place an adopted son of the ex-Raja on the throne, and to remove the British administration from Mysore, and place an Asiatic administration in its room. The ex-Raja was extremely annoyed at this arrangement. It put an end to all his aspirations. He did not want an adopted son, and would willingly have left his territories to the British government, had he been only allowed to handle the revenues during his own lifetime.
Opposition of Durand.
Sir John Lawrence, like every practical administrator in India, was most unwilling to replace Mysore under Asiatic rule. He submitted under pressure, but not without misgivings. Colonel Durand, however, opposed it tooth and nail. Had he been a Roman general, ordered to restore the island of Albion to an adopted son of Boadicea, or had he been an English lord of the marches ordered to restore the principality of Wales to a son of Llewellyn, he could not have felt more indignation. Durand was, of course, powerless to resist, and the restoration was carried out. The future alone can decide the merits of the question.
Oudh talukdars.
Next arose a controversy about the Oudh talukdars. Lord Canning had dealt liberally with the talukdars, restored most of their so-called estates, and converted them into landed proprietors. Sir John Lawrence discovered that the rights of joint village proprietors had been overlooked. Again there was a paper war, which ended in another compromise. The talukdars were eventually confirmed in the possession of their estates, but the rights of under proprietors and occupiers were defined and respected.
The cabinet and legislature.
Meanwhile Colonel Durand was transferred from the Foreign Office to the executive council, with charge of the military department. As a member of the council he had a seat in the legislative chamber, and on one occasion he voted against the other ministers. This raised a question as to the right of a member of the cabinet to vote against the majority of his colleagues in the legislative chamber. It was argued on one side that in England a cabinet minister must vote with his colleagues in parliament; in other words, he must either sacrifice his conscience for the sake of party or resign his post in the executive. On the other side it was urged that an Indian cabinet had nothing whatever to do with party, and that any cabinet minister might vote in the legislative chamber as he deemed best for the public service, without thereby losing his position as member of the executive council.
Sir John Lawrence leaves India, 1869.
§10. Sir John Lawrence retired from the post of Viceroy in 1869. With the exception of an expedition into Bhotan, a barbarous state in the Himalayas next door to Nipal, there was peace in India throughout the whole of his five years’ administration. He returned to England and was raised to the peerage. He had strong attachments, but the outer world only knew him as a strong, stern man, with a gnarled countenance and an iron will. He lived for ten years longer in his native country, doing good work as the chairman of the London School Board, and taking an active part in every movement that would contribute to the welfare of his generation, until, in 1879, the saviour of British India found a final resting-place in Westminster Abbey.
Lord Mayo Viceroy, 1869-72.
§11. Lord Mayo succeeded as Viceroy and Governor-General. To him is due the greatest reform in the constitutional government of India since the mutiny. He delivered the local governments from the financial fetters of the Viceroy in Council, and left them more responsibility as regards providing local funds for local wants, and devoting local savings to local expenditure. Hitherto every presidency and province got as much as it could out of the imperial treasury, and spent as much as it could during the current financial year, for any balance that remained was lost for ever by being credited to imperial funds. Henceforth every presidency and province was interested in improving its income and cutting down its expenditure, since it was entrusted with some discretion as regards the disposal of the surplus money.
Tragic death.
The assassination of Lord Mayo in 1872 by an Afghan desperado in the Andaman Islands, brought the career of a great and energetic Viceroy to a sad and sudden close. By force of character, noble address, and genial open-heartedness, Lord Mayo had charmed every Asiatic feudatory that came to do homage; and even brought Shere Ali Khan, the sour and suspicious ruler of Afghanistan, to put some trust in the good faith and good intentions of the British government. His death was a loss to every European and Asiatic in India, and a loss to the British empire.
Lord Northbrook, 1872-76.
§12. The later administrations of Lord Northbrook in 1872-76, of Lord Lytton in 1876-80, of Lord Ripon in 1880-1884, and the advent of Lord Dufferin, the present Viceroy, are too recent for personal criticism. They have been characterised, however, by events and changes which have left their mark on British rule in India.
Royalty in India.
