Modern India: a sketch of the system of civil government. To which is prefixed, some account of the natives and native institutions

Front matter

MODERN INDIA: A SKETCH OF THE SYSTEM OF CIVIL GOVERNMENT. WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE NATIVES AND NATIVE INSTITUTIONS. BY GEORGE CAMPBELL, ESQ., BENGAL CIVIL SERVICE. SECOND EDITION, REVISED AND CORRECTED. LONDON: JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET. 1853. LONDON : PRINTED BY W. CLOWES AND SONS, STAMFORD STREET, ) NOTICE TO THE SECOND EDITION. I trust that this volume has so far answered the pur pose for which it was intended, that another edition will not be at this time out of place. It was published in a very rough and unpolished form, and abounded in errors of language ; but I flatter myself, that very few inaccura cies have been discovered in my facts, and therefore I do not regret that, having long and assiduously devoted myself to their collection and elucidation, I should have produced them in an inelegant dress at the time when they were most likely to be useful, rather than have delayed them with a view to more polished execution.

I confess tomany literary shortcomings, but my objects were not literary. I have since been otherwise employed, and do not pro fess to have materially altered the book as it originally appeared, but I have revised it, have made some verbal corrections, have rectified any errors which have been discovered, have modified some opinions, and have added some explanatory notes. The date is still that of the original edition. To bring it down one year later, I must have altered much of the detail of my figures, and have recast the whole work. In truth, having been absent from India, I should be hardly a competent wit ness to subsequent facts, but I believe that there has b ) been little important change, and I have stated in notes anything which seems materially to affect my former statements. I have, as I have said, modified some opinions which I stated at the time to be but in course of formation, and I have explained or omitted others which, but incidentally alluded to and imperfectly expressed, have been incorrectly understood.

I formerly used some ex pressions which were no necessary part of my subject, and may have been on that account less guarded and considered than they might have been : and as I have in another volume more fully expressed my sentiments on these points, I have tried in this statement of facts to avoid debatable ground. Some of the expressions ap plied to the press and to the privileges of Europeans in India should have been confined to the abuse, and are not applicable to the use, of existing rights. A principal satisfaction to me is, that my volume has drawn forth comments and statements from persons of various experience, and I shall be proud if I have made a beginning towards a more general collation of Indian facts and experiences. London, May 1, 1853. ( v )

Preface

. I believe that India is now more considered than it was wont to be, and at this moment, when the periodical Parliamentary review of Indian affairs is approaching, practical information may not be unacceptable. My object is to give in one view such a general sketch of the mode in which the civil administration of the country is conducted as may satisfy those who take an interest in, without being technically acquainted with, the subject. It appears that this information has no where been brought into small compass or accessible form, and some very false ideas on the subject have obtained currency. Whether I may succeed in sup plying this want the reader must judge. I have had an intimate experience of the detail of the principal depart ments of the Indian administration, and I am not without hope that a description of the machinery which.

I have handled, and the facts which I have witnessed, may be in some degree interesting and useful. The subject has long occupied my thoughts, and I have collected in formation in many different places and from many dif ferent sources. I have then, during the last few months, devoted my spare time to the pages for which I now crave indulgence. I fear that the literary execution is very imperfect, but I trust that the importance of the matters treated may in some degree compensate for the rudeness of the form, and have thought it best to PIJEFAOR. VI concentrate my attention on facts, and to publish in this guise rather than let pass what seems to me to be the proper season. The subject is almost too large for such a volume, but I have compressed it as much as possible. Parliament will shortly legislate for India under pecu liarly interesting circumstances.

We have lately reached the natural limits of the country, and having become, for the first time, its undisputed masters, we enjoy a much better prospect of quiet and peaceable government than has ever before been known. It is now, then, more than ever important to secure the best system of administration. I do not at present attempt to suggest changes or amendments ; to do so would be premature, and there is much to learn and much to compare in this country before finally determining opinions formed on the spot. But as the first and most necessary step towards improvement is correctly to estimate the facts as they exist, I would both myself study the subject, and contribute my mite towards informing the public. Fortunately little question of English politics is now involved in Indian affairs ; yet the effect of former politi cal prejudice is by no means altogether obliterated.

