A Historical Retrospect

PART ONE

“We are accustomed to think of the British Empire as consisting mainly of men of Anglo-Saxon blood, and as being on the whole, well-governed, highly civilised and wealthy. As a matter of fact, the Empire consists of Asiatics, it is more cursed by poverty than any other great state, and the great majority of its adult population are unable to read or write. The first and the greatest of all the problems of Empire is the problem of India. Among the prominent facts with regard to India which are confessed in statistical abstracts, is that the average death-rate for the ten years ending in 1908, was between 34 and 35 per thousand ; which represents an excess of unnecessary deaths, judging by the standards of a country like Japan, of some four millions per annum.

“Poverty and ignorance are the obvious causes of this appalling death-rate. The fundamental duty of the Government is to protect the people against devastating plagues and famines ; and the obvious means of doing so is to train the most gifted of the Native population to lead the people in the fight against the evil that besets them. How little the British Government in India realises this duty may be judged by the statistics of graduates turned out in the year 1909-10, in the different professions. In Medicine there were but thirty, — in Engineering only seventeen, — in Agriculture not a single one ; but in Arts there were 2116 and in Law, 576.” “The Making of Modern England,” by Gilbert Slater, 1915, page 276.¹

CHAPTER I

A HISTORICAL RETROSPECT

India Once Was Rich.

It is almost universally acknowledged that India is a poor country, in the sense that the economic condition of the Indian people is not good,—their average income being (according to official calculation made in 1904, during the viceroyalty of Lord Curzon) only £2, or $10.00 a year. But such was not always their condition. There was a time when India was rich—immensely rich, rich in everything which makes a country great, glorious and noble. Her sons and daughters were distinguished in every walk of life. She produced scholars, thinkers, divines, poets, and scientists, whose achievements in their respective spheres were unique in their own times. Some of them remain unique even to-day. Among her children were sculptors, architects, and painters whose work compels admiration and exacts the praise of the most exacting art-critics of the modern world. Her law-makers, jurists, and sociologists have left behind them codes and ideas of justice inferior to none produced under similar conditions. Under their own codes, the people of India were prosperous and happy.

Thornton’s “Description of Ancient India.”

“Ere yet the Pyramids looked down upon the valley of the Nile,—when Greece and Italy, those cradles of European civilisation, nursed only the tenants of a wilderness,—India was the seat of wealth and grandeur. A busy population had covered the land with the marks of its industry; rich crops of the most coveted productions of Nature annually rewarded the toil of husbandmen; skilful artisans converted the rude produce of the soil into fabrics of unrivalled delicacy and beauty; and architects and sculptors joined in constructing works, the solidity of which has not, in some instances, been overcome by the evolution of thousands of years. . . . The ancient state of India must have been one of extraordinary magnificence.”

Such is the picture of ancient India drawn by a British historian, by no means partial to India, in the opening paragraphs of his “History of British India.”

Sufficiency with Security and Independence—the Golden Age.

This estimate of the magnificence of ancient India is not merely rhetorical. That the India of ancient times was wealthy and prosperous is amply borne out by incontestable testimony. Whether the “Golden Age” of India is a historical fact or a myth depends upon our individual conception of a golden age,—but we do know that the part of India included in the Empire of Darius (Afghanistan and the Northwestern Punjab) was the “richest” province of all his dominions.¹ We know also, that certain cities in Northern India, described in the Hindu Epics, and confirmed by accounts of the Greeks, were of great size and architectural magnificence. Lastly, as far back as the middle of the seventh century B. C., the villagers of India had “sufficiency for their simple needs.” “There was security; there was independence,—there were no landlords and no paupers.”² The mass of the people “held it degradation to which only dire misfortune would drive them, to work for hire.”³ Add to these facts, that “there was little, if any crime,” and a picture of the Golden Age is completed.

So far as the conditions of international trade are concerned, we find that, except under British rule, India has always had more to sell and less to purchase, in manufactured goods,—that the balance of trade was always in her favour; that the Romans have left on record bitter complaints of the constant drain of gold and silver from their country into India,—a complaint repeated by Englishmen as late as the eighteenth century; and that, for more than a century and a half (1603-1757) the profits of the East India Company were made by the importation of Indian manufactures into England. During that time, England was the purchaser and India the vendor of manufactured goods, largely for cash.

General Condition of the People Under Hindu and Mohammedan Rule.