The personal influence of Her Majesty, and the presence of princes of the royal blood, have imparted a new prestige to British sovereignty. The visit of the Duke of Edinburgh during the régime of Lord Mayo, and the extended tour of the Prince of Wales during the régime of Lord Northbrook, were welcomed in India with every demonstration of joy and loyalty. The old East India Company was a magnificent corporation, but had always been a mystery to Asiatics. The presence of British princes, the sons of Her Majesty, solved the problem for ever.
Lord Lytton Viceroy, 1876-80: proclamation of the Empress.
§13. Finally the Imperial assemblage at Delhi on the 1st of January, 1877, when Her Majesty was proclaimed Empress of India by Lord Lytton, in the presence of all the members of the Indian governments, all the high officials of the empire, and of all the Asiatic feudatory rulers and their ministers, gave a reality to British sovereignty in India which had previously been wanting. When Queen Elizabeth gave a charter to the East India Company, at the beginning of the seventeenth century, when Queen Anne received a present of “tay” from the Court of Directors, and even when George III. and Queen Charlotte graciously accepted an ivory bedstead from the polite Warren Hastings, not a soul in the British Isles could possibly have dreamed that the nineteenth century would see the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland reigning as Empress over the dominions of the Great Mogul. Neither could the Asiatic populations of that dim commercial period, who beheld the European gentlemen writing letters and keeping accounts in factories and fortresses, have imagined that a day would come when the descendants of the “European gentlemen” would be the rulers of India.
Second Afghan war.
§14. Under Lord Lytton’s régime there was a second war in Afghanistan. Shere Ali Khan had become estranged from the British government. He imprisoned his eldest son, Yakub Khan, and refused British mediation. He was offended because the British government would not conclude an offensive and defensive alliance on equal terms. He received a mission from Russia at Cabul, and refused to receive a mission from the British government.
British designs.
Accordingly, it was resolved to establish British supremacy in Afghanistan; to advance the British frontier to the Hindu Kush; to convert the mountain range into a natural fortress, with Afghan-Turkistan for its berme and the river Oxus for its ditch. Russia already held the glacis, as represented by Usbeg-Turkistan.
Massacre and submission.
Shere Ali Khan fled away northward as the British army advanced, and died in exile. Yakub Khan succeeded to the throne, and submitted to the demands of the British Resident. Then followed the cruel and cowardly massacre of Sir Louis Cavagnari, the British Resident at Cabul, with all his officers and attendants; the abdication of Yakub Khan; and finally the accession of Abdul Rahman Khan, the present Amir, who was son of the first born of Dost Mohammed who was ousted in favour of Shere Ali.
Regulation and non-regulation provinces.
During the generation that followed the mutinies, the administration of British India has been undergoing an important change. The old patriarchal rule of non-regulation provinces has been fading away. The distinction between regulation and non-regulation is being effaced. The Punjab and Oudh, the Central Provinces and British Burma, which for years had been exclusively controlled by the Foreign Office, are being brought more and more under the Home Office; and the same laws and forms of administration will soon prevail throughout every presidency and province of the Anglo-Indian empire.
Asiatic students: European masters.
§15. British India is a school for Asiatics in which Europeans are the masters. The teaching has hitherto been successful. Asiatic students are becoming monitors; some are under-masters; and some may in due course hope to be masters. The British government is appointing educated Asiatics to posts of responsibility and trust, which few European merchants and bankers have hitherto ventured to do. Accordingly, non-officials, as well as officials, are awaiting the results of an experiment that will serve to show how far the Asiatic has profited by his European education; and how far he may be entrusted with the higher duties of administration, or with the exercise of self-government and political power.
Hindu culture.
Hindus have many virtues. They are obedient to parents, polite to equals, respectful to superiors, and reverential towards priests and preceptors. But for ages they have lived under the despotism of caste, custom, and religion, which is slowly melting away from European capitals of India, but is still rampant in Asiatic towns and villages. British education is elevating their intellects and enlarging their experiences, but cannot change their nature, nor hastily emancipate them from the usages of ages. The result is that to this day, both Hindus and Mohammedans lack those political ideas of constitutional government and public life, in which Englishmen have been trained since the days of Queen Elizabeth.
Child marriages.
