03-23-2005, 07:15 PM
Source: The People of India; By Kumar Goshal
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>HOW THE COMPANY RULED INDIA </b>
DURING THE East India Company's rule over India, protests against the treatment accorded the Indians were made periodically by many Englishmen. Some protested on humanitarian grounds, while others were afraid of the withering of the "pagoda-tree" by indiscriminate plunder. But most of the protests were based upon the principle that without some systematic arrangement, exploitation would soon dwindle into zero. It could not have been otherwise, since the Company's interest in India was exclusively economic.
Nevertheless, while Burke thundered and Sheridan spoke eloquently against the Company, the plunder of India went on uninterruptedly. Employees of the Company, both British and Indian, were paid comparatively small salaries; there was a tacit understanding that they could enrich themselves out of the inexhaustible magic bowl of India's wealth. But the cost of constant warfare--borne exclusively by India--and the insatiable greed of individuals sometimes resulted in decreasing the Company's own revenues. At such times, there would be attempts at "reform."
But the reforms were always inaugurated with the purpose of increasing the revenue. Clive was sent back to India in 1765 to reorganize the Company's affairs. On the 30th of September in that year he wrote to the Directors: "Upon my arrival, I am sorry to say, I found your affairs in a condition so nearly desperate as would have alarmed any set of men whose sense of honour and duty to their employers had not been estranged by the too eager pursuit of their own advantage." But he reported that he had, at last, "the happiness to see the completion of an event, which, in this respect as well as many others, must be productive of advantages hitherto unknown, and at the same time prevent abuses that have hitherto had no remedy." He was alluding to the right of civil administration of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, gained from the Moghul emperor, which, in fact, increased these abuses.
In the Parliamentary inquiry into the Company's affairs in 1813, many witnesses testified to the appalling condition of the people of India. But the object of the inquiry was pithily put in the following question addressed to Warren Hastings: "From your knowledge of the Indian character and habits, are you able to speak as to the probability of a demand for European commodities by the population of India, for their own use
In 1815, Charles Metcalfe, representing the Company at Delhi, wrote to the Governor-General that the Company must have the most efficient army it was possible to maintain, that if the resources were inadequate, "we should draw forth new resources; and if these be impracticable within our dominions, we must look to increase of territory by conquest over our enemies in the interior of India. There is no doubt that opportunities will arise for effecting such conquests." Metcalfe was quite explicit about the reason for having an efficient army; it was "To enlarge our territories in the interior of India on every occasion of war as much as possible consistent with justice and policy, moderation to our enemies, and due attention to our allies." And what was to be done with the new conquests? Metcalfe was quite lucid about that, too; it was "To apply the net revenues of conquered countries to the maintenance of additional force, and the acquisition of additional force to the achievement of new conquests, on just occasions-thus growing in size and increasing in strength as we proceed, until we can with safety determine to confine ourselves within fixed limits, and abjure all further conquests. . . ."
When the Company was deprived of its trading monopoly and became entirely dependent on its revenue from India, it suddenly became heartbroken over the suffering of the Indian people. On May 30, 1829, Lord William Bentinck, GovernorGeneral of India, wrote in a minute that "The sympathy of the Court (of Directors of the Company) is deeply excited by the report of the Board of Trade, exhibiting the gloomy picture of the effects of a commercial revolution productive of so much present suffering to numerous classes in India, and hardly to be paralleled in the history of commerce." But this type of appeal failed to soften the hearts of the manufacturing interests of England, who had begun to exploit India for the benefit of British industries. "I certainly pity the East Indian laborers," declared Mr. Cope, a Macclesfield manufacturer, "but at the same time I have a greater feeling for my own family than for the East Indian laborer's family; I think it is wrong to sacrifice the comforts of my family for the sake of the East Indian laborer because his condition happens to be worse than mine." There, in a nutshell, is British policy in India even at its best; for pity there was and is, but when it clashed with economic interests, pity had to be stifled and killed.
The East India Company ruled India up to 1858, though from 1773 onwards it was increasingly under the supervision of the Government of England. What did this Government accomplish?
