Indian administration to the dawn of responsible government, 1765-1920

Front matter

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Preface

With the. introduction of responsible government the creation of a living school of constitutional history and political philosophy trying to understand and appraise laws and institutions events and movements historically, by going backward to their causes and forward to their actual effects, becomes one of the prime though minor necessaries of our intellectual and corporate life. This little book is a very humble contribution to that end. Though attempting no more than a sketch, T have tried to develop the subject-matter historically, to present each great change along with the principal influences by which it was moulded, and to indicate to some extent how far it actually came up to the aims its authors had in view. I have worked back to the original authorities as far as a student with limited resources can do so, in a country where the public libraries are so few and so miserably poor. And while giving full references, I have always named by preference such books as are likely to be accessible to Indian readers. Controversial matter has not been sought after. It has not been avoided either. Constitutional administrative and financial history is 'past politics,' even past party politics, to a greater extent than any other variety of history, and to confine one s self to a mere recital of the facts is, with such a subject-matter, altogether impossible. For it is by no means uncommon to find that one party s 'facts' are just what their opponents reject with the greatest vehemence.

What claims, moreover, to be a mere recital of facts, can never amount to anything more scientific and impartial than a selection of some of the facts ; so that every recital of facts, however colourless, is necessarily also an expression of opinion and an indication of the author's stand-point, even when he does not himself regard or intend it as such. In the following pages, I hope there is not a single place where the reader can charge me with avoiding the responsibility of expressing my own opinion, or indicating ray own stand-point. But wherever I have had to deal with 'politics,' I have also tried to give both sides, laid stress on the grounds for a conclusion rather than on the conclusion itself, and sought, above all, to reduce the area of controversy and to let the logic of facts, the trend of the historical development, speak for itself. What these pages venture to offer is an independent account, on a method and a scale which have not been easy to deterjjiine or to adhere to, of a historical subject many-sided in its complexity and necessarily demauding a rare ripeness and impartiality of judgment, for which mere silence can never be a substitute. If competent judges find my attempt not altogether unsuccessful, the result must be attributed, it seems to me, to ray classwork with my students of the Deccan College, where I have had to deal with most of these topics, though only in outline, and continuously for a period now amounting to over seven years, M, Chailley spent over his well-known work on the Ajdministra* tive Problems of our country 'twenty years of thought and ten of actual labour'; I am unable to put forth so high a claim. But College professors know the value for their own study and intellectual operations, of a fresh batch of keen young minds year after year, bringing up a strange mess of ignorance, confusion, enthusiasm, vague ideas and ideals, 'half-truths which are really whole errors,' and political discontent of all shades, picked up from partisan writings, out of which they have to mould patiently, sympathetically and by persuasive argument, the beginnings of scientific habits of thought, some regard for the relevant evidence, some sense of duty to see the other side of the shield as it is. an appreciation however rudimentary of the historical method, a realisation however evanescent of the complexities of social, economic and political phenomena, and a consciousness however dim that no educated man can really claim to judge for himself, except on matters with regard to which his own equipment insight and outlook are fairly adequate.

Several friends have kindly glanced through these pages as they were passing through the press, and enabled me to correct a few errors of fact or of opinion, inexact or carelessly worded statements, infelicities of expression, and other faults. But there are bound to be many more in a book like this. May I request my readers noticing aiy such to let me know about them? All such suggestions and criticisms will be fully weighed, and I shall be very happy indeed to make such changes as would clearly be improvements at the earliest opportunity^

An index and an alphabetical list of the full titles of the books, reports, etc., cited in these pages, have had to be omitted from the present edition at the last moment to make room for the Corrections and Additions at the end.

Narayan Peth, Poona City. ^' ^- i'

Contents

Ch.

Pages

I E. I. Company— The First Century.