As to the general condition of the people under Hindu and Mohammedan governments during the twenty-two centuries for which we have authentic historical data, beginning with the invasion of Alexander the Great, and ending with the British occupation of Indian provinces at different times from 1757 to 1858, ample testimony shows that the mass of the population had sufficient to satisfy their simple wants, except in periods of famine; that the country had prosperous bankers, who loaned money to prince and peasant, negotiated commercial paper, and held all kinds of securities; and that an extensive home and foreign trade was carried on continuously.

It has become the fashion for English publicists and historians to stress what they deem the superiority of British to native rule in India. Doubtless the former has its peculiar merits, but to assert that the country has never before known such “economic prosperity,” or experienced the administration of such even-handed justice as under British rule, is to disclose unjustifiable mental bias or ignorance. A number of just and fair-minded Englishmen have deplored such utterances, and a service may be rendered to both England and India by transcribing a few opinions on that point:

India Reform Pamphlet.

In a pamphlet on “India Reform” (No. IX), published in 1853 by the India Reform Society of London, which had thirty-seven members of Parliament on its committee, the subject was examined in the light of historical evidence.—

“We found the people of India, it is said, abject, degraded, false to the very core. . . . The most indolent and selfish of our own governors have been models of benevolence and beneficence when compared with the greatest of the native sovereigns. The luxurious selfishness of the Moghul Emperors depressed and enfeebled the people. Their predecessors were either unscrupulous tyrants or indolent debauchees. . . . Having the command of the public press in this country and the sympathy of the public mind with us, it is an easy task thus to exalt ourselves at the expense of our predecessors. We tell our own story and our testimony is unimpeachable; but if we find anything favourable related of those who have preceded us, the accounts we pronounce to be suspicious. We contrast the Moghul conquest of the fourteenth century with the ‘victorious, mild and merciful progress of the British arms in the East in the nineteenth.’ But if our object was a fair one, we should contrast the Mussalman invasion of Hindusthan with the contemporaneous Norman invasion of England — the characters of the Mussalman sovereigns with their contemporaries in the West — their Indian wars of the fourteenth century with our French wars or with the Crusades — the effect of the Mohammedan conquest upon the character of the Hindu with the effect of the Norman conquest upon the Anglo-Saxon when ’to be called an Englishman was considered as a reproach — when those who were appointed to administer justice were the fountain of all iniquity — when magistrates whose duty it was to pronounce righteous judgments were the most cruel tyrants and greater plunderers than common thieves and robbers’; when the great men were inflamed with such a rage of money that they cared not by what means it was acquired — when the licentiousness was so great that a princess of Scotland found ‘it necessary to wear a religious habit in order to preserve her person from violation!’ (Henry of Huntington, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, and Eadmon.)

“The history of Mohammedan dynasty in India is full, it is said, of lamentable instances of cruelty and rapacity of the early conquerors, not without precedent in the contemporary Christian history; for when Jerusalem was taken by the first Crusaders, at the end of the eleventh century, the garrison, consisting of 40,000 men, ‘was put to the sword without distinction; arms protected not the brave, nor submission the timid; no age or sex received mercy; infants perished by the same sword that pierced their mothers. The streets of Jerusalem were covered with heaps of slain, and the shrieks of agony and despair resounded from every house.’ When Louis the Seventh of France, in the twelfth century, ‘made himself master of the town of Vitri, he ordered it to be set on fire.’ In England, at the same time, under our Stephen, war ‘was carried on with so much fury, that the land was left uncultivated, and the instruments of husbandry were left or abandoned,’—and the result of our French wars in the fourteenth century, was a state of things ‘more horrible and destructive than was ever experienced in any age or country.’ The insatiable cruelty of the Mohammedan conquerors, it is said, stands recorded upon more undeniable authority than the insatiable benevolence of the Mohammedan conquerors. We have abundant testimony of cruelty of contemporary Christian conquerors,—have we any evidence of their benevolence? "

“As attempts are thus systematically made, in bulky volumes, to run down the character of Native governments and sovereigns, in order that we may have a fair pretext for seizing upon their possessions, it becomes necessary to show that we have a Christian Roland for every native Oliver; that if the Mohammedan conquerors of India were cruel and rapacious, they were matched by their Christian contemporaries. It is much our fashion to compare India in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries with England in the nineteenth, and to pique ourselves upon the result. ‘When we compare other countries with England,’ said a sagacious observer,⁴ ‘we usually speak of England as she now is,—we scarcely ever think of going back beyond the Reformation, and we are apt to regard every foreign country as ignorant and uncivilised, whose state of improvement does not in some degree approximate to our own, even though it should be higher than our own was at no distant period.’ It would be almost as fair to compare India in the sixteenth with England in the nineteenth century, as it would be to compare the two countries in the first centuries of the Christian era, when India was at the top of civilisation, and England at the bottom.”