Hindus are married in their childhood, and are often husbands and fathers when British boys are still at school, or learning trades and professions, or competing at boating or cricket. All this while, and for years after they have attained manhood, the bulk of Hindus are living under the roof of their parents. Husbands are ruled by fathers as though they were still children, and wives are the victims of their mothers-in-law.
Temper and repression.
Occasionally Hindus will exhibit a petulance and passion like that which drove the sepoys into mutiny; but as a general rule, they are kept within bounds by the despotism and discipline which reigns supreme in Hindu families, as well as by the severe self-control, which Asiatics esteem as one of the highest virtues. Moreover, during a long course of ages, they have become more or less enervated by that depressing heat, which often shakes the nerve and loosens the muscle of Europeans. Consequently, they have little relish for active life, and generally prefer sedentary duties which do not involve physical exertion.
Village communities.
Hindu village communities may have had some public life in the pre-British period. They governed themselves, and administered justice amongst themselves, but they in their turn were governed by caste, custom, and superstition. Sometimes they defended themselves against brigands or tigers, and they environed their domiciles with mud walls, wooden palisades, or hedges of prickly pear. If however there were any rumours of an enemy appearing in force, they all fled to the jungle until the danger was over. In Bengal, the villagers were helpless to resist dacoits, who occasionally committed the most horrible crimes; but since the organisation of police under European superintendence, such atrocities have disappeared from British India.
Despotic commonwealths.
Where the village community was strong, the little commonwealth was a despotism. The joint proprietary was an oligarchy, and tenants and cultivators were serfs or slaves. The officials and artisans were hereditary, and hereditary officials are almost invariably inefficient and untrustworthy. Village justice may have been administered by the elders, but generally at the dictation of some domineering Brahman or Guru.
Old civilian conservatism.
Indian civilians of the old school, like Thomas Munro and Mountstuart Elphinstone, were much inclined towards Hindu institutions. In those ancient times the whole village would turn out to welcome the arrival of a new British collector and magistrate. The Asiatic officials appeared with music, flags, and garlands, whilst the village dancing girl performed before the “great man,” and sung his praises. The “great man” in his turn was charmed with these manifestations of respect for British rule; but a later generation was aghast at the enormity, and the demonstration was stopped by the Court of Directors.
Failure.
In the Madras Presidency Munro turned the headmen of villages into munsifs, and empowered them to settle all civil disputes up to the value of twenty shillings. The village munsifs might also summon a punchayet, or council of arbitrators, to settle disputes above that amount. In the Bombay Presidency, Mountstuart Elphinstone made similar attempts to utilise the Mahratta collectors and sub-collectors. But in both cases the experiment failed through hereditary incapacity or corruption.
Trained Asiatic officials.
The creation of new classes of Asiatic officials has been more successful. Munsifs, trained and educated, are deciding civil cases in the districts, and have proved efficient and trustworthy. Deputy-collectors and magistrates, as well as subordinate judges, have also been found to do their work well. Pay and position have been improved, and the number has been increased; and possibly more might be done in this direction. But this question can be best worked out with that of placing European and Asiatic magistrates on the same bench.
Viceroy of India in council.
§16. The Viceroy is sovereign over the whole of India. He is no longer drawn away from the cares of supreme control by the separate and direct government of Bengal and the North-West Provinces. Each of these presidencies has now a lieutenant-governor of its own. The Viceroy is thus the presiding deity of the whole of India. During the cold weather months he reigns at Calcutta on the banks of the Hughly, where he is president alike of an executive council and a legislative council. During the hot weather months, he is enthroned at Simla like another Indra, on the slopes of the Himalaya mountains, attended by his cabinet or executive council. He exercises sovereign authority over every presidency and every province; and every Asiatic ruler in India, Hindu or Mohammedan, Rajput or Mahratta, acknowledges the supremacy of the Viceroy and Governor-General as the representative of the Queen and Empress.
Secretary of State in Council.
But Indra himself is subject to some mysterious power, who is omnipotent and invisible. In like manner the Viceroy of India in Council is subject to a deus ex machinâ, in the shape of the Secretary of State for India in Council. The Secretary of State, or one of his under-secretaries, is sometimes asked questions in Parliament; but the Secretary of State for the time being generally manages to have his own way, or treads cautiously in the footsteps of his predecessors, or relies on the wisdom of the reigning Viceroy.