Chapter I The East India Company :-the First Century

§ 1 . Foundation^ — On the 31 st December 1 600 Queen Elizabeth granted a charter to the Earl of Cumberland and over two hundred London merchants — ^ our well-beloved subjects, Sir John Hart, of London, and others' — to trade by sea with all countries from the Cape of Good Hope to the straits of Magellan for fifteen years. The grant was for 'the honour of the nation, the wealth of the people, the increase of navigation, and the advancement of lawful traffic to the benefit of the commonwealth. ' The Earl and his associates were incorporated in the name of the 'Governor and Company of merchants of London, trading into the East Indies. ' They were to hold a Court or general assembly, which was empowered to make such laws and regulations for the better advancement of their affairs and for the discipline and government of their own factors, masters, mariners, and other officers, apprentices and servants, as were reasonable and not contrary to English law and custom. The power of inflicting punishment by fine or imprisonment was specially included. The ' general court' ^ was to elect a Governor,

1 The • general court ' is, in modern language, the ordinary annual meeting of the shareholders of the company; which the Charter required to be held on the first of July or within six days after that date. The board of ' committees ' corresponds to what we now call a board of directors. The first Governor and directors are i]amed in the Charter. /Committees, ' says Mill, ' meant persons to whom something is commited or entrusted. ' — History Bk. IV, oh. I.

a Deputy Governor, and twentyfour ' committees ' , to form their standing executive, and this body was to wield the whole power of the Compan5^ English subjects who did not join the Company and yet tried to trade by sea in these regions, were declared to be guilty of contempt of the crown, and were to be punished by confiscation of all their goods, ships &c., half the value of which was to go to the Company, and further by such imprisonment and other punishment as the Queen and her sucessors might consider to be necessary. If any places in these regions of Asia, Africa and America were in the 'lawful and actual' ^ possession of a Christian prince or State in 'league and amity' with England, the Company was not to trade with it unless allowed by that power to do so. The Charter also granted the necessary concessions and facilities about ships, munitions and mariners, customs duties, re-export of goods brought into England, and the export of coin and bullion. And it was finally provided that the Charter would be cancelled if not found profitable to the country on a notice to the Company of two years to wind up their affairs, but that, on the other hand, if the adventure answered expectations, it might be renewed on a petition from the Company, for another period of fifteen years, with such alterations and qualifications in its terms as experience might suggest to be required.

Mukharji, i pp. 1-20,— the text of the Charter. Hunter, i oh. 6, indispensable for a full understanding. Ilbert, pp. 3-13.

§ 2. In Western India. — The East India Company began as a Regulated Company. For the first eleven years

2 These adjectives mean 'effective occupation'. Hunter i pp. 220, 246-47, &c. Also Roberts p. 23. The Elizabethan petitioners themselves asked only for leave to trade in the East '^here Spaniards and Portuguese have not any castle, fort, blockhouse, or commandant.' They thus ignored the rights founded merely upon a "Papal Bull, but recognised effective oroupation. See also Cambridge Modern History IV ch. 25, p. 732.

IN WESTERN INDIA 3

the members clubbed together at will for a voyage, each voyage being treated as an independent venture. This is known as the period of ^ separate ' voyages. Some continuity of policy and unity of direction were soon discovered to be indispensable, and from 1611 all the members contributed to the joint stock or treasury of the Company, out of which voyages and other undertakings came to be provided. But in this new system, each joint stock was still for several years only. Each was treated jis a separate account, and its profits were divided when the ships of the last voyage furnished out of it had returned and the goods they brought in had all been disposed of. And 'separate' voyages were also undertaken during this period at various times.^ It is only after Cromwell's Charter of 1657 that these confusing practices finally disappeared, and the Company became a Joint Stock Corporation in the modern sense of the term.

Factories, docks and landing-places, and other property began to accumulate in India almost from the beginning. The Company first obtained what land it needed for such purposes by lease from the petty local authorities. They also approached the Grand Mogul by embassies from the King of England. John Mildenhall, the first of the English ambassadors to the paramount power in the India of the seventeenth century, started from England in 1599 and travelling overland from the Levant reached Agra in 1603, and remained there till late in 1605. He claimed to have been successful in obtaining from Akbar a firman granting to the English trade facilities on terms similar to those which the Sultan of Turkey had granted.^ The