The Observations of Mr. Torrens, M. P., comparing India with Europe.

The matter has been discussed lucidly, forcibly and fairly by Mr. Torrens, M.P., who points out that

“There never was an error more groundless than that which represented the ancient systems of Indian rule as decrepit or degrading despotisms, untempered by public opinion. It accords too well with the arrogance of national self-love and seems too easily to lull the conscience of aggression to pretend that those whom it has wronged were superstitious slaves, and that they must have so remained but for the disinterested violence of foreign civilisation introduced by it, sword in hand. This pretentious theory is confuted by the admissions of men whose knowledge cannot be disputed and whose authority cannot be denied.” ⁵

As to the so-called usurpations, infamies and fanaticism of Indian monarchs, he asks the reader to compare them with the deeds and practices of the Borgias, Louis XI., Philip II., Richard III., Mary Tudor and the last of the Stuarts, and to “look back at the family picture of misrule” in Europe, from Catherine de Medici to Louis le Grand,—from Philip the Cruel to Ferdinand the Fool,—from John the Faithless to Charles the False,—not forgetting the parricide Peter of Muscovy and the Neapolitan Bourbons! “It is no more true,” he concludes, “of Southern Asia than of Western Europe to say that the everyday habits of supreme or subordinate rule were semi-barbarous, venal, sanguinary or rapacious.”

It is generally assumed that Indian civilisation and prosperity attained its flood-mark during the period which intervenes between the invasion of Alexander (327 B.C.) and that of Mahmud of Ghazni (1000 A.D.). When Mahmud invaded India, the country was overflowing with wealth. To quote the language of Reform Pamphlet No. 9: “Writers, both Hindu and Mussulman, unite in bearing testimony to the state of prosperity in which India was found at the time of the first Mohammedan conquest. They dwell with admiration on the extent and magnificence of the capital of the Kingdom of Canauj, and of the inexhaustible riches of the Temple of Somnath.” The wealth that Mahmud carried away from India was insignificant compared to what remained there. His raids were confined chiefly to the northwestern provinces; only for two brief periods did he penetrate into the Doab between Ganga and Jamna, and only once in Gujrat, Kattiawar. The whole of Central India, which had for so long remained the centre of great political activities under the Nandas, the Mauryas and the Guptas; the whole of Eastern India, covering the rich and fertile tracts which comprise the modern provinces of Bengal and Assam; the whole of the south had remained untouched.

India Under the Mohammedans.

The first Mohammedan dynasty began its rule at Delhi in 1206 A.D., and from that time on, the Mohammedan rulers of India spent whatever they acquired from India within the country itself. From 1206 A. D. to the middle of the eighteenth century, when the British began to acquire rights of sovereignty in India, only twice was the country raided with any degree of success.

Raid of Tamerlane.

The first of these two raiders was Tamerlane, who sacked Delhi in 1398 A. D., and is said to have carried off “very great” booty. Tamerlane’s expedition also covered only a small part of the country invaded by him — he never went beyond Delhi.

In 1526 A. D. came the Mogul invasion by Baber. Baber, however, came to stay and die in India.

From 1206 to 1526 A. D.

During the centuries from 1206 to 1526 A. D. the country was, no doubt, in a state of constant unrest on account of the frequent wars between the indigenous Hindu population and the “foreign Mohammedan rulers.” Sometimes even the latter fought among themselves out of rivalry, as was not infrequently the case in the England of the same centuries. There was, however, no drain of wealth out of India, and the frequent wars did not materially interfere with the processes of production and the amassing of wealth. From the account of travellers who visited the country during these centuries, as well as from the histories of the period, we have enough material to judge of the general economic prosperity of the people. Elphinstone says:

“The condition of the people in ordinary times does not appear to have borne the marks of oppression. The historian of Feroz Shah (A. D. 1351-1394) expatiates on the happy state of the ryots, the goodness of their houses and furniture, and the general use of gold and silver ornaments by their women.” Elphinstone adds that “although this writer is a panegyrist whose writings are not much to be trusted, still the mere mention of such details as that every ryot has a good bedstead and a neat garden shows a more minute attention to the comforts of the people than would be met with in a modern author.”

