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99. TREATY WITH UDAIPUR

(The Maharana of the romantic Rajput state of Udaipur is the head of the oldest ruling house in India. Like the other Rajput princes he had long been dependent upon the Mahrattas. The treaty made with him is given as a specimen of a series of treaties made with the small states of the north-west as a result of the last Mahratta war.)

1. There shall be perpetual friendship, alliance, and unity of interests between the two states from generation to generation and the friends and enemies of one shall be the friends and enemies of both.

2. The British Government engages to protect the principality and territory of Udaipur.

3. The Maharana of Udaipur will always act in subordinate co-operation with the British Government, and acknowledge its supremacy, and will not have any connection with other Chiefs or states.

4. The Maharana of Udaipur will not enter into any negotiation with any Chief or State without the knowledge and sanction of the British Government; but his usual amicable correspondence with friends and relations shall continue.

5. The Maharana of Udaipur will not commit aggressions upon any one; and if by accident a dispute arise with any one, it shall be submitted to the arbitration and award of the British Government.

9. The Maharana of Udaipur shall always be absolute ruler of his own country, and the British jurisdiction shall not be introduced into that principality.

Dated at Delhi, this 13th day of January, A.D. 1818.

(Aitchison, Treaties and Sanads, 4th ed., iii. 30.)

100. THE DEPOSITION OF THE PESHWA

From the Marquis of Hastings to the Court of Directors, 20th June 1818.

The re-establishment of Baji Rao upon any conditions, must appear to every one to have been utterly incompatible with our honour and security. The country had then to come under a new government. ... Should it not continue under your domination, we had to decide whether we should raise to the Masnad one of Baji Rao's family or a stranger. In the first case we have had full and most serious proof, that no

distinctness of obligation will prevent a Peshwa from secretly claiming the allegiance of the other Mahratta sovereigns; and irrefragable evidence has shown, that the implicit obedience recognised as due to the mandates of such a head of the Mahratta empire, will operate in violation of every solemnity of pledge to us. . . There must, then, be no Peshwa. Resort to a stranger . . would produce its natural consequences, irritation in the lower classes; and . . . the antipathy of the greater vassals. . . . Similar dissatisfactions are not to be apprehended under your Government. The inhabitants are well aware of the comfort and security enjoyed by the subjects in the adjoining territories of the Honourable Company; and, indeed they have given every demonstration of eagerly anticipating an arrangement attended with no regrets to counterbalance their presumption in its favour.

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The conclusion is, that you would be called upon keep these countries in your hands. . . . The great work achieved by your arms ought to be followed by a peace, of which you will be solicitous to avail yourselves, as the fortunate opportunity for disseminating instruction and morals among immense communities, lamentably deficient in conception of social principles and duties. A vast field for the melioration of man lies before us. . . . It would be consonant to British fame, and gratifying to British reflections, that you should have planted in the now sterile soil the germ of such permanent good. The improvement of the state of society in the country is not a visionary project. The speculation is extensive indeed; but it refers itself for fulfilment to those simple and ready means, which are uniformly effectual if they be but put in course, and there be a time of quiet for their operation. Many occurrences, undoubtedly, may arise to blight so generous an effort; but even should it fail, it will be a proud consciousness to your Honourable Court that such was your endeavour. (E.I.C., Papers on Pindari and Mahratta Wars, 1824, p. 362.)

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.

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

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