1 Hunter, ii pp. 177-9, footnote 2, gives a summary survey of the Company's voyages and joint stocks from 1600 to 1660.

2 Vincent Smith, Akhar the Great Mogul ( 1917 ): pp. 292-5. For the distinction between parwana, nishan, firman, sanad, and treaty, see Hunter ii p. 51, text a id footnote.

ambassadors who followed him,^ however, did not know anything about this firman. In the meanwhile events happened which predisposed the Mogul rulers in favour of the newcomers. The great Mogul Empire even at its zenith was very weak at sea, and it was a matter of high policy with its rulers to have skilled mariners and naval fighters belonging to some other nation, if possible, to play off against the Portuguese. In November and December 1612 the Company's ships under Captain Best defeated a superior Portuguese squadron off Swally Roads at the mouth of the Tapti. Thereupon the Governor of Surat readily granted the Company permission to have factories at Surat and three other places on the Gulf of Cambay, a permission ratified by the Governor of the province of Gujrat. The Portuguese tried to regain the ground thus lost and put forth the whole of their strength in the Arabian Sea against the Company in 1615. But the narrow and tortuous channels between the shoals and silt-banks at the mouth of the river handicapped their galleons, their far greater gun-power and man-power could not be brought to bear, and Downton, against heavy odds, won victories no less impressive than those of 1612.* Sir Thomas Roe, the sixth ambassador, reached Jahangir's court at Ajmer at the end of 1 61 5, and his courtly ways secured a favourable consideration for the Company's petitions and grievances for some years thereafter.^ Moreover, the Portuguese power

3 Hawkins, at Agra, 1607-11; Canning, 1613; Kerridge, 1613-4 Edwards, 1615. Strictly speaking, 'ambassador' is too high a title for these four; more than one of them, moreover, made himself, and his nation, ridiculous at the Mogul court.

4 For a graphic account of Best's and Downton's actions see Principal Rawlinson's recently published British Beginnings, ch 4.

5 Roe's great service to fhe Company lay in the sound advice he gave which the Company adhered to as the cardinal principle of their policy lor many years. "The Portugal " he said, "never profited by the Indies, since he defended them. Observe this we^l. It has been also the error of the Dutch, who seek plantation here by the sword. They turn a wonderful stock, they prowl in all places, they possess some of the best. Yet their dead payes consume all their gain. Let this be received as a rule that if you will profit Seek it at Sea. And in quiet iraae; for without controversy, it is an error to affect garrisons and land wars in India. ' HunUr II 242 ; BawUnson ch, 5.

BAY OF BENGAL 5

and influence in the Arabian Sea declined very rapidly after 1615, and the East India Company was very convenient to the Grand Mogul as his sea police suppressing piracy and keeping the route to Mecca open. Surat rose rapidly as the emporium of world-trade with Northern India, and the Company's factory there prospered and soon became their principal factory in India. The coasting trade from the Indus to Goa also came more and more into their hands. And in 1635, five years after the treaty of Madrid nominally establishing peace between England and Portugal throughout the world, the President of the factory at Surat made an arangement with the Portuguese Viceroy at Goa, which secured to the Company four shiploads per annum of the richer spices from Goa and other Portuguese ports more to the south.

Hunter i chs. 7, 8; ii ch. 2.

§ 3. Bay of Bengal. On the eastern coast of India the Company succeeded, after two ineffectual attempts elsewhere , in establishing a factory in 1611 at Masulipatan, then the chief port of the kingdom of Golconda. Eventually, the Sultan gave them a swatna-patta firman: " Under the shadow of Me, the King, they shall sit down at rest and in safety" ( 1632 ). But he had little effective power to enforce his authority at the extremities of his dominions. And he, too, like the Mogul rulers, would not allow a fort to be erected. Francis Day went south, therefore, and about thirty miles beyond the Dutch stronghold of Pulikat, obtained (1639) a piece of land with the right to build a fort from the Raja of Chandragiri, Sri Ranga Rayal, a petty chieftain claiming descent from the great Vijayanagar dynasty. The Raja's motives for the grant are highly instructive to the student of history. First, merchants and trade, he believes, will bring wealth to his country. '' Secondly , he desires ( for his money ) good horses from Persia. Thirdly, that yearly he may send a servant into the Bay Bengalla to buy him hawks, apes, parrots, and similar baubles ... And, lastly, the fort, being made substantial and strong, may be able to defend his person on occasion against his insulting neighbours."' Day christened his fort after the patron saint of Englandi and Fort St. George became the principal factory on this coast from 1642. The Company raised it to the position of an independent presidency in 1653, and placed the Bengal and Coromandal coast settlements under it from 1658.