Elphinstone on the General State of the Country.

The general state of the country must no doubt have been flourishing. Nicolo de Conti, who travelled about 1420 A. D. speaks highly of what he saw in Guzerat, and found the banks of the Ganges covered with towns amidst beautiful gardens and orchards, and passed four famous cities before he reached Maarazia, which he describes as a powerful city filled with gold, silver and precious stones. His accounts are corroborated by those of Barbora and Bartema, who travelled in the early part of the sixteenth century.⁶

Cæsar Frederic and Ibn Batuta.

Cæsar Frederic gives a similar account of Guzerat, and Ibn Batuta, who travelled during the anarchy and oppression of Mohammed Tuglak’s reign, in the middle of the fifteenth century, when insurrections were ragging in most parts of the country, enumerates the large and populous towns and cities, and gives a high impression of the state the country must have been in before it fell into disorder.⁷

Abdurizag.

“Abdurizag, an ambassador from the grandson of Tamerlane, visited the South of India in 1442, and concurs with other observers in giving the impression of a prosperous country. The Kingdom of Kandeish was at this time in a high state of prosperity under its own kings; the numerous stone embankments by which the streams were rendered applicable to irrigation are equal to anything in India as works of industry and ability.” ⁸

Baber.

" Baber, the first sovereign of the Moghul dynasty, although he regards Hindusthan with the same dislike that Europeans still feel, speaks of it as a rich and noble country, and expresses his astonishment at the swarming population and the innumerable workmen of every kind and description. Besides the ordinary business of his kingdom, he was constantly occupied with making aqueducts, reservoirs and other improvements, as well as introducing new fruits, and other productions of remote countries.” ⁹

Sher Shah.

Baber’s son, " Humayun, whose character was free from vices and violent passions, was defeated, and obliged to flee from Hindusthan, by Sher Shah, who is described as a prince of consummate prudence and ability, ’ whose measures were as wise as benevolent,’ and who, notwithstanding his constant activity in the field, during a short reign had brought his territories in the highest order, and introduced many improvements into his civil government.

" He made a high road extending for four months’ journey from Bengal to the Western Rhotas near the Indus, with caravanserais at every stage, and wells at every mile and a half. There was an Imam and Muezzin at every mosque, and provisions for the poor at every caravanserai, with attendants of proper caste for Hindus as well as for Mussulmen. The road was planted with rows of trees for shade, and in many places was in the state described when the author saw it, after it had stood for eighty-two years.” ¹⁰

Akbar.

“It is almost superfluous to dwell upon the character of the celebrated Akbar, who was equally great in the cabinet and in the field, and renowned for his learning, toleration, liberality, clemency, courage, temperance, industry and largeness of mind. But it is to his internal policy that Akbar owes his place in that highest order of princes whose reigns have been a blessing to mankind. He forbade trials by ordeal, and marriages before the age of puberty, and the slaughter of animals for sacrifice. He employed his Hindu subjects equally with Mohammedans, abolished the capitation tax on infidels as well as all the taxes on pilgrims, and positively prohibited the making slaves of persons taken in war. He perfected the financial reforms which had been commenced in those provinces by Sher Shah. He remeasured all the lands capable of cultivation within the Empire; ascertained the produce of each bigah; determined the proportion to be paid to the public; and commuted it for a fixed money rent, giving the cultivator the option of paying in kind if he thought the money rate too high. He abolished, at the same time, a vast number of vexatious taxes and fees to officers. The result of these wise measures was to reduce the amount of public demand considerably.” ¹¹

Pietro del Valle.

The Italian traveller, Pietro del Valle, wrote in 1623, “generally all live much after a genteel way and they do it securely; as well because the king does not persecute his subjects with false accusations, nor deprive them of anything when he sees them live splendidly and with the appearance of riches!” ¹²

Shah Jehan.

“But the reign of Shah Jehan, the grandson of Akbar, was the most glorious ever known in India. His own dominions enjoyed almost uninterrupted tranquillity and good government; and although Sir Thomas Roe was struck with astonishment at the profusion of wealth which was displayed when he visited the Emperor in his camp in 1615, in which at least two acres were covered with silk, gold carpets and hangings, as rich as velvet, embossed with gold and precious stones could make them, yet we have the testimony of Tavernier that he who caused this celebrated peacock throne to be constructed, who, at the festival of his accession, scattered amongst the bystanders money and precious things equal to his own weight, ‘reigned not so much as a king over his subjects, but rather as a father over his family.’

