CHAPTER VIII

NEW PRINCIPLES OF GOVERNMENT

Amherst 1823-1828, Bentinck 1828-1835

THE defeat of the Mahrattas by Lord Hastings completed the establishment of British supremacy over the whole of India south-east of the Indus and Sutlej. It was followed by an extension of power to the eastward, brought on by the attacks of the Burmese government. The first Burmese war forms the most important event in the governor-generalship of Lord Amherst, and it led to the annexation of the provinces of Assam, Arakan and Tenasserim. But it has not been found possible to incorporate any passages bearing on these events.1

The realisation of the fact that Britain was now responsible for the government of all India led men to take a new view of the functions of government. It helped to give birth to new political aims and a new and deeper sense of responsibility for the welfare of the Indian peoples. This spirit had indeed already shown itself. It had found some expression in the writings of the brothers Wellesley; and still more clearly in the passage (No. 101) which was written by Lord William Bentinck, then Governor of Madras, in 1804, as a reflection upon the consequences of Wellesley's conquests. It is not the mere extension of power and dominion that awakens the pride of Englishmen in India at the beginning of the nineteenth century; it is the belief that "British greatness must be

1 There is probably no part of the history of British India upon which less material is easily available than the first Burmese war. No documented life of Lord Amherst has been published, and the printed documents on the war are very inadequate.

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founded," and is being founded, "upon Indian happiness." And by this they mean, not merely that the contentment of the subjects is the necessary condition of the survival of the Empire, but that the increasing prosperity, union and selfrespect of the long-divided peoples of India would be the only ultimate justification of British power. These ideas are to be seen at work especially during the '20's. They began to express themselves in legislative and administrative action most markedly during the Governorship of Lord William Bentinck.

The development of the new methods and ideas was in part stimulated by the Liberal movement in Europe. It also owed very much to the remarkable group of scholar-statesmen who illustrated the service of the Company during this generation. In the '20's Munro was Governor of Madras, Elphinstone (having previously reorganised the lands conquered from the Peshwa) was Governor of Bombay, Metcalfe was in control of the district of Delhi, and during part of the time was a Member of Council. The contribution made by these and other men to the development of the system of government can scarcely be over-valued.

The new spirit showed itself in two ways, which often came into conflict. On the one hand there was a far more respectful study and appreciation of Indian law and custom than had been shown since the time of Warren Hastings. This showed itself in the first place in a remarkable reaction against the blind eagerness to introduce English ideas and methods, especially in land-holding and in law, which had marked the period following Warren Hastings. Metcalfe viciously criticised Cornwallis's Permanent Settlement (see No. 76) as a grave injustice to the actual cultivators, and in the land settlement which he carried out in the Delhi district departed absolutely from Cornwallis's principles. So did Elphinstone in the settlement of the Peshwa's territories, and Munro in what is known as the "ryotwari" settlement of part of Madras which he carried out. The methods of these three statesmen differed among themselves. But they differed mainly because they were based upon a careful study of the varying customs

of the districts with which they were concerned. How careful this study was may be seen in the excerpts from Elphinstone's report on the Peshwa's territories (No. 104) though it is necessarily much abbreviated; Munro's and Metcalfe's Minutes on the land systems of their districts are equally deserving of study. The primary aims of their work in this field were (1) to maintain and strengthen the self-governing activities of the village communities, which Cornwallis wholly disregarded, but which, as Elphinstone noted, were "the first and most important feature " of the Indian system; and (2) to protect from oppression the unduly submissive peasantry and imbue them gradually with a more independent and self-respecting spirit (see No. 103). The same anxiety to maintain and strengthen all that was best in Indian usage is to be seen in the attitude of the statesmen of this generation towards Indian law. Elphinstone, for example (No. 105) balances the British against the Indian system, and while he recognises that the British rule has brought the supreme boon of a fixed, impartial and unvarying system of justice, he sees also some defects, and is anxious above all" to cherish whatever is good in the existing system." That represents a return to the sound tradition of Warren Hastings, and is in marked contrast with the belief of the men of 1773 that all that was necessary was the introduction to India of English law and English judges.

