The Destruction of
India's Industry and the Decay of her Agriculture
The chief business of the East India
Company in its early period, the very object for which it was started, was to
carry Indian manufactured goods, textiles, etc., as well as spices and the like
from the east to Europe, where there was a great demand for these articles. With the developments
in industrial techniques in England a new class of industrial capitalists rose
there, demanding a change in this policy. The British market was to be closed to
Indian products and the Indian market opened to British manufactures. The
British Parliament, influenced by this new class, began to take a greater
interest in India and the working of the East India Company. To begin with,
Indian goods were excluded from Britain by legislation, and as the East India
Company held a monopoly in the Indian export business, this exclusion
influenced other foreign markets also. This was followed by vigorous attempts to
restrict and crush Indian manufactures by various measures and internal duties
which prevented the flow of Indian goods within the country itself. British
goods meanwhile had free entry. The Indian textile industry collapsed,
affecting vast numbers of weavers and artisans. The process was rapid in Bengal
and Bihar, elsewhere it spread gradually with the expansion of British rule and
the building of railways. It continued throughout the nineteenth century,
breaking up other old industries also, ship-building, metal working, glass,
paper, and many crafts. To some extent this was inevitable as
the older manufacturing came into conflict with the new industrial technique.
But it was hastened by political and economic pressure and no attempt was made
to apply the new techniques to India. Indeed every attempt was made to prevent
this happening, and thus the economic development of India was arrested and the
growth of the new industry prevented. Machinery could not be imported into India. A vacuum was created which
could only be filled by British goods, and which led to rapidly increasing
unemployment and poverty. The classic type of modern colonial economy was built
up, India becoming an agricultural colony of industrial England, supplying raw materials and providing markets for
England's industrial goods.
The liquidation of the artisan class
led to unemployment on a prodigious scale.What were all these scores of
millions,who had so far been engaged in industry and manufacture, to do now ?
Where were they to go ? Their old profession was no longer open to them, the way to a new one was
barred. They could die of course; that way of escape from an intolerable
situation is always open. They did die in tens of millions. The English
Governor-General of India, Lord Bentinck, reported in 1834 that 'the misery hardly finds a parallel in the history
of commerce. The bones of the cotton weavers are bleaching the plains of
India.' But still vast numbers of them remained, and these increased from year
to year as British policy affected remoter areas of the country and created more
unemployment. All these hordes of artisans and craftsmen had no job, no work,
and all their ancient skill was useless. They drifted to the land, for the land
was still there. But the land was fully occupied and could not possibly absorb
them profitably. So they became a burden on the land and the burden grew, and
with it grew the poverty of the country, and the standard of living fell to
incredibly low levels. This compulsory back-to-the-land movement of artisans
and craftsmen led to an ever-growing is proportion between agriculture and industry;
agriculture became more and more the sole business of the people because of the
lack of occupations and wealth-producing activities.
India became progressively ruralized.
In every progressive country there has been, during the past century, a shift
of population from agriculture to industry; from village to town; in India this
process was reversed, as a result of British policy.The figures are instructive
and significant. In the middle of the nineteenth century about fifty-five per
cent of the population is said to have been dependent on agriculture; recently
this proportion was estimated to be seventy-four per cent. (This is a pre-war figure.)
Though there has been greater industrial employment during the war, the number
of those dependent on agriculture actually went up in the census of 1941 owing
to increase of population. The growth of a few large cities (chiefly at the
expense of the
small town) is apt to mislead the
superficial observer and give him a false idea of Indian conditions. This
then is the real, the fundamental, cause of ihe appalling poverty of the Indian
people, and it is of comparatively recent origin. Other causes that contribute
to it are themselves the result of this poverty and chronic starvation and
under-nourishment — like disease and illiteracy. Excessive population is
unfortunate, and steps should be taken to curb it wherever necessary, but it
still compares favorably with the density of population of many industrialized
countries. It is only excessive for a predominantly agricultural community, and
under a proper economic system the entire population can be made productive and
should add to the wealth of the country. As a matter of
fact great density of population exists only in special areas, like Bengal and
the Gangetic Valley, and vast areas are still sparsely populated. It is worth remembering
that Great Britain is more than twice as densely populated as India.