“After defraying the expenses of his great expedition to Candahar and wars in Balk, Shah Jehan left a treasure of about £24,000,000, in coins and vast accumulations of wrought gold, silver and jewels.” ¹³

Aurangzeb and His Successors.

Notwithstanding the misgovernment of Aurangzeb and the reign of a series of weak and wicked princes, together with the invasion of Nadir Shah, who carried away enormous wealth when he quitted Delhi in 1739, the country was still in a comparatively prosperous condition.¹⁴

The Raid by Nadir Shah.

The raid by Nadir Shah was the second one which took place between 1206 A.D. and 1757 A.D. He carried off “enormous wealth,” but how enormous could it have been when one considers that even he did not go beyond Delhi, leaving the rest of the north, the greater part of the west, and the entire east and south of India unaffected and untouched? Throughout the Mohammedan dominance, large parts of India remained under Hindu rule, and the historians are agreed that in the territories of the Hindu princes general prosperity prevailed. Some of them are said to have attained to a pitch of power and splendour which had not been surpassed by their ancestors.

Pre-British Period.

We are, however, more directly concerned with the economic condition of India in the period immediately preceding the establishment of British power. We have some vivid glimpses preserved for us in the accounts of the contemporary European travellers and Anglo-Indian administrators,—writers of the type of Malcolm, Elphinstone, Monroe, Orme, and Todd.

Principal Political Divisions of the Country.

The country was then divided into several political divisions. The rulers were practically independent masters of their respective territories, though some acknowledged a nominal suzerainty of the Grand Mogul. In the north, Bengal, Behar, and Orissa were ruled by the Nawab of Bengal, with his seat in Murshidabad. Oude was administered by the Nawab Vizir who had several feudatories, including the Rajah of Benares. The Mahrattas were practically supreme in Delhi where the Grand Mogul still maintained the shadow of his glory,—also in Rajputana, Central India and the Western Ghauts. The South was divided between the Nawab of Hyderabad, with the Nawab of Arcot and the Rajah of Tanjore under him, and the principality of Mysore, with a Hindu prince as sovereign and a Mohammedan minister as ruler. The Northwest, comprising the land of the Five Rivers and the territory between the Sutlej and the Jamna, were still nominally under the Mogul. By the time, however, that the British established themselves at Delhi, it had completely passed into the hands of the Sikhs, and it was from them that the British finally took it. Scindh was under the Amirs.

We will now briefly narrate the means whereby Britain acquired these territories, with a statement of their economic condition before and after British occupation.

Tanjore and Arcot.

Let us begin with the South. The small Hindu principality of Tanjore, off the coast of Coromandel, was the first victim of British aggression. For several centuries this state had enjoyed the rights of sovereignty; and in 1741, Pratap Singh succeeded to the throne as a result of a domestic revolution with which the English had nothing to do. The latter acknowledged him unhesitatingly as ruler, and established a kind of friendship with him against their rivals, the French. The brother of Pratap Singh, one Sahujee, subsequently approached the British with an offer of the fort and jagir of Devikotah as the price of their help to put him on the throne. The British “despatched an army to dethrone” Pratap Singh.¹⁵ The expedition failed, and a second was resolved on. Devikotah was taken, and they “entered into negotiations with Pratap Singh — agreed to desist from further hostilities — to abandon him for whom they pretended to have fought, but engaged to secure his person and to receive a fixed sum for his maintenance, on condition of being suffered to remain undisputed masters of Devikotah and the circumjacent territory.” This was the beginning of the conquest of Hindustan.

The principality of Tanjore was included in the dominions of the Nawab of Carnatic, who in his turn, was considered to be under the Subah of Deccan. The desire for the possession of Devikotah on the part of the British had its origin in their rivalry with the French. When, in 1754, the English and the French made peace, and signed a treaty, mutually renouncing any further designs of territorial aggression in India, and agreeing to interfere no more in the affairs of the local governments, it might have been expected that the troubles of the people of Carnatic were over.