Meanwhile, one of the Company's vessels had entered Harishpur at the southern mouth of the Mahanadi and obtained permission from the Governor of Orissa to trade, erect factories and build ships throughout the province (1 633). A similar license was obtiained from the Governor of Bengal seventeen years later. Here Hugli, the imperial port, became the principal factory, but . subordinate in its turn to Madras. The advance in the Company's trade and position in this part of India was much slower. They began fairly well while Prince Shuja was governor, with whom Boughton, the surgeon, had some influence.^ But Boughton died, their own factors at such distance from all supervision and control went to the bad, and Shuja himself was routed by Aurangzeb and driven out of the province (1^60). Shaista Khan, the new viceroy, confirmed their earlier grants only in name; there was little chance for profitable trade under his viceroyalty. The Company obtained ?i firman from the Emperor in 1680, but it made little change in Shaista Khan's dealings with them. Only two alternatives remained : either to abandon

1 Foster, English Factories 1637-41, p. 184.

2 See for Boughton W. Foster Factories the vols, for 1642-45; 1646- 50; 1651-54; also his articles in Ind. Antiquary, September 1911 and May 1912. For Shaista Khan's dealings, see Firminger, Introduction oh. 3. in Fifth Report. Hugli was assigned to him as his jagir and he invested the annual proceeds with the traders of the place at high interest. Naturally, these traders would be supported by him in trying to engross the entire trade of the place. Hence ths Co.'s complaints about eicactions and high-handed dealing^ are only one side of the shield.

IN ENGLAND /

Bengal altogether, or to see if they could not win better treatment by force of arms. After repeated supplications which the Viceroy ignored, the Company increased the garrison at Hugli (1686). But the Mogul commandant of the place immediately surrounded the English factory and established a strict blockade. A little hesitation and delay, and the tragedy of 1756 might have been enacted seventy years earlier. Job Charnock, however, abandoned the factory in time and sailed away, taking with him all he could in his crowded boats. Twentyseven miles lower down, the river deepens and broadens out into a splendid anchorage, the western bank is low, and the eastern is so protected all round by fens and swamps, and the older channel of the Adiganga, that a naval power holding the anchorage and the approach to it from the sea, could protect that bank against all enemies from the land. This is Calcutta, and here, mainly through the persistence of Charnock, the company started a factory from the 24th August 1690.3

Hunter ii chs 3, 4, and 7.

§ 4. In England, The Company obtained a fresh Charter from James I in 1609 with ampler powers granted to them in perpetuity, and the support of many courtiers and men of rank enabled them to collect larger sums for their voyages and build their own ships. The Company raised joint stocks, each of them for a number of voyages in succession. On the other hand, the Dutch grew more and more hostile to them in the East Indies, and the King granted licenses to adventurers who behaved in Eastern seas like pirates, and the native rulers held the Company responsible for the injuries these 'interlopers' inflicted upon their ^subjects. During these early years the Company experienced many ups and downs of

3 The district had the further :i /v^antage of being under the direct jurisdiction not of the Nawab but of one of the feudatories, the Kaja of Burdwan ( Orme Bk. VI voU II p. 1 '. ).