The crisis in industry spread rapidly
to the land and became a permanent crisis in agriculture. Holdings became
smaller and smaller, and fragmentation proceeded to an absurd and fantastic degree.
The burden of agricultural debt grew and ownership of the land often passed to
moneylenders. The number of landless laborers increased by the million. India
was under an industrial- capitalist regime, but her economy was largely that of
the pre-capitalist period, minus many of the wealth-producing elements of that pre-capitalist economy. She
became a passive agent of modern industrial capitalism, suffering all its ills
and with hardly any of its advantages. The transition from a pre-industrialist
economy to an economy of capitalist industrialism involves great hardship and
heavy cost in human suffering borne by masses of people. This was especially so
in the early days when no efforts were made to plan such a transition or to
lessen its evil results, and everything was left to individual initiative.
There was this hardship in England during the period of transition but, taken
as a whole, it was not great as the change-over was rapid and the unemployment
caused was soon absorbed by the new industries. But that did not mean that the
cost in human suffering was not paid. It was indeed paid, and paid in full by
others, particularly by the people of India, by famine and death and vast
unemployment. It may be said that a great part of the costs of transition to
industrialism in western Europe were paid for by India, China, and the other
colonial countries, whose economy was dominated by the European powers.
It is obvious that there has been all
along abundant material in India for industrial development—managerial and
technical ability, skilled workers, even some capital in spite of the
continuous drain from India. The historian, Montgomery Martin, giving evidence before
an Inquiry Committee of the British Parliament in 1840, said: 'India is as much
a manufacturing country as an agriculturist; and he who would seek to reduce
her to the position of an agricultural country, seeks to lower her in the scale
of civilization.' That is exactly what the British, in
India sought to do, continuously and persistently, and the measure of their
success is the present condition of India, after they have held despotic sway
there for a century and a half. Ever since the demand for the development of modern
industry arose in India (and this, I imagine, is at least 100 years old) we have been told that
India is pre-eminently an agricultural country and it is in her interest to
stick to agriculture. Industrial development may upset the balance and prove
harmful to her main business—agriculture. The solicitude which British industrialists and economists have
shown for the Indian peasant has been truly gratifying. In view of this, as
well as of the tender care lavished upon him- by the British Government in
India, one can only conclude that some all-powerful and malign fate, some supernatural
agency, has countered their intentions and measures and made that peasant one
of the poorest and most miserable beings on earth. It is difficult now for anyone to
oppose industrial development in India but, even now, when any extensive and
far-reaching plan is drawn up, we are warned by our British friends, who
continue to shower their advice upon us, that agriculture must not be neglected
and must have first place. As if any Indian with an iota of intelligence can
ignore or neglect agriculture or forget the peasant. The Indian peasant is
India more than anyone else, and it is on his progress and betterment that
India's progress will depend. But our crisis in agriculture, grave as it is, is
interlinked with the crisis in industry, out of which it arose. The two cannot
be disconnected and dealt with separately, and it is essential for the
disproportion between the two to be remedied.