Alongside of this new anxiety to understand and make the best of Indian traditions, was an equally strong conviction that it was the duty of the British Government to introduce into India the best results of western civilisation. This conviction often came into conflict with the other, though the two points of view were by no means irreconcilable. Hitherto the British Government had been very careful to avoid anything that might be construed as an attack upon Indian social usages or religious beliefs. Thus the practices of sati (or the burning of living widows on their husband's funeral pyres) and infanticide had not been interfered with, for fear of provoking hostility. It had not been a real respect for Indian beliefs, but a fear of endangering British power, which had been the motive of this

policy; the men who pursued it (in the generation since Warren Hastings) had made no attempt to understand and revivify Indian legal and social organisation, although in these spheres the religious passion was not so liable to be offended. But to the new generation the maintenance of British power could only be justified in so far as it tended to realise " hopes of great improvements affecting the condition of millions"; and the "first and highest consideration " was not Empire but "the good of mankind." It was in their view the duty of government on the one hand to preserve and strengthen all that was healthy in the social state of India, and on the other hand to wage fearless war against all that was harmful. It was on these grounds that Bentinck determined on the suppression of sati, and the Minute in which he justified his decision deserves careful study (No. 106). On these grounds also the decision was reached that the educational system of India, now beginning to be created, should be mainly based on Western and not on Oriental studies. On this question long controversy raged, causing a delay of more than twenty years in carrying into effect the work suggested by the Act of 1813 (No. 108). Those who advocated the use of Sanskrit and Arabic as the basis of the educational system were honestly inspired by the desire to see India working out her own intellectual salvation by the development of her own traditions. But the arguments for the use of English as the main vehicle of instruction, though stated with an exasperating cocksureness in Macaulay's famous Minute (No. 110), were undoubtedly overwhelming. From 1835, therefore, the peoples of Indía found themselves invited to assimilate the ideas of western civilisation through the machinery of education. In the same year the withdrawal of restrictions on the press released the most powerful of all forces for this end. Of all the political ideas predominant in the West in this period, that of self-government was the most powerful. India, with its welter of hostile races and faiths, habituated for thousands of years to despotism, was obviously not yet ready for any marked advance in this direction. But Sir Thomas Munro's remarkable Minute of 1824 (No. 102) shows that in

the view of some of the ablest of British administrators, the gradual preparation of the Indian peoples for self-government ought to be the aim of those who had the direction of Indian affairs, a view which, at this date, none but men of British race could have entertained. India must not, they held, be administered merely for the advantage of its conquerors. Even justice and efficiency will not justify the British dominion if they lead its subjects only to a more ready submission; the ultimate object of the whole system should be to train the Indian peoples in self-reliance and public spirit and loyalty to the laws until they "become sufficiently enlightened to frame a regular government for themselves." Peace and the Reign of Law are good things; but their chief virtue is that they are necessary foundations of Liberty.

Of course the foundations must be well laid and firmly established before the superstructure could be raised upon them. Political liberty could not healthily exist until the habit of willing obedience to the Law, and voluntary cooperation in maintaining it, had become universal; until the humbler classes and castes had ceased to be too submissive to insist upon their rights, and until the danger of the ascendancy of a single class or sect had been obviated by the growth in all classes and sects of a strong sentiment of common public obligation. Such a process must be slow; it might even take centuries, since it must fight against ancient and deep-rooted habits of life. But to make self-government possible was the end to be pursued.

It is indeed remarkable that, so soon after the great conquests of Wellesley and Hastings, and at a time when in Europe extreme reaction was triumphant, the most trusted of British administrators in India, himself a soldier, should so boldly and clearly lay down the British doctrine that even in divided and despot-ridden India, political liberty was the ultimately desirable end. That has been ever since the conviction of the best Anglo-Indians, though they and their subjects have often widely differed as to the methods by which it ought to be pursued, and the speed with which it is attainable.