A set of notions, originating in the days and in the errors of Burke, are, in some degree, traditionally handed clown to the present day. The Indian Government having once acquired a bad name, the most absurd stories obtain a certain degree of credence, or affectation of credence. It is hardly wonderful that individuals (even members of Parliament) should be found to make un founded assertions on the subject, but the misfortune is that nine-tenths of the educated classes (in or out of the House) seem to be in no condition to say whether these stories be true or false. I should hope that a very little attention to a very few plain facts will show the ante-

PREFACE.

. VII cedent impossibility of most of the fictions so often repeated. I could have wished to have confined myself to present facts, but I feel that, if I were to require as a preliminary the perusal of the nine volumes of Mill, I should be merely throwing myself into a great gulf without the slightest hope of filling it up ; and even those who have studied Mill imbibe a great deal of error. In the absence, then, of any correct or generally read civil history of India, I find that, in order to Save constant reference and explanation, the easiest course is to prefix a few chapters descriptive of the people, and explanatory of some parts of our Indian history. But this part of my volume is ancillary to what follows, and I only notice those things in the past which directly affect the present.

Elphinstone alone promised to supply what was deficient in our Indian history, but he has most unfortunately stopped short on the threshold. So far as he goes nothing can be wanting, and I have taken his volumes as my text-book, and have frequently referred to them. The well-known Fifth Report of the Committee of the House of Commons, printed in 1812, is a very admirable account of our early administration, and I regret that it is not in a more convenient form. I am not aware that anything of the kind has been published during the last forty years. I have tried to generalise in regard to the whole of India, because my great principle — in which I am more and more confirmed the more I see, read, and inquire — is the absolute identity, in the main, of the manners, institutions, and mode of government, found by us in different parts of the country. At the same time it will be seen that in many things different, and some times opposite systems, have been followed by us, and

PREFACE.

. VIII that, in consequence, considerable differences now exist. It will be understood, then, that my descriptions more particularly refer to Northern India, and that where I do not expressly mention the Southern Presidencies there may be varieties of detail. I am, of course, liable to error in those things which I have not myself wit nessed, but I have used the utmost endeavour to ascertain, test, and correct all such statements, and I have been most obligingly permitted to have access to the best sources of information in this country. I have compiled many statistical facts and tables, which cannot be mistaken, and trust that the comparisons which I have drawn will be found useful. It is necessary here to state, with regard to the relative value of Indian and English money, that, as the Sicca rupee no longer exists, I have abandoned the exchange of 2s. per Sicca rupee, which is still main tained in, and so much complicates, the official accounts, and have adopted the simple decimal exchange of 2s. per current or Company's rupees, which is not only so much more convenient, but is, in fact, much nearer the relative intrinsic value of the two coins.

The conversion from rupees to pounds sterling, or vice versa, by cutting off or adding a decimal, is thus a matter of very easy arithmetic. For convenience of English eyes I have generally stated all monies in pounds sterling. London, February 15, 1852. ) CONTENTS.

Chapter I. Introductory

THE INDIANS TO THE DECLINE OF THE MOGUL EMPIRE. Aborigines — Hindoos — Their character — Bramins and Khatrees — Institutions — Degree and influence of civilization — Southward progress of Hindoos — Northern republican tribes — Mahommedans — Turcish empire — Portuguese — Mogul empire — Its character — Marattas — Jats — Sikhs — Dutch and English — Decline of Mogul empire . . Page 1

Chapter II. The Country And The People As We Found Them, Showing

THE PERSONAL AND SOCIAL CHARACTERISTICS OF THE NATIVES. Definition of India — Geography — Soil — Climate — Capabilities — Effects of predatory wars — Products — Population — National divisions — Interior divisions — Races and classes — Character of the people — Condition of women — Institution of castes — Slavery — Religion. ... 24

Chapter III. The Institutions And Situation To Which We Succeeded

Mahommedan polity — General government — Provincial establishments — Maratta and Sikh systems —Village communities — Tenure of land — Revenue system — Laws — Crime — Punishments - - Judicial system 73 C X CONTENTS.