India's ability to develop modern
industry can be seen by her success in it whenever she has had the chance to
build it up. Indeed, such success has been achieved in spite of the strenuous
opposition of the British Government in India and of vested interests in Britain. Her first real chance came
during the war of 1914-18 when the inflow of British goods was interrupted. She
profited by it, though only to a relatively small extent because of British
policy. Ever since then there has been continuous pressure on the Government to
facilitate the growth of Indian industry by removing the various barriers and
special interests that come in the way. While apparently accepting this as its
policy, the Government has obstructed all real growth, especially of basic
industries. Even in the Constitution Act of 1935 it was specifically laid down
that Indian legislatures could not
interfere with the vested interests of British industry in
India. The pre-war years witnessed repeated attempts to
build up basic and heavy industries, all scotched by official policy. But the most amazing instances of
official obstruction have been during the present war, when war needs for
production were paramount. Even those vital needs were not sufficient to
overcome British dislike of Indian industry. That industry has grown because of the force of
events, but its growth is trivial compared to what it could have been or to the
growth of industry in many other
countries. The direct opposition of the earlier periods to the growth of Indian
industry gave place to indirect methods, which have been equally effective,
just as direct tribute gave place to manipulation of customs and excise duties
and financial and currency policies, which benefited Britain at the expense
of India. Long subjection of a people and the denial of freedom bring many
evils, and perhaps the greatest of these lies in the spiritual
sphere—demoralization and sapping of
the spirit of the people. It is hard to measure this, though it may be obvious.
It is easier to trace and measure the economic decay of a nation, and as we look back on British economic
policy in India, it seems that the present poverty of the Indian people
is the ineluctable consequence of it. There is no mystery about this poverty;
we can see the causes and follow the processes which have led to the present condition.
India Becomes for the First Time a Political
and Economic Appendage of Another Country
The establishment of British rule in
India was an entirely novel phenomenon for her, not comparable with any other
invasion or political or economic change. 'India had been conquered before, but
by invaders who settled within her frontiers and made themselves part of her
life.' (Like the Normans in England or the Manchus in China.)' She had never
lost her independence, never been enslaved. That is to say, she had never been
drawn into a political and economic system whose centre of gravity lay outside her
soil, never been subjected to & ruling class which was, and which remained,
permanently alien in origin and character [*K. S. Shelvankar: 'The Problem
of India' (Penguin Special, London, 1940)].Every previous ruling class,
whether it had originally come from outside or was indigenous, had accepted the
structural unity of India's social and economic life and tried to fit into it.
It had become Indianised and had struck roots in the soil of the country. The
new rulers were entirely different, with their base elsewhere,
and between them and the average
Indian there was a vast and unbridgeable gulf—a difference in tradition, in
outlook, in income, and ways of living. The early Britishers in India, rather
cut off from England, adopted many Indian ways of living. But it was a superficial approach and even this
was deliberately abandoned with the improvement in communications between India
and England. It was felt that the British ruling class must maintain its prestige
in India by keeping aloof, exclusive, apart from Indians, living in a superior world of its own.
There were two worlds: the world of British officials and the world of India's
millions, and there was nothing in common between them except a common dislike for
each other. Previously races had merged into one another, or at least fitted
into an organically interdependent structure. Now racialism became the
acknowledged creed and this was intensified by the fact that the dominant race
had both political and economic power, without check or hindrance. The world
market that the new capitalism was building up would have, in any event,
affected India's economic system. The self-sufficient village community, with
its traditional division of labor, could not have continued in its old form.
But the change that took place was not a normal development and it
disintegrated the whole economic and structural basis of Indian society. A system
which had social sanctions and controls behind it and was a part of the
people's cultural heritage was suddenly and forcibly changed and another
system, administered from outside the group, was imposed. India did not come
into a world market but became a colonial and agricultural appendage of the
British structure. The village community, which had so
far been the basis of Indian economy, was disintegrated, losing both its
economic and administrative functions. In 1830, Sir Charles Metcalfe, one of the
ablest of British officials in India, described these communities in words
which have often been quoted: 'The village communities are little republics having nearly
everything they want within themselves; and almost independent of foreign
relations. They seem to last where nothing else lasts. This union of the village
communities, each one forming a separate little state in itself... is in a high
degree conducive to their happiness, and to the enjoyment of a great portion of
freedom and independence.' The destruction of village industries was a powerful
blow to these communities. The balance between industry and agriculture was
upset, the traditional division of labor was broken up, and numerous stray
individuals could not be easily fitted into any group activity. A, more direct
blow came from the introduction of the landlord system, changing the whole
conception of ownership of land. This conception had been one of communal ownership,
not so much of the land as of the produce of the land. Possibly not fully appreciating
this, but more probably taking the step deliberately for reasons of their own,
the British governors, themselves representing the English landlord class, introduced
something resembling the English system in India. At first they appointed
revenue-farmers for short terms, that is persons who were made responsible for
the collection of the revenue or land tax and payment of it to the Government. Later
these revenue-farmers developed into landlords. The village community was deprived of all control
over the land and its produce; what had always been considered as the chief
interest and concern of that community now became the private property of the
newly created landowner. This led to the breakdown of the joint life and
corporate character of the community, and the co-operative system of services
and functions began to disappear gradually.