Muhammad Ali, the friend of the English, had been acknowledged the Nawab of Carnatic. The ink on this compact was scarcely dry when the British entered into negotiations to reduce certain other Hindu principalities included in the Nawab’s dominions which the latter asserted owed large sums of tribute-money to him. The French authorities at Pondicherry protested without result. Eventually they were drawn into hostilities and worsted. The first treaty with the Nawab of Carnatic was made in 1763, in which he acknowledged his liability to the East India Company for all the expenses they had incurred in the war with the French, and undertook to pay them off by annual instalments of 28 lacs of rupees, i.e., £280,000. In the course of time, the Nawab was asked to bestow a grant of lands, the rents and revenues of which should be credited to the debt. This had, of course, to be conceded. The Jagirdar, however, was soon to become the master.

Before the century was over, the Nawab of Carnatic, the first patron of the British, when they landed friendless and “shelterless” on the coast of Coromandel,” later their ally in the war with the French, became reduced to the position of the mere creature of the honourable company, and wholly at the mercy of its servants. By the time Lord Wellesley came to make a fresh treaty with the Nawab, “The Carnatic had been inmeshed in the net of our friendship and the noose of our protection.” ¹⁶ By the treaty made by Lord Wellesley, it was declared that four-fifths of the revenue of the principality, the management of which had already passed into the hands of the company, was forever vested in the company, and the remaining one-fifth appropriated for the support of the Nawab. These emoluments, along with the dignity and prestige of the nawabship, were enjoyed by the last scion of the family till 1853, when “Lord Dalhousie thought the time had arrived to let the curtain fall upon the farce of gratitude to Arcot. The cabinet of Lord Aberdeen, the Court of Directors assenting, he forbade Azimshah, the successor of the last nawab, to assume the title, and refused to pay him the stipulated fifth of the revenues, which he claimed as undisputed heir, “upon the ground that when treaties are made ‘forever,’ the suzerain is not bound longer than the sense of expediency lasts.” ¹⁷ In commenting upon what took place in 1792, at the time of the death of the Nawab who first entered into relations with the British, James Mill in his “History of British India” says:

“A fact is here forcibly urged upon our attention, of which it is important to find the true explanation. Under their dependence upon the British Government, it has been seen that the people of Oude and Karnatic, two of the noblest provinces of India, were, by misgovernment, plunged into a state of wretchedness with which no other part of India,—hardly any part of earth, had anything to compare. In what manner did the dependence of the native states upon the English, tend to produce these horrid effects?” ¹⁸

This question may best be answered in the words of the Duke of Wellington, who as an historian of the administration of his brother, the Marquis of Wellesley, says, speaking of the treaty made with the Nawab in 1792:

“One of the great evils in this alliance, or in all those of this description formed in India, was that it provided that the Company should not interfere in the internal concerns of the Nawab’s government. At the same time the interference of the Company in every possible case was absolutely necessary for the support of the Native Government, and was practised on every occasion.” Another evil which affected this, as well as every alliance of the same description, was . . . that the Nawab was obliged to borrow money at large interest in order to make his payment at the stipulated periods and . . . the laws were made by the Company’s civil and military and the European inhabitants of Fort St. George and its dependencies. In this view of the evil, it was of enormous magnitude.” ¹⁹

From the time the operation of the treaty of 1792 was observed, every governor had endeavoured to prevail upon the Nawab to consent to an alteration of it whereby the Company’s resources should be secured and the evils above described be prevented. The endeavours, however, failed to prevail upon the Nawab to hear to any modification of the treaty; when the war with Tipu broke out, the country was labouring under all the disadvantages of the system, its resources were depleted, and its inhabitants, from long oppression, disaffected. In these conditions the Marquis of Wellesley decided upon annexation. He found a pretence ready to hand in the correspondence which the Nawab and his son had been carrying on with the neighbouring Prince Tipu. The Marquis decided that “in consequence of this breach of treaty, the company had a right to act in the manner best suited to their own interest.” That arrangement has been recorded above. The method whereby the signature of the Nawab was obtained is however most significant.

“When the orders from the Marquis of Wellesley reached Madras, the Nawab, Omdat ‘ul Omra, was in such a state of health as to be incapable of attending to business, and soon afterwards he died. His supposed son was then apprised of the discoveries (i.e., the correspondence) and the sentiments of the British Government in consequence, together with the measures about to be adopted in Carnatic. He refused to accept the situation offered him under the new arrangement.”²⁰ It was resolved to set aside the young Nawab and set up another man, the brother to the deceased, on the throne, on condition he agreed to the proposed terms. This was accordingly done.