In the sphere of administration, it periodically added to its staff of revenue collectors, and attempted ever newer methods of extracting greater revenue. Land was reassessed from time to time, the tax increasing with every new assessment. A rudimentary police force was organized, ill-paid, and, consequently, corrupt and inefficient.
Early in the eighteenth century, even the friendliest of Englishmen could not conceive of effective participation by Indians in the administration of their own country. In his Minutes of 1824, Mountstuart Elphinstone, a Company official who later also wrote a History of India, stated: "If care were taken to qualify the natives for the public service, and afterwards to encourage their employment, the picture would be soon reversed. At no very distant day we might see natives engaged in superintending a portion of a District as the European Assistants are doing now." Cautiously he continued: "In a more advanced stage, they might sometimes be Registrars and SubCollectors, or even Collectors and Judges." And the rosiest picture he could envisage in the dim future was that "It may not be too visionary to suppose a period at which they might bear to the English nearly the relation which the Chinese do to the Tartars, the Europeans retaining the government and the military power, while the natives filled a large portion of the civil stations, and many of the subordinate employments in the Army."
The Act of 1833 provided that "no native of the said territories . . . shall by reason only of his religion, place of birth, descent, color, or any of them, be disabled from holding any place, office, or employment in the said Company." Yet in 1857 there were, in the Company's employ, only some 256 Indians drawing a salary of 1360 a year or over, and 2,590 in various subordinate grades. And almost half a century later the Governor-General, Lord Lytton, wrote in his Confidential Minute of 1878: "No sooner was the Act passed than the Government began to devise means for practically evading the fulfillment of it. Under the terms of the Act . . . every such native, if once admitted to Government employment . . . is entitled to expect and claim appointment in the fair course of promotion to the highest posts in that service. We all know that these claims and expectations never can or will be fulfilled. We have had to choose between prohibiting them and cheating them, and we have chosen the least straightforward course . . . Since I am writing confidentially, I do not hesitate to say that both the Government of England and of India appear to me . . . unable to answer satisfactorily the charge of having taken every means in their power of breaking to the heart the words of promise they have uttered to the ear."
During the eighteenth century the water supply systems vitally necessary for Indian agriculture had fallen into disrepair. Until after 1852, however, the government of India paid little attention to them; out of a revenue of £19,300,000 in the year 1850-51, only £166,390, or 0.8%, was returned as spent on public works of any kind.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, the industrialists in England felt the need for better transportation and communications systems in India to circulate British goods and to transport raw material to the nearest port. By 1857 telegraphic communication had been introduced and the postal department put on a systematic basis. The first railroad track was laid in 1853. To help raise the capital, the English manufacturers had prevailed upon the government to guarantee a minimum interest of 5 per cent; as a result, there was a stampede of investors. Since the government backed the investment, nobody bothered about the expenditure. There was unbelievable graft and inefficiency. At the 1872 Parliamentary inquiry, William N. Massey, Finance Minister of India, testified that the railways at the beginning cost about £30,000 a mile. "The contractors had no motive for economy," declared the same authority. "All the money came from the English capitalist, and so long as he was guaranteed five per cent on the revenues of India, it was immaterial to him whether the funds that he lent were thrown into the Hooghly or converted into bricks and mortar . . . It seems to me that they are the most extravagant works that were ever undertaken." By the end of the nineteenth century, as was to be expected, the railroads piled up a deficit of £40 million, which the Indian taxpayer had to shoulder.
The administration of India required a large personnel, and some Indians had to be employed. As early as 1792 there was discussion over making English education available to a limited number of Indians to qualify them for minor government posts. But the proposal to send a few school teachers to India was howled down by the majority of the Directors of the Company. Before the Parliamentary Committee of 1853 J. C. Marshman testified that "On that occasion one of the Directors stated that we had just lost America from our folly in having allowed the establishment of schools and colleges, and that it would not do for us to repeat the same act of folly in regard to India."
The spread of education was a function of the government in pre-British India, as has been pointed out before. Educational institutions necessarily suffered during the disturbed conditions of the eighteenth century. When order was restored under British rule, the economic structure was completely changed: the village panchayats had disappeared, the peasants had lost their previous rights, and community support of schools became impossible. By the early part of the nineteenth century, educational facilities for the Indian children had practically disappeared.