The introduction of this type of
property in land was not only a great economic change, but it went deeper and
struck at the whole Indian conception of a co-operative group social structure.
A new class, the owners of land, appeared; a class created by, and therefore to a large extent identified
with, the British Government. The break-up of the old system created new
problems and probably the beginnings of the new Hindu-Moslem problem can be
traced to it. The landlord system was first introduced in Bengal and Bihar
where big landowners were created under the system known as the Permanent Settlement. It was later
realized that this was not advantageous to the state as the land revenue had
been fixed and could not be enhanced. Fresh settlements in other parts of India
were therefore made for a period only and enhancements in revenue took place
from time to time. In some provinces a kind of peasant proprietorship was
established. The extreme rigor applied to the collection of revenue resulted,
especially in Bengal, in the ruin of the old landed gentry, and new people from
the monied and business classes took their place. Thus Bengal became a province
predominantly of Hindu landlords, while their tenants, though both Hindu and
Moslem, were chiefly the latter. Big landowners were created by the British
after their own English pattern, chiefly because it
was far easier to deal with a few individuals than with a vast peasantry. The
objective was to collect as much money in the shape of revenue, and as
speedily, as possible. If an owner failed at the stipulated time he was immediately
pushed out and another took his place It was also considered necessary to
create a class whose interests were identified with the British. The fear of
revolt filled the minds of British officials in India and they referred to this
repeatedly In their papers. Governor-General Lord William Bentinck said in
1829: 'If security was wanting against extensive popular tumult or revolution,
I should say that the Permanent Settlement, though a failure in many other
respects, has this great advantage at least, of having created a vast body of
rich landed proprietors deeply interested in the continuance of British
Dominion and having complete command over the mass of the people.'
British rule thus consolidated itself
by creating new classes and vested interests which were tied up with that rule
and privileges which depended on its continuance. There were the landowners and
the princes, and there was a large number of subordinate members of the services in various
departments of government, from the patwari, the village head-man,
upwards. The two essential branches of government were the revenue system and
the police. At the head of both of these in each district was the collector or district
magistrate who was the linchpin of the administration. He functioned as an
autocrat in his district, combining in himself executive, judicial, revenue,
and police functions. If there were any small Indian states adjoining the area
under his control, he was also the British agent for them. Then there was the
Indian Army, consisting of British and Indian troops but officered entirely by
Englishmen. This was
reorganized repeatedly, especially
after the mutiny of 1857, and ultimately became organizationally linked up with
the British Army. This was so arranged as to balance its different elements and
keep the British troops in key positions. 'Next to the grand counterpoise of a sufficient European
force comes the counterpoise of natives against natives,' says the official
report on reorganization in 1858. The primary function of these forces was to
serve as an army of occupation—'Internal Security Troops' they were called, and
a majority of these was British. The Frontier Province served as a training
ground for the British Army at India's expense. The Field Army (chiefly Indian)
was meant for service abroad and it took part in numerous British imperial wars
and expeditions, India always bearing the cost. Steps were taken to segregate
Indian troops from the rest of the population. Thus India had to bear the cost
of her own conquest, and then of her transfer (or sale) from the East India
Company to the British Crown, for the extension of the British Empire to Burma and
elsewhere, for expeditions to Africa, Persia, etc., and for her defense against
Indians themselves. She was not only used as a base for imperial purposes, without
any reimbursement for this, but she had further to pay for the training of part
of the British Army in England—'capitation' charges these were called. Indeed India
was charged for all manner of other expenses incurred by Britain, such as the maintenance of
British diplomatic and consular establishments in China and Persia, the entire
cost of the telegraph line from England' to India, part of the expenses of the British
Mediterranean fleet, and even the receptions given to the Sultan of Turkey in London.