Mysore.

Hyder Ali of Mysore was a person of humble origin. By dint of his courage, ability, enterprise and resourcefulness, he rose to a position which enabled him to usurp the powers of state, setting aside the rightful Hindu prince, and reducing him to the position of pensioner. The British Government entered into treaty relations with him, recognising him as the ruler. His first quarrel with the British was due to their seizure of Baramahal, a port of the Kingdom of Mysore. Hyder retaliated, and “under the walls of Madras, dictated a new treaty with the company, which was to furnish him with seven battalions of sepoys in case any foreign enemy attacked his dominions.” When, in 1778, the British, at war with the French, took possession of Pondicherry, they attacked Mahe, a small town in one of the provinces of Mysore. Hyder protested, and upon being disregarded, invaded the English possessions in Carnatic and exacted retribution. The great historian of Anglo-India, Mill, remarks: “Hyder was less detested as a destroyer than hailed as a deliverer . . . and the English commander himself testifies in an official letter that “There is no doubt that Hyder has greatly attached the inhabitants to him.” Torrens remarks that later, when Pettah and Arcot were taken by Hyder, he treated the inhabitants “with humanity; no plundering or license was allowed; every one was continued in the enjoyment of his fortune, and all who held places under the Nawab retained them; to the English officers, Hyder gave money to provide for their necessities”—conduct which places his “barbarity” in favourable contrast with the “civilisation” of the English, when later they sacked his capital.

In the winter of 1782, before the war with the English had terminated, Hyder died, and his adversaries made a new treaty of peace with his son Tipu. The fidelity of Hyder’s Brahmin minister has been handed down in history — he it was who concealed the death of his prince until Tipu reached the camp and claimed his inheritance.

Colonel Fullarton’s “View of the Interests of India” contains an estimate of the character of Hyder and conditions during his reign. The writer of the Reform Pamphlet remarks:

“Although most constantly engaged in war, the improvement of his country and the strictest executive administration formed his constant care. Manufacturer and merchant prospered . . . cultivation increased, new manufactures were established, wealth flowed into the kingdom . . . the slightest defalcation by the officers of revenue was summarily punished. He had his eye upon every corner of his own dominions and every court in India. . . . Though unable to write himself, he dictated in few words the substance of his correspondence to secretaries . . . he united minuteness of detail with the utmost latitude of thought and enterprise. . . . He bequeathed to his son, Tipu Sultan, an overflowing treasury, a powerful empire, an army of 300,000 men . . . and great territories.”

The following is the substance of Moore’s estimate of Tipu’s administration.

“When a person, travelling through a strange country, finds it well cultivated, populous with industrious habitants, cities newly founded, commerce extending, towns increasing, and everything flourishing so as to indicate happiness, he naturally concludes the form of government congenial to the people. This is a picture of Tipu’s government . . . we have reason to suppose his subjects to be happy as those of any other sovereign . . . no murmurings or complaints were heard against him, though the enemies of Tipu were in power, and would have been gratified by any aspersions of his character . . . but the inhabitants of the conquered countries . . . so soon as an opportunity offered, scouted their new master, and gladly returned to their loyalty again.” ²¹

Dirom, another writer pays an equally high tribute to the prosperity of Tipu’s country. ²²

All this prosperity was not created entirely by Hyder or his son, whose sway did not last half a century. For the foundation of these flourishing conditions we must look to the ancient Hindu dynasty — they were the constructors of those magnificent canals which intersect Mysore and insure the people prodigal returns from the fertile soil.

In 1789 occurred the third war with Mysore, resulting in a peace in 1792 whereby Tipu was forced to pay a heavy indemnity and cede half his territories. It was reserved for the Marquis of Wellesley to wipe out the House of Hyder completely, by annexing a large part of his remaining lands, and restoring the superseded Hindu dynasty to a fraction of its former domain under the title of the Raja of the state of Mysore.

Northern India.

From the south, we may now turn to the north to examine conditions preceding British occupation. To avoid all suspicion of political or racial bias, we will let the English writers of the Reform Pamphlet speak.

Bengal.