Chapter IV. Our Political Progress And Present Position, Showing Also The Origin

AND OBLIGATIONS OF THE NATIVE STATES. The native powers with whom we have had to deal — Foreign Mahommedan powers — The French — Origin of various rulers — Acquisitions of the British — Lord Wellesley's policy and acquisitions — War with the Marattas — Change of policy — Pindaree war and consequent acquisitions — Supremacy of British power within the desert — Burmese war — Long peace — Affghan policy and disaster — Annexation of Scinde — First Sikh war — Second Sikh war — Annexation of the Punjab — Statistics and obligations of different native states — Summary of our political obligations, receipts, and disbursements — Present political management — — General effect of our political system — Succession to lapses — Debts of native princes. Page 111

Chapter V. On The History And Progress Of Our Internal Government

First government of Company's settlements — Clive — Hastings — Lord Cornwallis — Sir J. Shore — Lord Wellesley — Lord Hastings — Monro — Elphinstone — Lord W. Bentinck — Act of 1834 — Its requirements and their execution — Improvements independent of the Act — Sir C. Metcalfe — Lord Auckland — Lord Ellenborough — Sir C. Napier's government of Scinde — Lord Hardinge — Lord Dalhousie — Freedom from domestic disturbance — Europeans in India — European capital Products and manufactures — Commerce — Ecclesiastical establishments •— Missions 170

Chapter VI. The Government As It Now Exists

Composition of the Supreme Government — Its legislative and executive powers — Position with reference to home authorities — Governor-General and Counsellors — Working of Government — Law Commission Local Governments — Territories under each — Want of uniformity Boards and courts — Division into districts — Executive officers — The maoistrate and collector — System in non-regulation provinces : the Punjab Centralization — Mode of conducting business — No official publicity — Absence of sinecures — Character of Government .... CONTENTS. XI

Chapter VII. The Instruments Of Government

Civil service — Tests — Course of study at Haileybury — College life in Calcutta — Commencement of service — Duties — Promotion — Periods of service — Leave — Furlough — Qualifications — Character — Salaries — Pensions — Honours — Comparative remuneration — Military officers in civil employ — Uncovenanted officers of different classes : their qualifications, salaries, &c. — Inferior servants — Qualifications — Their supposed influence — Police and revenue establishments — Pay — Unauthorized receipts — Constant change of officers. . . . Page 262

Chapter VIII. The Land Revenue

Different systems — Zemeendaree system — Perpetual settlement of Bengal — Ryotwar system — System of village leases — Results and present working of Bengal permanent settlement — System in north-west provinces — Its principles — Formation and completion of present settlement — Existing tenures — Mode of working the settlement — Results. System in the Punjab, &c. — Tenures — Summary settlements — Proposed regular settlements. Madras system — Sir T. Monro's views — Introduction of Ryotwar management — Description of this system — Its results. Bombay — Tenures — Mr. Elphinstone's views — New system adopted in Bombay, and its results. General statement of land revenues of British India 300

Chapter IX. Sources Of Income Other Than The Land Revenue

Salt-tax — Its origin — System and receipts — General statement of salt revenue — Customs — Opium revenue — Bengal opium system — Malwa opium — Excise — Tobacco revenue — Moturpha revenue — Stamps and fines — Post-office and miscellaneous — Local taxes . . . CONTENTS.