The building of railways in India,
undoubtedly desirable and necessary, was done in an enormously wasteful way.
The Government of India guaranteed 5 per cent interest on all capital invested and
there was no need to check or estimate what was necessary.All purchases were made in England. The
civil establishment of government was also run on a lavish and extravagant
scale, all the highly paid positions being reserved for Europeans. The process of
Indianization of the administrative machine was very slow and only became
noticeable in the twentieth century. This process, far from transferring any
power to Indian hands, proved yet another method of strengthening British rule.
The really key positions remained in British hands, and Indians in the
administration could only function as the agents of British rule. To all these
methods must be added the deliberate policy, pursued throughout the period of
British rule, or creating divisions among Indians, of encouraging one group at
the cost of another. This policy was openly admitted in the early days of their
rule, and indeed it was a natural one for an imperial power. With the growth of
the nationalist movement that policy took subtler and more dangerous forms and,
though denied, functioned more intensively than ever. Nearly all our major
problems to-day have grown up during British rule and as a direct result of
British policy: the princes; the minority problem; various vested interests,
foreign and Indian; the lack of industry and the neglect of agriculture; the extreme backwardness in the social
services; and, above all, the tragic poverty of the people. The attitude to
education has been significant. In Kaye's 'Life of Metcalfe' it is stated that
'this dread of the free diffusion of knowledge became a chronic disease . . . continually afflicting the
members of Government with all sorts of hypochondria cal day-dreams and
nightmares, in which visions of the printing press and the Bible were making
their flesh creep, and their hair to stand erect with horror. It was our policy
in those days to keep the natives of
India in the profoundest state of barbarism and darkness, and every attempt to
diffuse the light of knowledge among the people, either of our own or of the independent
states, was vehemently opposed and resented [ Quoted by Edward Thompson,
'The Life of Lord Metcalfe] Imperialism must function in this way or else
it ceases to be imperialism. The modern type of finance-imperialism added new kinds
of economic exploitation which were unknown in earlier ages. The record of
British rule in India during the nineteenth century must necessarily depress
and anger an Indian, and yet it illustrates the superiority of the British in
many fields, not least in their capacity to profit by
our disunity and weaknesses. A people who are weak and who are left behind in
the march of time invite trouble and ultimately have only themselves to blame. If British imperialism
with all its consequences was, in the
circumstances, to be expected in the natural order of events, so also was the growth of opposition to it inevitable, and
the final crisis between the
two.
The Growth of the
Indian States System
One of our major problems in India
to-day is that of the Princes of the Indian states. These states are unique of
their kind in the world and they vary greatly in size and political and social
conditions. Their number is 601. About fifteen of these may be considered major states, the biggest
of these being Hyderabad, Kashmir, Mysore, Travancore, Baroda, Gwalior, Indore,
Cochin, Jaipur, Jodhpur, Bikanir, Bhopal, and Patiala. Then follow a number of
middling states and, lastly, several hundreds of very small areas, some not bigger than a
pin's point on the map. Most of these tiny states are in Kathiawar, western
India, and the Punjab. These states not only vary in size from that of France
to almost that of an average farmer's holding, but also differ in every other way. Mysore is industrially the most
advanced; Mysore, Travancore, and Cochin are educationally far ahead of British
India [Travancore, Cochin, Mysore, and Baroda are, from the point of view of
popular education, far in advance of British India. In Travancore, it is
interesting to note that popular education began to be organized in 1801.