8 INDIAN ADMINlStRATlOt^

fortune, and but ;^for^ the footing they had more or less accidentally won at Surat and Madras, they might have been overwhelmed even before they had made a fair start. Another important factor that enabled them to weather the storms and squalls of these early years was the long period for which they entrusted their helm to one and the same individual as chairman. Sir Thomas Smythe the first Governor of the Company was re-elected every year upto 1621; Sir Morris Abbot was Governor from 1624 to 1637; and William Cockayne, from 1643 to 1658. '

In 1635 Charles I granted a license to Sir William Courten and others to trade with the East, and the rival company thus started involved the East India Company in serious losses and troubles for years, for which no redress could be had either from King or Parliament. Moreover, as soon as the Civil War began, the Roundhead section of the Parliament, sitting at Westminster, seized the Com-- pany's cannon, and took from them a forced loan of £ 5000. By 1647 even the Governor and 'committees' lost heart and seriously thought of winding up their affairs. But better days soon dawned. When the Commonwealth declared war against Holland the Company's wrongs at Amboyna and elsewhere figured amongst the causes. And the treaty of 1654 awarded the Company £ 85000 damages from the Dutch. The treaty with Portugal, a little later, also threw open the Portuguese East Indies to English ships. Earlier still, the Commonwealth Council of State had compelled the Company and Courten' s Association, or the Assada Merchants ( as they had come to be called ), to arrange a compromise themselves, and the Parliament had resolved ''that the trade to the East Indies should be carried on by one Company and with one Joint stock... under such

1 Sir Morris Abbot was one of the founders of the E. I. Company. He was Deputy Governor from 1615 to 1623, and had been a 'Committer' for some years when elected Deputy Governor. William Cockayne had been a 'Committee' froBa 1629 and Deputy Governor from 1639« And after 1658 he served again as a 'Committee'.

tN ENGLAND 9

regulations as the Parliament shall think fit, and thatfthe ; East India Company should proceed upon the agrecmenr made between them and the Assada Merchants until furthei orders" (1650). Outside merchants also continued to clamour for permission to share in the Eastern trade, both individually and in associations. Licenses were granted to some of these petitioners also, but eventually the Commonwealth authorities examined the whole subject thoroughly and were convinced that unless England was prepared to protect by diplomacy and by force of arms every English adventurer into the East, and also to keep a curb upon his actions at the same time that it accepted full responsibility for them as a State, the only alternative to ^^ open trade " was a system of monopoly .^ This was therefore the basis upon which Cromwell granted a fresh Charter on the 19th October 1657, which insisted upon the Company having ^^ one continuous Joint Stock. " Under this Charter the Company themselves made regulations by which any one could join them on payment of an entrance fee of & 5, the minimum subscription for a shareholder was fixed at & 100, each holder of £ 500 stock was to have a vote in the ' general court, ' any holder of £ 1000 stock was eligible for election as a * committee, ' eight of the twentyfour ^ oommittees ' were to retire every year, and no one was to be Governor or Deputy-Governor for more than two consecutive years. Thus was the East India Company born again: '' trans-

2 " The form of monopoly, which later times resented, seemed natural to the men of the time. Nor, indeed, was the claim to some kind of monopoly unreasonable, in the special circumstances. If the State had no settled revenue for the purpose of extending the area of the national influence, and if the individual trader left to himself was powerless to encounter the risks, the Company which provided against these might well ask in return some compensation ; for the private trader, if able to trade in peace because of the security afforded by the Company's ships and forts, would by his freedom from such expenses be enabled to undersell the Company in th& hoD^e market." — Cambridge Modern History IV, ch. 25, p. 730.

Z lO INDIAN ADMINISTRATION

formed," says Hunter, ^^from a feeble relic of the mediseval trade-guild into the vigorous forerunner of the modern Joint Stock Company. "

Hunter i ch. 7; ii chs. 1, 5 and 6.

§ 5 To lyoy, — Charles II gave the Company several Charters. The first (1661) conceded to them wide powers over their subjects in the East, servants and others; allowed them to have ships of war, munitions and forts; and permitted them to make war and peace with non- Christian States. The same year he obtained Bombay as a wedding gift from Portugal and sent a small fleet to take possession, but the Portuguese Governor raised the objection that the gift did not include Thana and Salsette. The dispute lasted over three years^ and over three hundred out of the four hundred soldiers and sailors died in the meanwhile of scurvy and the climate. The royal officer in command waived the claim in order to save the remnant of his little band and obtained possession of Bombay Island in 1665. The king, however, found the new acquisition a white elephant and transferred it to the Company; and with it he granted a Charter (1669 ) creating the first European regiment of the Company's army out of the officers and soldiers who were there. This Charter also empowered the Company to make laws and regulations, and invested them through their Governors and officers with extensive powers of civil and military government over their subjects. The Company induced