Strengthening of legislative council.
The executive council of the Secretary of State, as well as that of the Viceroy, are essential parts of the constitutional government of India. But the legislative council of India lacks strength and independence. It was a mistake to shut out the two judges from the chamber. One European and one Asiatic judge would be as useful in the council as on the bench. Again, in these days of railways and steamers, there seems no reason why governors of presidencies, and lieutenant-governors and chief commissioners of provinces, should not occasionally sit in the legislative council of India to exchange views and give the weight of their personal support to their respective representative members. The sittings are generally held in the cold season, when the British Parliament is not sitting. The occasional presence of high Indian officials and British members of Parliament would improve the debates, educate public opinion, and convert the chamber into a high school for Asiatic legislators.
British Residents in Asiatic states.
Meanwhile the idea of a school should be borne in mind in every branch of the administration, civil and judicial, and especially in the foreign or political department. A British officer at an Asiatic court is often the one solitary representative of civilisation and progress; and this feeble light ought to be fed, strengthened, and kept constantly burning like the fire of the Vestal virgins. By that light, Asiatic rulers may hope in time to rise to the level of Europeans; without it, they may sink back into the barbarism of the past century, when the Mogul empire had lost its hold, and was tottering to its fall.
Footnotes
1 The island of Goa, and the fortress of Diu in Guzerat, were nominally within Mohammedan dominion, but they were really independent and were held by force of arms.
2 The authorities for the present chapter, which deals with the rise and early development of British rule in India, are somewhat numerous. The most important are the Government records at Madras, in which the weekly transactions of the Governor and Council are entered at full length in a series known as “Consultations.” Every year a copy of the “Consultations” was sent to the Court of Directors, together with a summary of the affairs of the year as a “General Letter;” and every year a “General Letter” was received from the Court of Directors, reviewing the “Consultations,” and conveying instructions and orders thereon. The Madras records have been closely investigated by the author from 1670 to 1748; and printed extracts were published at Madras in 1860-62, in three volumes small quarto, under the title of Madras in the Olden Time. To them may be added Bruce’s Annals of the East India Company; Sir Thomas Roe’s Journal of a Mission to the Great Mogul in 1616-18; and the travels of Pietro della Valle, Tavernier, Thevenot and Fryer; as well as Orme’s History of Hindustan, Stewart’s History of Bengal, Faria y Souza’s History of Portuguese Asia, and Shaw’s Predecessors of the High Court at Madras. Further authorities will be found cited in the author’s History of India from the Earliest Ages, and in his Early Records of British India.
3 The Mofussil Courts, and the High Court in Appeals from the Mofussil Courts, are still required to decide, according to “equity and good conscience.” See the “High Court amended Charters” granted in 1866.
4 This was notoriously the case at Surat, where female slaves might be purchased by Europeans. There was a Dutch factory at Surat of the same stamp as the British factory, and its married inmates were in like manner forbidden to bring their wives from Holland. But when the Dutch got possession of Java, they offered grants of land to married Dutchmen, and, according to Pietro della Valle, there was a sudden change in domestic arrangements. Dutch bachelors were in such a hurry to go to Java, that they married Armenian Christians, or went off to the bazaar and bought female slaves and baptised them and married them without loss of time.
5 Abbé Dubois, who lived many years in Southern India, could not account for the distinction between the two Hands; Dr. Fryer was told about 1676 that the antagonism was planned by the Brahmans to keep the lower castes in subjection.
6 Since the foregoing chapter was in type, Professor Terrien de Lacouperie has kindly pointed out that a division between right and left hands has existed from a remote period in Central and Eastern Asia. Among the Turkish Hiung-nu on the north-west of China, the officers were arranged into two divisions, a left and a right-hand side, both before and after the Christian era. The Burut-Kirghiz are still divided into two wings, viz., on of the right and sol of the left.
In China the task of keeping a daily chronicle of “words” and “facts” was entrusted to two officers, one on the left-hand of the emperor and the other on his right. The officer on the left recorded all speeches and addresses, whilst that on the right recorded all facts and events. This last division, however, is a mere title in Chinese administration; the left-hand being more honourable than the right, and taking the precedence.