(Compare England where it started in 1870.) The literacy percentage in
Travancore is now 58 for men and 41 for women ; this is over four times higher
than the British India percentage. Public health is also better organized in Travancore.
Women play an important part in public service and activities in Travancore]. Most
of the states are, however, very backward and some are completely feudal. All
of them are autocracies, though some have started elected councils whose powers
are strictly limited. Hyderabad, the premier state, still carries on with a
typical feudal regime supported by an almost complete denial of civil
liberties. So also most of the states in Rajputana and the Punjab. A lack of
civil liberties is a common feature of the states. These states do not form
compact blocks; they are spread out all over India, islands surrounded by
non-state areas. The vast majority of them are totally unable to support even a
semi independent economy; even the largest, situated as they are, can hardly
hope to do so without the full co-operation of the surrounding areas. If there
was any economic conflict between a state and non-state India, the former could
be easily reduced to submission by tariff barriers and other economic
sanctions. It is manifest that both politically and economically these states,
even the largest of them, cannot be separated and treated as independent entities.
As such they would not survive and the
rest of India would also suffer greatly. They would become hostile enclaves all
over India, and if they relied on some external power for protection, this in
itself would be a continuous and serious menace to a free India. Indeed they
would not have survived till to-day but for the fact that politically and
economically the whole of India, including the states, is under one dominant
power which protects them. Apart from the possible conflicts between a state
and non state India, it must be remembered that there is continuous pressure on
the autocratic ruler of the state from his own people, who demand free institutions. Attempts to
achieve this freedom are suppressed and kept back with the aid of the British
power. Even in the nineteenth century, these states, as constituted, became
anachronisms. Under modern conditions it is impossible to conceive of India being split up
into scores of separate independent entities. Not only would there be perpetual
conflict but all planned economic and cultural progress would become
impossible. We must remember that when these states took shape and entered into treaties with the East
India Company, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, Europe was divided
up into numerous small principalities. Many wars and revolutions have changed
the face of Europe since then and are changing it to-day, but the face of India was set and
petrified by external pressure imposed upon it and not allowed to change. It
seems absurd to hold up some treaty drawn up 140 years ago, usually on the
field of battle or immediately afterwards, between two rival commanders or their chiefs, and to say that this
temporary settlement must last for ever. The people of the state of course had
no say in that settlement, and the other party at the time was a commercial corporation
concerned only with its own interests and profits. This commercial corporation,
the East India Company, acted not as the agent of the British Crown or
Parliament but, in theory, as the agent of the Delhi Emperor, from whom power
and authority were supposed to flow, although he was himself quite powerless.
The British Crown or Parliament had
nothing whatever to do with these treaties. Parliament only considered Indian
affairs when the charter of the East India Company came up for discussion from time
to time. The fact that the East India Company was functioning in India under
the authority conferred on it by the Diwani grant of the Mughal Emperor
made it independent of any direct interference by the British Crown or
Parliament. Indirectly Parliament could, if it so chose, cancel the charter or
impose new conditions at the time of renewal. The idea that the English King or
Parliament should even in theory function as agents and therefore as
subordinates of the shadowy Emperor at Delhi was not liked in England and so
they studiously kept aloof from the activities of the East India Company. The
money spent in the Indian wars was Indian money raised and disposed of by the
East India Company. Subsequently, as the territory under the control of the
East India Company increased in area and its rule was consolidated, the British
Parliament began to take greater interest in Indian affairs. In 1858, after the shock of
the Indian mutiny and revolt, the East India Company transferred its domain of
India (for money paid by India) to the British crown. That transfer did not involve
a separate transfer of the Indian states apart from the rest of India. The whole of India was
treated as a unit and the British Parliament functioned in India through the
Government of India which exercised a suzerainty over the states. The states
had no separate relations with the British Crown or Parliament. They
were part and parcel of the system of
government, direct and indirect, represented by the Government of India. This
government, in later years, ignored those old treaties whenever it suited its
changing policy to do so, and exercised a very effective suzerainty over the states. Thus the British
Crown was not in the picture at all so far as the Indian states were concerned.