After a good deal of debate, the British Parliament ordered the appropriation of £10,000 for the establishment of educational institutions in India. It was not until 1823 that the first hesitant steps were taken to open a couple of colleges in India, and to print translations of European scientific treatises in two Indian languages. But no definite steps were taken until the appointment of Thomas Babington Macaulay as Educational Adviser to the Indian government in 1835. The educational system since prevailing in India was his handiwork.
Macaulay was also Law Member of the Governor-General's Council, receiving a salary of £10,000. (This was in 1834. An American Cabinet member today receives a salary of $15,000, or less than £4,000.) Using his extraordinary command of the English language, he extolled the virtues of the East India Company. His famous speech in the House of Commons on July 10, 1833, and his equally celebrated Minute on Education of 1834, have found their way into school textbooks and are cited not only as literary masterpieces, but also as evidence of the benefits of British rule in India. Despite the high moral and humanitarian tone of his defense of the Company, his personal approach to India was an economic one: "I must live," he wrote to his sister on August 17, 1833. "I can live only by my pen, and it is absolutely impossible for any man to write enough to procure him a decent subsistence, and at the same time take an active part in politics. I have never made more than two hundred a year by my pen. I could not support myself in comfort on less than five hundred, and I shall in all probability have many others to support." He was happy to add, however, that his job in India would solve his problem: "The salary is ten thousand pounds a year. I am assured by persons who know Calcutta intimately . . . that I may live in splendour there for five thousands a year, and may save the rest of the salary with accruing interest. I may therefore hope to return to England, at only thirty-nine, in the full vigour of life, with a fortune of thirty thousand pounds."
As educational adviser to the Indian government, Macaulay frankly admitted: "I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or Arabic.""I am quite ready," he continued with sublime impudence, "to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia." Hence it was decided that the English language would be the medium for education in India. But this applied only to higher education; elementary education was still left unaided. By 1857, approximately three per cent of the children of schoolgoing age was receiving any kind of education.
There has been a good deal of controversy over the adoption of English as the medium of higher education in India. It is true that Indian literature in the nineteenth century did not possess any treatises on the advanced sciences of the West. Surely it is at least conceivable that such works could have been translated into the Indian languages, and English could have been taught as a secondary language. The argument against education in the native language was as irrelevant in 1835 as it is today, and was merely a ruse to hide the government's real wish not to impart modern scientific knowledge to the Indians. Education was planned with the purpose of training a body of clerks and other minor employees. It was at that time, and has remained, chiefly a literary education. "We must do our best," Macaulay wrote, "to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect." Macaulay's arrogant contempt for India and all things Indian was summed up in his statement: "We know that India cannot have a free government. But she may have the next best thing--a firm and impartial despotism."
A few higher institutions of learning, teaching in the Indian languages, had already been established, some by Indians and others by sympathetic English businessmen and missionaries. They were granted some financial aid by the government, and the Medical College was opened to Indian students in 1837. In spite of Macaulay's desire to develop a class of imitation Englishmen, officials in India remained suspicious of the effect of English education on the Indians. Lord Ellenborough, who went to India as Governor-General in 1842, had a heart-to-heart talk with Dwarkanatli Tagore, of the famous Tagore family. "You know," he told Tagore, "that if these gentlemen who wish to educate the Natives of India were to succeed to the utmost extent of their desire, we should not remain in this country for three months.""Not three weeks," Tagore amended.
But pressure from important Indians, supported by liberal Englishmen, gradually brought about a modification of this attitude. The Educational Despatch of July 19, 1854, finally established the basic pattern of education in India which is followed to this day. A few years later three universities were established in British India, to which independently managed colleges were affiliated. The universities were granted powers to confer degrees on graduates. Control of education remained in the hands of the government through the Council of Education, and the Governor-General automatically became Chancellor of the universities. But the spread of education was extremely slow, due to the fact that tuition fees in schools and colleges remained beyond the reach of the majority of the people.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>HOW THE COMPANY RULED INDIA </b>
DURING THE East India Company's rule over India, protests against the treatment accorded the Indians were made periodically by many Englishmen. Some protested on humanitarian grounds, while others were afraid of the withering of the "pagoda-tree" by indiscriminate plunder. But most of the protests were based upon the principle that without some systematic arrangement, exploitation would soon dwindle into zero. It could not have been otherwise, since the Company's interest in India was exclusively economic.