The distinction between the right and left hands in Southern India, is, as already seen, a caste antagonism, and it is impossible to say whether it has or has not any connection, however remote, with that in Central Asia or China. The Dravidian populations of Southern India certainly immigrated from the region beyond the Himalayas in some unknown period, but all historical links are wanting save the evidence of language. Professor Terrien de Lacouperie, in his lectures on “Indo-Chinese Philology,” has pointed out that the Dravidian group forms the fourth division of the Kueonlunic branch of Turanian languages.
7 The three provinces of Bengal, Behar, and Orissa are known to Europeans by the one name of Bengal. Bengal proper includes the delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra. Behar is the frontier province towards Oudh, having its capital at Patna. Orissa lies to the south of Behar and Bengal proper, but Cuttack and the hilly country to the south and west had been ceded to the Mahrattas. The Orissa of the period comprises little more than Midnapore; but the high-sounding title was still retained of Nawab of Bengal, Behar and Orissa. After the Mahratta wars of 1803, the British took possession of Cuttack and remaining portions of Orissa, in order to hold the sea-board against invasion.
8 In the present day there are forty-five districts in the Bengal provinces, namely, thirty-seven regulation and eight non-regulation. The distinction between the two classes of districts will be explained hereafter.
9 The first portrait of Warren Hastings was exhibited at the Grosvenor Gallery in 1883. The second portrait is still hanging in the Council Chamber at the India Office at Westminster.
10 See Holwell’s Historical Events in Bengal.
11 The control over the country police was also transferred from the zemindars to the new magistrates and collectors. This measure was good in itself, but attended with disadvantages, which will be brought under review hereafter.
12 The old Sudder Courts at Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay finally disappeared in 1862, when they were amalgamated with the Supreme Courts, which will be described hereafter, and which, up to that date, were exclusively composed of barrister judges. In the present day they are forgotten by all but lawyers familiar with a past generation, yet the Sudder Courts played their part in the history of the past. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, when the Marquis of Wellesley was Governor-General, three civilians were appointed judges in the Sudder, one being a member of Council and the Chief Judge in the room of the Governor-General.
13 The defence of Sir Elijah Impey has been thoroughly investigated from a legal point of view, in the Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey, by Sir James Fitzjames Stephen.
14 Two centuries have passed away since the death of Sivaji, yet in June, 1885, a public meeting was held at Poona to take steps for repairing his tomb. His admirers styled him the Wallace of the Deccan.
15 Lord Cornwallis carried out important reforms in the Bengal army, and thus enabled his successors to build up the larger Indian empire. The British army in India, Asiatic and European, will be brought under review it Chapter V., which deals with the sepoy revolt of 1857-58.
16 The abolition of “sitting in dharna” by Sir John Shore was the first great social reform which was carried out in India under British rule. In 1802 Lord Wellesley abolished the still more horrible practice of sacrificing living children by throwing them to the alligators at the mouth of the Ganges; whilst the once famous rite of suttee, or the burning of living widows with their dead husbands, was practised under British rule down to 1829, when it was abolished by Lord William Bentinck.
17The following fragment preserves something of the feeling of the time:—
“Fill the wine-cup fast, for the storm is past,
The tyrant Tippu is slain at last,
And victory smiles
To reward the toils
Of Britons once again.
“Let the trumpet sound, and the sound go round
Along the bound of Eastern ground;
Let the cymbals clang
With a merry-merry bang,
To the joys of the next campaign.”
18 There was also some show of treaty rights in appropriating the territory, but the question is obscure and obsolete. In 1775 the Nawab Vizier had ceded the revenues of the territory for the maintenance of a British force in Oudh, and Lord Wellesley is said to have only closed the mortgage by taking over the country.
19 The ex-Peishwa was born in 1775, when Warren Hastings and Philip Francis were beginning to quarrel at Calcutta. He ascended the throne of Poona in 1795. He concluded the treaty of Bassein with Lord Wellesley in 1802. He was dethroned in 1818. He lived at Bithoor, near Cawnpore, until he died, an old man of seventy-seven, in 1853. After his death the notorious Nana Sahib claimed to be an adopted son, and demanded a continuation of the pension of 80,000l. The story will be found in Chapter VI., of the present volume, in connection with the massacre at Cawnpore during the sepoy mutinies of 1857.