It is only in recent years that the claim to some kind of independence has been
raised on behalf of the states, and it has been further claimed that they have
some special relations with the British Crown, apart from the Government of India. These treaties, it should be
noted, are with very few of the states; there are only forty treaty states, the
rest have 'engagements and sanads.' These forty states have three-fourths of
the total Indian state population, and six of them have considerably more than
one-third of this population [These six are: Hyderabad, 12-13 million;
Mysore, 7\ million; Travancore, 6'J million; Baroda, 4 million; Kashmir,
3 million; Gwalior, 3 million; totaling over 36 million. The total Indian
states population is about 90 million].In the Government of India Act of
1935, for the first time, some distinction was made between the relations of
the states and the rest of India with the British parliament. The states were
removed from the supervisory authority and direction of the Government of India
and placed directly under the Viceroy who, for this purpose, was called the
Crown representative. The Viceroy continued to be,at the same time, the head of
the Government of India. The political department of the Government of India,
which used to be responsible for the states, was now placed directly under the Viceroy and was no longer under his
executive council. How did these states come into existence? Some are quite
new, created by the British; others were the vice-royalties of the Mughal Emperor,
and their rulers were permitted to continue as feudatory chiefs by the British;
yet others, notably the Maratha chiefs, were defeated by British armies and
then made into feudatories. Nearly all these can be traced back to the
beginnings of British rule; they have no earlier history. If some of them
functioned independently for a while, that independence was of
brief duration and ended in defeat in war or threat of war. Only a few of the
states,and these are chiefly in Rajputana, date back to pre-Mughal times. Travancore
has an ancient, 1,000-year-old historical continuity.
Some of the proud Rajput clans trace
back their genealogy to prehistoric times. The Maharana of Udaipur, of the Suryavansh
or race of the sun, has a family tree comparable to that of the Mikado of
Japan. But these Rajput chiefs became Mughal feudatories and then submitted to
the Marathas, and finally to the British. The representatives of the East India
Company, writes Edward Thompson, 'now set the princes in their positions,
lifting them out of the chaos in which they were submerged. When thus picked up
and re-established, "the princes" were as completely helpless and derelict as any powers since the
beginning of the world. Had the British Government not intervened, nothing but
extinction lay before the Rajput states, and disintegration before the Maratha states.
As for such states as Oudh and the Nizam's dominions, their very existence was
bogus; they were kept in a semblance of life, only by means of the breath blown
through them by the protecting power ['The Making of the Indian Princes',
Edward Thompson, pp. 270-1. In this book as well as Thompson's 'Life of Lord
Metcalfe,' there are vivid pictures of Hyderabad and British control and graft
there; also of Delhi and Ranjit Sing,\'s Punjab. The Butler Committee (1928-29), appointed
by the British Government to consider the problem of the Indian States, said in
its report: 'It is not in accordance with historical facts that when the Indian
States came into contact with the British power they were independent. Some
were rescued, others were created by the British.'].