Nevertheless, while Burke thundered and Sheridan spoke eloquently against the Company, the plunder of India went on uninterruptedly. Employees of the Company, both British and Indian, were paid comparatively small salaries; there was a tacit understanding that they could enrich themselves out of the inexhaustible magic bowl of India's wealth. But the cost of constant warfare--borne exclusively by India--and the insatiable greed of individuals sometimes resulted in decreasing the Company's own revenues. At such times, there would be attempts at "reform."
But the reforms were always inaugurated with the purpose of increasing the revenue. Clive was sent back to India in 1765 to reorganize the Company's affairs. On the 30th of September in that year he wrote to the Directors: "Upon my arrival, I am sorry to say, I found your affairs in a condition so nearly desperate as would have alarmed any set of men whose sense of honour and duty to their employers had not been estranged by the too eager pursuit of their own advantage." But he reported that he had, at last, "the happiness to see the completion of an event, which, in this respect as well as many others, must be productive of advantages hitherto unknown, and at the same time prevent abuses that have hitherto had no remedy." He was alluding to the right of civil administration of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, gained from the Moghul emperor, which, in fact, increased these abuses.
In the Parliamentary inquiry into the Company's affairs in 1813, many witnesses testified to the appalling condition of the people of India. But the object of the inquiry was pithily put in the following question addressed to Warren Hastings: "From your knowledge of the Indian character and habits, are you able to speak as to the probability of a demand for European commodities by the population of India, for their own use
In 1815, Charles Metcalfe, representing the Company at Delhi, wrote to the Governor-General that the Company must have the most efficient army it was possible to maintain, that if the resources were inadequate, "we should draw forth new resources; and if these be impracticable within our dominions, we must look to increase of territory by conquest over our enemies in the interior of India. There is no doubt that opportunities will arise for effecting such conquests." Metcalfe was quite explicit about the reason for having an efficient army; it was "To enlarge our territories in the interior of India on every occasion of war as much as possible consistent with justice and policy, moderation to our enemies, and due attention to our allies." And what was to be done with the new conquests? Metcalfe was quite lucid about that, too; it was "To apply the net revenues of conquered countries to the maintenance of additional force, and the acquisition of additional force to the achievement of new conquests, on just occasions-thus growing in size and increasing in strength as we proceed, until we can with safety determine to confine ourselves within fixed limits, and abjure all further conquests. . . ."
When the Company was deprived of its trading monopoly and became entirely dependent on its revenue from India, it suddenly became heartbroken over the suffering of the Indian people. On May 30, 1829, Lord William Bentinck, GovernorGeneral of India, wrote in a minute that "The sympathy of the Court (of Directors of the Company) is deeply excited by the report of the Board of Trade, exhibiting the gloomy picture of the effects of a commercial revolution productive of so much present suffering to numerous classes in India, and hardly to be paralleled in the history of commerce." But this type of appeal failed to soften the hearts of the manufacturing interests of England, who had begun to exploit India for the benefit of British industries. "I certainly pity the East Indian laborers," declared Mr. Cope, a Macclesfield manufacturer, "but at the same time I have a greater feeling for my own family than for the East Indian laborer's family; I think it is wrong to sacrifice the comforts of my family for the sake of the East Indian laborer because his condition happens to be worse than mine." There, in a nutshell, is British policy in India even at its best; for pity there was and is, but when it clashed with economic interests, pity had to be stifled and killed.
The East India Company ruled India up to 1858, though from 1773 onwards it was increasingly under the supervision of the Government of England. What did this Government accomplish?
In the sphere of administration, it periodically added to its staff of revenue collectors, and attempted ever newer methods of extracting greater revenue. Land was reassessed from time to time, the tax increasing with every new assessment. A rudimentary police force was organized, ill-paid, and, consequently, corrupt and inefficient.