Chapter X. Finance

Our peculiar financial position — Our financial history — The debt — General statements of revenues and charges for 1849-50 — Finance of different Presidencies — Result of recent acquisitions — Financial comparison between 1835-6 and 1849-50 — Cause of deterioration explained thereby Page 407

Chapter XI. Police And Criminal Administration

Police establishment — Duties — Village police — Mode of police proceedings — The magistrate and his duties — Progress of a case till trial — Character of the police — Madras and Bombay police — Special Thuggee and Dacoitee police — The criminal law — Classification of offences — Mode of trial and procedure in felonious cases — And in petty cases — Punishments — Character of the judges — Evidence — Results of criminal system — Statistical tables — Comparison of crimes — And of judicial statistics — Crime and police in the Punjab — Reasons of general want of success — The code proposed by the Law Commission . . . 445

Chapter XII. The Administration Of Civil Justice

The Regulation system — The courts — The laws — The mode of procedure — Interference with landed rights — Pleaders and attorneys — Perjury and forgery — Character of the judges — Madras and Bombay systems — Appeals to the Privy Council — Statistical statements — Non-regulation system — Civil justice in the Punjab — Experience in regard to examination of parties, &c 509 lNDEX

Chapter I. Introductory

THE INDIANS TO THE DECLINE OF THE MOGUL EMPIRE. Aborigines — Hindoos and their character — Bramins and Khatrees — Institutions — Degree and influence of civilization — Southward progress of Hindoos — Northern republican tribes — Mahommedans — Turcish empire — Portuguese — Mogul empire — Its character — Marattas — Jats — Sikhs — Dutch and English — Decline of Mogul empire. In India, as in most parts of the world, there exists in the mountains the remnant of an aboriginal The fost lnha. race, differing in appearance, language, and bltants of India manners from the inhabitants of the plains, and doubt less the first possessors of the country ; but of the his tory of this race we know nothing farther. The Hindoos had occupied the plains of the Indus and Ganges prior to history. Whatever be the origin of the latter people, we first find them settled in Northern India, and highly civilized.

Their connection with Egyptians or Persians I pretend not to trace. It is sufficient that we know that they were members, and important members, of that most ancient Eastern civilization which existed contemporaneously, and of an almost identical type, in India, Persia, origin of first Assyria, and Egypt, before our Western civilization civilization had taken its origin in the Greeks. It arose in the rich alluvial lands ofthe Ganges, the Euphrates, i: Chap. I. and the Nile. There first the earth did more than support those employed in cultivating it. There was a sur plus produce, which gave to its consumers leisure for following the arts of civilization, and at the same time rendered necessary legislation to regulate its disposal. In all the countries which I have mentioned, we find at the commencement of history a state of things nearly the same.

Laws can be inculcated upon savages only by the sanction of religion ; and in all those countries a dominant tribe were the dispensers of religion and law, and ruled rather by moral than physical force. In all, the civilized people became at a later period subject to warlike conquerors — in all, the conquerors were made converts to the faith and civilization of the priestly class, and took place in the community as a military caste, first in a civil, but second in a religious view. In all, the accumulators and dispensers of capital known as the mercantile class were also admitted to a certain rank and honour, while the mass of the labouring population formed a fourth and lowest class. In all, the surplus pro duce of the land was the fund for defraying the expenses of government and satisfying the dominant classes • and this fund being available, there was little resort to other taxation.

In all, surplus wealth or surplus labour, in the absence of modern modes of disposing of them, were applied directly to the masses of structure which remain as monuments to the present day, and which need not surprise us. For in the infancy of civilization, when men had no railways to invest in, nor exhibitions to contribute to, nor the thousand domestic luxuries which consume a rich man's income, they spent their money in building pyramids and carving rock temples. The valley of the Nile doubtless supported double the population required to cultivate it. If for the one-half no useful occupation could be found, what more natural than to set them to ClIAP. I. THE ANCIENT HINDOOS. 3 work on pyramids, and what surprising that such a mass of labour should produce such a mass of building ? Again, as they must in the end have become tired of pyramids, and found them somewhat unsatisfactory, their ingenuity was exercised to find more useful employment, and they led the way in arts and manufactures.