20 Kali, the black goddess, is the tutelar deity of Calcutta. By a strange anomaly, Calcutta is so called after the temple Kali, at the village of Kali ghat, in the suburbs of the British metropolis. The temple enclosure, where kids and goats are sacrificed, is not a pleasant place to look at.
21 In each district there was a magistrate and collector. The two duties had been separated by Lord Cornwallis, but were generally united in one officer, who was the head of the district and representative of the British government. As magistrate he punished Asiatic offenders with fine and imprisonment, and committed serious cases for trial. He controlled the police, managed the jail, and was generally responsible for the peace and order of the district. As collector he received the revenues of the district, took charge of the treasury, and controlled the district expenditure. If anything went wrong in the district the magistrate and collector was the universal referee and centre of authority.
The civil judge in each district was raised to the rank of a sessions judge. He was the judicial head of the district. He heard appeals from all the subordinate courts, tried all important civil cases, and held a jail delivery once a month, for the trial of all prisoners committed by the magistrate and collector. Henceforth he was known as the district judge.
Lord William Bentinck abolished the four provincial courts of circuit and appeal which had been established by Lord Cornwallis, declaring that they had become mere resting-places for those civil servants who were unfit for higher duties. In their room he appointed commissioners of divisions, each of whom had five or six districts under his control. Henceforth the commissioner supervised the civil and judicial administration throughout the districts within his division. He was the channel of all communications between the British government at Calcutta and the district officers. Sometimes he heard appeals from the civil and sessions judge, but as a rule such appeals went to the Sudder Courts at Calcutta. In revenue matters he was controlled by the Board of Revenue at Calcutta.
The district officers had European assistants, as well as establishments of Asiatic officials.
22 The North-West Provinces, which extend from Bengal to the Punjab, were to have been formed into the “Agra” Presidency. The change of name would have been extremely convenient. Later on, when the Punjab was annexed, the term “North-West Provinces” became a misnomer. The Punjab was de facto the furthest province on the north-west. Since then Oudh has been annexed to the North-West Provinces, and the term “North-West Provinces and Oudh” has become cumbrous. A single name like “Agra” would be more appropriate.
23 See the author’s History of India from the Earliest Ages, vol. iii., pages 60, 280, etc.
24 The villages in the Company’s Jaghir shared the same fate. They were sold by auction in groups, and were mostly bought up by native servants and dependents of the British officials at Madras. In process of time the ryotwari settlement was introduced, and then a very knotty question was raised. Under the ryotwari settlement a certain portion of the waste lands round a village was given to the villagers in common for grazing and other purposes; but the culturable waste lands were taken over by the British authorities, and valued, and rented out accordingly, to such ryots as were willing to bring them under cultivation. The buyers of the villages in the Company’s Jaghir claimed, however, to be proprietors of the whole of the waste lands. For many years the demand was referred by the Board of Revenue to the Supreme Court, and by the Supreme Court back again to the Board of Revenue. By this time the question has perhaps been settled.
25 The capture of Ghazni was mainly due to the cool intrepidity of the late Sir Henry Durand, then a lieutenant in the Bengal Engineers.
26 As these pages are passing through the press Upper Burma has been annexed to the British empire. In 1870 the author was sent by the British government on a semi-political mission to Mandalay and Bhamo. In those days the reigning king respected British supremacy, and British representatives were maintained at the capital and the frontier. These political ties were subsequently loosened, and annexation became a state necessity. Like most of the Buddhist kings of Burma, Theebaw was a professed water drinker, but much given to strong liquors, in which state he committed the most revolting cruelties. Similar horrors are related of the old kings of Burma in the author’s Short History of India, Afghanistan, Nepal, and Burma, chap. xv.
27 English and India, by M. E. de Valbezen, late Consul-General at Calcutta, Minister Plenipotentiary.
28 During the first Cabul war of 1839-42, Hindu sepoys were taken prisoners by the Afghans, and subjected to a similar process in order to convert them to Islam. But times had changed since the establishment of British supremacy. Money would expiate any spiritual crime, or purchase any pardon or privilege from the Brahmans. When the prisoners returned to India they received back pay from the British government for the whole term of their captivity. Accordingly, after a long series of abstruse calculations, the Brahmans discovered that this back pay would exactly meet the cost of expiation. But the sepoys refused the bait. They preferred keeping the back pay in their pockets, and remaining within the fold of Islam. What became of their Hindu wives and families is a mystery to this day.