Early in the eighteenth century, even the friendliest of Englishmen could not conceive of effective participation by Indians in the administration of their own country. In his Minutes of 1824, Mountstuart Elphinstone, a Company official who later also wrote a History of India, stated: "If care were taken to qualify the natives for the public service, and afterwards to encourage their employment, the picture would be soon reversed. At no very distant day we might see natives engaged in superintending a portion of a District as the European Assistants are doing now." Cautiously he continued: "In a more advanced stage, they might sometimes be Registrars and SubCollectors, or even Collectors and Judges." And the rosiest picture he could envisage in the dim future was that "It may not be too visionary to suppose a period at which they might bear to the English nearly the relation which the Chinese do to the Tartars, the Europeans retaining the government and the military power, while the natives filled a large portion of the civil stations, and many of the subordinate employments in the Army."
The Act of 1833 provided that "no native of the said territories . . . shall by reason only of his religion, place of birth, descent, color, or any of them, be disabled from holding any place, office, or employment in the said Company." Yet in 1857 there were, in the Company's employ, only some 256 Indians drawing a salary of 1360 a year or over, and 2,590 in various subordinate grades. And almost half a century later the Governor-General, Lord Lytton, wrote in his Confidential Minute of 1878: "No sooner was the Act passed than the Government began to devise means for practically evading the fulfillment of it. Under the terms of the Act . . . every such native, if once admitted to Government employment . . . is entitled to expect and claim appointment in the fair course of promotion to the highest posts in that service. We all know that these claims and expectations never can or will be fulfilled. We have had to choose between prohibiting them and cheating them, and we have chosen the least straightforward course . . . Since I am writing confidentially, I do not hesitate to say that both the Government of England and of India appear to me . . . unable to answer satisfactorily the charge of having taken every means in their power of breaking to the heart the words of promise they have uttered to the ear."
During the eighteenth century the water supply systems vitally necessary for Indian agriculture had fallen into disrepair. Until after 1852, however, the government of India paid little attention to them; out of a revenue of £19,300,000 in the year 1850-51, only £166,390, or 0.8%, was returned as spent on public works of any kind.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, the industrialists in England felt the need for better transportation and communications systems in India to circulate British goods and to transport raw material to the nearest port. By 1857 telegraphic communication had been introduced and the postal department put on a systematic basis. The first railroad track was laid in 1853. To help raise the capital, the English manufacturers had prevailed upon the government to guarantee a minimum interest of 5 per cent; as a result, there was a stampede of investors. Since the government backed the investment, nobody bothered about the expenditure. There was unbelievable graft and inefficiency. At the 1872 Parliamentary inquiry, William N. Massey, Finance Minister of India, testified that the railways at the beginning cost about £30,000 a mile. "The contractors had no motive for economy," declared the same authority. "All the money came from the English capitalist, and so long as he was guaranteed five per cent on the revenues of India, it was immaterial to him whether the funds that he lent were thrown into the Hooghly or converted into bricks and mortar . . . It seems to me that they are the most extravagant works that were ever undertaken." By the end of the nineteenth century, as was to be expected, the railroads piled up a deficit of £40 million, which the Indian taxpayer had to shoulder.
The administration of India required a large personnel, and some Indians had to be employed. As early as 1792 there was discussion over making English education available to a limited number of Indians to qualify them for minor government posts. But the proposal to send a few school teachers to India was howled down by the majority of the Directors of the Company. Before the Parliamentary Committee of 1853 J. C. Marshman testified that "On that occasion one of the Directors stated that we had just lost America from our folly in having allowed the establishment of schools and colleges, and that it would not do for us to repeat the same act of folly in regard to India."
The spread of education was a function of the government in pre-British India, as has been pointed out before. Educational institutions necessarily suffered during the disturbed conditions of the eighteenth century. When order was restored under British rule, the economic structure was completely changed: the village panchayats had disappeared, the peasants had lost their previous rights, and community support of schools became impossible. By the early part of the nineteenth century, educational facilities for the Indian children had practically disappeared.