Hyderabad, the premier state to-day,
was small, in area to begin with. Its boundaries were extended twice, after
Tipu Sultan's defeat by the British and the Maratha wars. These additions were at
the instance of the British, and on the express stipulation that the Nizam was to function in a
subordinate capacity to them. Indeed, on Tipu's defeat, the offer of part of
his territory was first made to the Peshwa, the Maratha leader, but he refused
to accept it on those conditions. Kashmir, the next largest state, was sold by
the East India Company after the Sikh wars to the great-grandfather of the
present ruler. It was subsequently taken under
direct British control on a plea of misgovernment. Later the ruler's powers
were restored to them. The present state of Mysore was created by the British after
Tipu's wars. It was also under direct British rule for a lengthy period. The only truly independent
kingdom in India is Nepal on the north-eastern frontier, which occupies a
position analogous to that of Afghanistan, though it is rather isolated. All
the rest came within the scope of what was called the 'subsidiary system,'
under which all real power lay with the British Government, exercised through a
resident or agent. Often even the ministers of the ruler were British officials
imposed upon him. But the entire responsibility for good government and reform
lay with the ruler, who with the best will in the world (and he usually lacked
that will as well as competence) could do little in the circumstances. Henry
Lawrence wrote in 1846 about the Indian states system: 'If there was a
device for ensuring mal-government it is that of a native ruler and minister both
relying on foreign bayonets, and directed by a British Resident; even if all
these were able, virtuous, and considerate, still the wheels of government
could hardly move smoothly. If it be difficult to select one man, European or
native, with all the requisites of a just administrator, where are three who
can or will work together to be found? Each of the three may work incalculable mischief,
but no one of them can do good if thwarted by the other.'
Earlier still, in 1817, Sir Thomas
Munro wrote to the Governor-General: 'There are many weighty objections to the
employment of a subsidiary force. It has a natural tendency to render the
government of every country in which it exists weak and oppressive, to extinguish all honorable spirit among
the higher classes of society, and to degrade and impoverish the whole people.
The usual remedy of a bad government in India is a quiet revolution in the
palace, or a violent one by rebellion or foreign conquests. But the presence of
a British force cuts off every chance of remedy, by supporting the prince on
the throne against every foreign and domestic enemy. It renders him indolent,
by teaching him to trust to strangers for his security, and cruel and
avaricious, by showing him that he has nothing to fear from the hatred of his
subjects. Wherever the subsidiary system is introduced, unless the
reigning prince be a man of great abilities, the country will soon bear the
marks of it in decaying villages and decreasing population.... Even if the
prince himself were disposed to adhere rigidly to the (British) alliance, there
will always be some amongst his principal officers who will urge him to break
it. As long as there remains in the country any high minded independence, which
seeks to throw off the control of strangers, such counselors will be found. I
have a better opinion of the natives of India than to think that this spirit
will ever be completely extinguished; and I can therefore have no doubt that the
subsidiary system must everywhere run its full course and destroy every
government which it undertakes to protect [Quoted by Edward Thompson in 'The
Making of the Indian Princes' (1943]). In spite of such protests the
subsidiary Indian state system was built up, and it brought, inevitably,
corruption .and tyranny in its train. The governments of these states were
often bad enough, but, in any event, they were almost powerless; a few of the
British residents or agents in these states, like Metcalfe, were honest and conscientious,
but more often they were neither, and they exercised the harlot's privilege of
having power without responsibility. Private English adventurers, secure in the
knowledge of their race and of official backing, played havoc with the funds of
the state. Some of the accounts of what took place in these states during the first
half of the nineteenth century, especially in Oudh and
Hyderabad, are almost incredible. Oudh
was annexed to British India a little before the Mutiny of 1857. British policy
was then in favor of such annexations, and every pretext was taken advantage of for a
'lapse' of the state to British authority. But the Mutiny and great Revolt of
1857 demonstrated the value of the subsidiary state system to the British
Government. Except for some minor defections the Indian princes not only remained aloof from the rising, but,
in some instances, actually helped the British to crush it. This brought about
a change in British policy towards them, and it was decided to keep them and even
to strengthen them.
The doctrine of British 'paramountcy'
was proclaimed, and in practice the control of the political department of the
Government of India over the states has been strict and continuous. Rulers have
been removed or deprived of their powers; ministers have been imposed upon them from the
British services. Quite a large number of such ministers are functioning now in
the states, and they consider themselves answerable far more to British
authority than to their nominal head, the prince. Some of the princes are good,
some are bad; even the good ones are thwarted and checked at every turn. As a
class they are of necessity backward, feudal in outlook, and authoritarian in methods, except in their dealings with
the British Government, when they show a becoming subservience. Shelvankar has
rightly called the Indian states 'Britain's fifth column in India.'
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