29 This last fact was vouched by an English civil servant who was living at the time with the late Mr. Cooper, the magistrate in question. Unfortunately Mr. Cooper subsequently published a description of the execution in a tone of levity which was generally condemned.
30 Eventually the king and his family were sent to Rangoon, where he died in 1862.
31 Mr. John Colvin, a distinguished Bengal civilian and Lieutenant-Governor of the North-West Provinces, who was shut up in the fortress at Agra, died during the siege. Many old Anglo-Indians still remember his career with interest. He was private secretary to Lord Auckland during the first Cabul war. His son, Sir Auckland Colvin of the Bengal Civil Service, is now Financial Minister to the Government of India under Lord Dufferin.
32 During the march, the 93d Highlanders suddenly stopped, broke their ranks, and rushed off right and left like madmen. It was thought that they were seized with a panic. It turned out that they were flying from bees, who were swarming at their bare legs and stinging like fury.
33 For an interesting account of the state of affairs in Central India during the mutinies of 1857, see Life of Major-General Sir Henry M. Durand, by his Son. 2 vols. 8vo. London, 1883. Sir Henry Durand was Agent to the Governor-General for Central India, and Resident at Indore, during the mutinies.
34 Mr. James Wilson died in 1860. He was succeeded by Mr. Samuel Laing as financial minister, who in his turn was succeeded in 1862 by Sir Charles Trevelyan.
35 During the Viceroyalty he was plain Sir John Lawrence, but when it was over he was raised to the peerage.
36 Calcutta is by no means an unpleasant residence for Europeans with tolerably sound constitutions. Sir John Lawrence was only in his fifty-fifth year, but he was sadly worn by hard work and unexampled anxieties.
37 British territory in India comprises 900,000 square miles, with a population of 200,000,000. Asiatic territory comprises nearly 600,000 square miles, with a population of 52,000,000.
Northern India is fringed on the west by Afghanistan, on the north by Cashmere, Nipal, and Bhotan; on the east by Munipore and Burma.
Central India is traversed from west to east by a belt or zone of states and chiefships—Rajput, Mahratta, and Mohammedan—which extends from the western coast of Gujerat facing the Indian Ocean, and the western desert of Sind facing Rajputana, through the heart of the Indian continent eastward to the Bengal Presidency. This belt includes, amongst a host of minor principalities and chiefships, the three leading Rajput states—Jeypore, Jodhpore, and Oodeypore; the Jhat state of Bhurtpore; the Mahratta territories of the Gaekwar of Baroda in Western India, and those of Sindia and Holkar in Central India; and the Hindu states of Bundelkund, including Rewah, along the eastern hills and jungles to the south of the river Jumna.
The Deccan includes the Mohammedan dominions of the Nizam of Hyderabad, to the eastward of the Bombay Presidency.
Southern India includes the Hindu states of Mysore and Travancore to the westward of the Madras Presidency.
The term “foreign” as applied to the Indian Foreign Office is a misnomer, and has led to confusion. The term “political department” would be more correct, as it deals mainly with Asiatic feudatory states which are bound up with the body politic of the Anglo-Indian empire. The relations between the British government and its Asiatic feudatories are not “international” in the European sense of the word, and are not controlled by international law. They are “political” in the imperial sense of the word, and are governed by the treaties, and regulated by the sovereign authority which is exercised by the British government as the paramount power in India. A British officer is placed in charge of every state, or group of states, and is known as “political agent” or “Resident.”
Lord Macaulay, versed in European history, but with no special knowledge of Asia, condemns the word “political,” which had been used ever since the department was founded by Warren Hastings. He declared that Asiatic feudatories were “foreign states,” and that the relations between those feudatories and the paramount power were diplomatic. Lord Macaulay in his time was as great a literary authority as Dr. Samuel Johnson. Lord Ellenborough took the hint when he was Governor-General, and changed the Political Department into the Foreign Office. It would be better to call it “Political and Foreign.”