After a good deal of debate, the British Parliament ordered the appropriation of £10,000 for the establishment of educational institutions in India. It was not until 1823 that the first hesitant steps were taken to open a couple of colleges in India, and to print translations of European scientific treatises in two Indian languages. But no definite steps were taken until the appointment of Thomas Babington Macaulay as Educational Adviser to the Indian government in 1835. The educational system since prevailing in India was his handiwork.
Macaulay was also Law Member of the Governor-General's Council, receiving a salary of £10,000. (This was in 1834. An American Cabinet member today receives a salary of $15,000, or less than £4,000.) Using his extraordinary command of the English language, he extolled the virtues of the East India Company. His famous speech in the House of Commons on July 10, 1833, and his equally celebrated Minute on Education of 1834, have found their way into school textbooks and are cited not only as literary masterpieces, but also as evidence of the benefits of British rule in India. Despite the high moral and humanitarian tone of his defense of the Company, his personal approach to India was an economic one: "I must live," he wrote to his sister on August 17, 1833. "I can live only by my pen, and it is absolutely impossible for any man to write enough to procure him a decent subsistence, and at the same time take an active part in politics. I have never made more than two hundred a year by my pen. I could not support myself in comfort on less than five hundred, and I shall in all probability have many others to support." He was happy to add, however, that his job in India would solve his problem: "The salary is ten thousand pounds a year. I am assured by persons who know Calcutta intimately . . . that I may live in splendour there for five thousands a year, and may save the rest of the salary with accruing interest. I may therefore hope to return to England, at only thirty-nine, in the full vigour of life, with a fortune of thirty thousand pounds."
As educational adviser to the Indian government, Macaulay frankly admitted: "I have no knowledge of either Sanskrit or Arabic.""I am quite ready," he continued with sublime impudence, "to take the Oriental learning at the valuation of the Orientalists themselves. I have never found one among them who could deny that a single shelf of a good European library was worth the whole native literature of India and Arabia." Hence it was decided that the English language would be the medium for education in India. But this applied only to higher education; elementary education was still left unaided. By 1857, approximately three per cent of the children of schoolgoing age was receiving any kind of education.
There has been a good deal of controversy over the adoption of English as the medium of higher education in India. It is true that Indian literature in the nineteenth century did not possess any treatises on the advanced sciences of the West. Surely it is at least conceivable that such works could have been translated into the Indian languages, and English could have been taught as a secondary language. The argument against education in the native language was as irrelevant in 1835 as it is today, and was merely a ruse to hide the government's real wish not to impart modern scientific knowledge to the Indians. Education was planned with the purpose of training a body of clerks and other minor employees. It was at that time, and has remained, chiefly a literary education. "We must do our best," Macaulay wrote, "to form a class who may be interpreters between us and the millions we govern; a class of persons, Indian in blood and colour, but English in taste, in opinions, in morals, and in intellect." Macaulay's arrogant contempt for India and all things Indian was summed up in his statement: "We know that India cannot have a free government. But she may have the next best thing--a firm and impartial despotism."
A few higher institutions of learning, teaching in the Indian languages, had already been established, some by Indians and others by sympathetic English businessmen and missionaries. They were granted some financial aid by the government, and the Medical College was opened to Indian students in 1837. In spite of Macaulay's desire to develop a class of imitation Englishmen, officials in India remained suspicious of the effect of English education on the Indians. Lord Ellenborough, who went to India as Governor-General in 1842, had a heart-to-heart talk with Dwarkanatli Tagore, of the famous Tagore family. "You know," he told Tagore, "that if these gentlemen who wish to educate the Natives of India were to succeed to the utmost extent of their desire, we should not remain in this country for three months.""Not three weeks," Tagore amended.
But pressure from important Indians, supported by liberal Englishmen, gradually brought about a modification of this attitude. The Educational Despatch of July 19, 1854, finally established the basic pattern of education in India which is followed to this day. A few years later three universities were established in British India, to which independently managed colleges were affiliated. The universities were granted powers to confer degrees on graduates. Control of education remained in the hands of the government through the Council of Education, and the Governor-General automatically became Chancellor of the universities. But the spread of education was extremely slow, due to the fact that tuition fees in schools and colleges remained beyond the reach of the majority of the people.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->