1. The real motive of the Portuguese was, they thought Bombay- Harbour too valuable to part with ; " the best port, " wrote the Portuguese Viceroy (to his king), "Your Majesty possesses in India, with which that of Lisbon is not to be compared. " — Malabari Bombay in the Making, -p. 94:. Also when the final orders were received, " I fore* see the great troubles that from this neighbourhood will result to the Portuguese, and that India will be lost on the same day on which the English nation is settled in Bomhaj-''— Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island ii pp. 45-49.

Indian merchants and artisans to migrate from Surat, adopted a liberal policy towards cultivators who were drawn within their limited boundarieb from the surrounding districts, and Bombay grew rapidly almost from the first. Charles's third Charter was similarly occasioned by his transfer of St. Helena to the Company and was equally liberal in its concession of powers. Moreover both at Bombay and at Madras there were rebellions and factious squabbles leading to bloodshed and disorder, and the Directors, finding their powers under these Charters inadequate, had to send out Commissioners with still wider exceptional powers to restore order. Hence the Charter of 1683 gave to the Company very nearly all the powers of a State, subject only to a reservation of the ^sovereign right power and dominion' of the Crown, ^when We shall be pleased to interpose Our Royal Authority thereon.' And the power to coin money at Madras and Bombay had been granted by an earlier Charter. James II further empowered the Company to raise naval forces (1686) and authorized them to establish a Municipality ^ at Madras ( 1687 ), who were to provide, among other things, ^a schoolhouse for the teaching of the native children to speak, read and write the English tongue and to understand arethmetick and merchants' accompts'. The Company's factories during all these years were under Surat, and the continuity of Government and policy that is secured by long rule under one and the same individual, we discover at this stage of the Company's history in; the long tenures of office of the Surat Presidents. Sir George Oxenden filled the post from 1662 to 1669. Gerald Aungier succeeded him on his death and died at his post in turn in 1 dll , He is the real founder of Bombay. Under his firm tolerant and sympathetic regime the revenue of the place increased threefold

2 The Mayor and two of the Aldermen were to be English, but of the other ten, three were to be Portuguese, and seven Musalraans or Hindus, and thepopulation sixfold. Sir John Child was President from 1682 and he too died at. his post in 1690. The transfer of the Company's headquarters from Surat to Bom- ■ - bay took place. in his time in 1 687, s6-that he may be looked upon as, in a sense,- the first of the long line of the Governors of Bolfnbay.

For about a generation after the amalgamation with the Assada merchants, the Company followed a fairly liberal policy towards outsiders. Any Englishman was free to settle at any of its factories, its own servants were allowed to trade privately within reasonable limits and to settle in India after leaving service, and it also conceded licenses to the ships of adventurers to visit and trade at its settlement pretty freely. Nevertheless, the outside public were not satisfied. They wanted a perfectly open trade. And there were sympathisers with this view in the Company itself. A proposal was brought forward in 1681 to wind up the Joint Stock of 1657 and invite subscriptions for a new on from the public at large. This was defeated, however, and from this point onwards the Company became stricter in asserting and maintaining its privileges and keeping interlopers' at arm's length. Charles II's Charter of 1683 authorized the Company to set up admiralty courts which could confi scate the ships and goods of all interlopers. The matter was fought out first in the law-courts, s The defeat of open trade there, however, served only to excite public opinion the more. And English swadeshi (^%^) opinion was also hardening fast against the calicoes, muslins, shawls and art fabrics of India. The struggle was ti^^iisferred to Parliament and in January 1690 a committee of the Commons heard both sides and reported that: tl^ere sh9uld be ' a new Company and a new Joint 'Stock established by Parliament'; but until it was establish- -gd,: "the "E^st'* India' Company was to continue, all its privileges urihppaircd. The next Hfu.se of Commons was