Such also was no doubt the history of Hindoo civilization. The ancient Flindoo people were far advanced in arts. They resembled the Egyptians, not only TheancientHi„ in their institutions and manners, but also doos in physical appearance, as may be judged from the monuments of both nations, and the appearance and character of the purest Hindoos of the present day. Everything shows the original Hindoos to have been of that oily, long-eyed, Egyptian cast of countenance, and sleek, supple-jointed, luxurious-looking bodies, which we see in monuments — a people of little physical energy and courage, but of great acuteness and cunning of mind. The Hindoos at this stage of their history are fully described bv Menu about 800 b.c. But it J , . . Menu. is the too common mistake to look upon Menu as in everything a bond fide reporter of facts.

The best authorities are agreed that he describes things not so much as they were, but rather as in his opinion they ought to be. Hence the excessive superiority attributed to Bramins, which is the foundation of English ideas in regard to them at the present day, but which neither have they enjoyed to such an extent at any time or place with which we are acquainted, nor is it probable that they ever enjoyed under the rule of the Khatrees. In like manner many of Menu's laws seem much more theo retical than practical. But in matters in which he may be supposed to be impartial much is to be learned from him. Whether the Bramins took their origin in India or B Chaf. I. came from somewhere else, they were at one time a dominant tribe ; and whether originally war ami the ivhalike or not, they assumed in the end rather a priestly than a military character.

The Khatrees were evidently military conquerors of the more civilized Bramins ; for notwithstanding the account of their own superiority given by the Bramin authors, it is clear that they would not have admitted the Khatrees to the first civil rank if the latter had not taken it by force. The Bramins were content to exercise a moral rule through the medium of religion and law. They seem to have been a great Levitical tribe settled in large numbers on the Ganges. The history of the Khatrees, who they were, and where they came from, we do not know. They do not appear to have been in sufficient numbers to have formed a large proportion of the population, or to have been settled in agricultural communities. They were purely military, and may either have been the fore runners of the larger agricultural tribes which afterwards immigrated, or military nomads, like the shepherd kings of Egypt.

The country was divided among them in petty independent kingdoms ; but it does not seem clear whether they divided their conquests with their followers on a feudal system, or ruled on purely monarchical prin ciples. The latter may be gathered from Menu. In Menu's work we find no traces whatever of the purely democratic institutions of modern Bajpoots and Jats. This is not conclusive as to the origin of the Khatrees, for democrats at home may be autocrats when they go forth as foreign conquerors ; but it shows that there was then no large democratic population. The institution of corporate villages was, however, corporate viiuniversal, and is evidently essentially Hin lages. doo. bu(. were by no meang (Jemo. cratic in their constitution. Civilized cultivators settling Chap. I. CORPORATE VILLAGES. 5 amongst wild men and wild animals must dwell together in villages • there must be some system for regulating common affairs ; and division of labour being a characteristic of Hindoo civilization, there must be rules for this division.

Hence the villages became municipalities governed by a headman appointed by the king, and the different trades and professions were practised by individuals who received a regulated remuneration. There never was cultivation in common. Each man broke up as much land as he could, and it belonged to him who first tilled it. Local taxes for common expenses were raised rateably. The village headships, like every thing Hindoo, often became hereditary ; and when governments were overturned, the villages had sufficient internal machinery to carry on their affairs for a time till another government was established. The headman was doubtless in such cases to a great degree dependent on popular support ; but in this original form of village there was, as I have said, no regular democratic constitution.

The latter form belongs to another people. The revenue was principally derived from the surplus produce or rent of the land. The propor x The rGvcuuc tion of gross produce levied by the State was less than in later times; but it is natural that in a less perfectly cultivated and less fully peopled country the rent should at first be less than when population in creased ; and allowance may have been made in calcu lating the real rent for capital expended in breaking up the soil, since accumulated labour is as much capital as gold or silver. In course of time, as land became more valuable, and as from successive change of masters the right of in vested labour became more indistinct, opportunities may have been taken by the government to raise the rate of rent, just as Joseph took occasion to raise it upon the Egyptians.

Chap. I. There is no doubt that the early civilization of the Degree of civi- Hindoos was very considerable — that they uzation. made great advances in the sciences and in the arts of life. But the point which they then reached has never been exceeded by them ; there was wanting in their civilization that general intercommunication of ideas which marks the civilization of the West, and makes it progressive — which enables one generation to commence where another has left off, and so build continually up wards. Successive generations of Hindoos but go over the same ground again and again. Yet they have not gone backwards. They have retained to the present day their own Eastern civilization, and have absorbed in it their successive conquerors. Other ancient civilizations have been destroyed, and latest the Arabs, energetic and proselytizing, have overrun and changed the character of all the countries which I have mentioned as cotemporary with India.

But India they have never made theirs. She has successively received Khatrees, Rajpoots, Jats, Turcs, and Moguls ; her character has doubtless been modified by the intermixture, but still her civilization and her manners are essentially Hindoo. A very marked feature of the Hindoo civilization is the Hereditary diminute division of labour. Every employvisionoflabour. ment Jg apportioned to a separate claSS. This minuteness of apportionment is generally the result of a very far advanced stage of society, but seems to have obtained among the Hindoos from very early time.. In the Hindoo constitution everything was hereditary. Not only were , the chiefships so, but the various offices, great and subordinate, were all more or less hereditary. There were hereditary ministers, hereditary superinten dents of large tracts of 1000 or 100 villages, hereditary village officers, and hereditary trades and professions.

In Menu's time and even in Alexander's the proper Chap. I. SOUTHERN INDIA. 7 Hindoos seem to have been confined to the north of India. But they subsequently overran the South, and even (it is certain) crossed the Hindoos south ocean, and at one time established themselves in Java and other countries of the East. Who they found in the south it is impossible to say, whether merely the aborigines whose remains Eariy state of still exist in the hills, or whether some interthe south' mediate civilization had preceded them. Perhaps the Buddhists had gained a footing for a few centuries, and the Hindoos reconquered the country ; but it is clear that there were several southern nations, each of whom, amalgamating with the Hindoos, took their form and civilization, yet occasioned varieties in the language and in some minor particulars which remain to the present day* But it was not by the present military tribes of the north that the south was in the first instance overrun — it was by the Bramins and their inferior subjects.

Ben gal is said to have been colonised by Bramins and Soodras, the south by Bramins and Herdsmen, the latter perhaps some nomad tribe, the most military of the followers of the Bramins — for there have been nomad tribes in India from the earliest times. When we look to the cause of these migrations we find the most probable solution in the disp p.i tt* J i_ Appearance of placement ol many ot the pure Hindoos by another race in another race, of a different political constitution, which about this time settled in the north ; the race * It is to be regretted that, while the great language of India, the Sanscrit, has been minutely examined by philologists, no one seems to have undertaken any general survey and comparison of the other elements of the languages prevailing in different parts of India.

It is probable that much light might be thrown on the history of races, if, separating the Sanscrit, we had a comparison of words of other origin in the Hindee, Punjabee, Bengalee, Southern, and Aboriginal dialects. I have never been able to obtain any sufficient information on this head. There should be a combined philological and ethnological survey of India. Chap. I. 8 MODERN INDIA. of which the Rajpoots are the best known type. Indeed, we are not without a historical glimpse of the facts. We have very good and accurate accounts of Northern India as it was in Alexander's time ; and we find that in addition to the Hindoo kingdoms, such as we have hitherto seen them, he found settled or encamped in the Punjab great tribes of a purely republican constitution, far more warlike than any others which he encoun tered.

The best account of them is to be found in Heeren, in the volume on the Persians, page 316. Heeren represents their constitution as aristocratic, or under the government of their optimates, the " tcpcvri orevovTes." Alexander treated with 300 deputies of a tribe ; but it by no means follows that these optimates were other than elected deputies. On the contrary, it seems evident that they were the Punches or delegates of the people, with whom we treat in the same country at the present day. In reading the description it is impossible not to be struck with the exact similarity of this people to the Jats or Sikhs of modern times ; and one might con clude them identical but for the improbability of their remaining so long stationary, and our knowledge that the Jats do not claim so ancient an origin.