In the year that Hyder established his sway over Mysore, Bengal,— the brightest jewel in the Imperial Crown of the Moguls, came into British possession. Clive described the new acquisition as “a country of inexhaustible riches” and one that could not fail to make its new masters the richest corporation in the world. Bengal was known to the East as the Garden of Eden, the rich kingdom. Says Mr. Holwell: “Here the property, as well as the liberty, of the people, are inviolate. The traveller, with or without merchandise, becomes the immediate care of the Government, which allots him guards, without any expense, to conduct him from stage to stage. . . . If . . . a bag of money or valuables is lost in this district, the person who finds it hangs it on a tree and gives notice to the nearest guard. . . .” ²³

The rich province of Dacca was cultivated in every part . . . justice was administered impartially . . . Jeswunt Roy . . . had been educated in purity, integrity and indefatigable attention to business, and studied to render the government of his province conducive to the general ease and happiness of his people — he abolished all monopolies and the imposts upon grain.²⁴

Such was the state of Bengal when Alivardy Khan . . . assumed its government. Under his rule . . . the country was improved; merit and good conduct were the only passports to his favour. He placed Hindus on an equality with Mussalmen, in choosing Ministers, and nominating them to high military and civil command. The revenues, instead of being drawn to the distant treasury of Delhi were spent on the spot.²⁵

But in less than ten years after Bengal had become subject to British rule, a great and sudden change came over the land. Every ship, Mr. Macaulay tells us, for some time, had brought alarming tidings from Bengal. The internal misgovernment of the province had reached such a pitch that it could go no further.

“What indeed, was to be expected from a body of public servants exposed to temptation such as Clive once said, flesh and blood could not bear it, armed with irresistible power, and responsible only to the corrupt, turbulent, distracted, ill-informed Company, situated at such a distance that the average interval between the sending of a despatch and the receipt of an answer was above a year and a half. Accordingly the five years which followed the departure of Clive from Bengal saw the misgovernment of the English carried to such a point as seemed incompatible with the existence of society. The Roman proconsul, who, in a year or two, squeezed out of a province the means of rearing marble palaces and baths on the shores of Campania, of drinking from amber and feasting on singing birds, of exhibiting armies of gladiators and flocks of camelopards; the Spanish viceroy, who, leaving behind him the curses of Mexico or Lima, entered Madrid with a long train of gilded coaches, and sumpter horses trapped and shod with silver, were now outdone. . . . The servants of the Company obtained for themselves a monopoly of almost the whole internal trade. They forced the natives to buy dear and sell cheap. They insulted with impunity the tribunals, the police and fiscal authorities . . . every servant of a British factor was armed with all the power of the Company. . . . Enormous fortunes were thus rapidly accumulated at Calcutta, while thirty millions of human beings were reduced to an extremity of wretchedness. . . . Under their old masters, . . . when evil became insupportable, the people rose and pulled down the government. But the English Government was not to be shaken off. That Government, oppressive as the most oppressive form of barbarian despotism, was strong with all the strength of civilisation.” ²⁶

The Kingdom of Oude.

The same testimony regarding the East India Company’s destructive and rapacious misrule applies to Oude. While Mr. Warren Hastings was still vested with supreme rule over India, he describes a condition which he himself was instrumental in producing.

" I fear that our encroaching spirit, and the insolence with which it has been exerted, has caused our alliance to be as much dreaded by all the powers of Hindustan as our arms. Our encroaching spirit, and the uncontrolled and even protected licentiousness of individuals, has done injury to our national reputation. . . . Every person in India dreads a connection with us.” ²⁷

Before dealings with the English commenced, Oude was in a high state of prosperity, yielding, without pressure on the people, an income of three millions, clear. By quartering upon the Nawab an army of soldiers, as well as a host of civilians, he was soon reduced to a state of bitterest distress and his country to poverty, his income being reduced in a few years to half its former amount. “In nine years,” Mill says, “unjustifiable extortions, to the amount of thirty-four lacs of rupees (£340,000) per annum, had been practised on that dependent province.”²⁸ The extent of the salaries, pensions and encroachments of the company’s service, civil and military, upon the Nawab’s revenues and authority, says Warren Hastings

“have become an intolerable burden and exposed us to the enmity, and resentment of the whole country, by excluding the native servants and adherents of the Vizier from the rewards of their service and attachments. I am afraid few men would understand me were I to ask by what right or policy we levied a tax on the Nawab Vizier for the benefit of patronised individuals, and fewer still, if I questioned the right or policy of imposing upon him an army for his protection, which he could not pay, which he does not want; with what expression could I tell him to his face, ‘You do not want it, but you shall pay for it!’ . . . Every Englishman in Oude was possessed of an independent and sovereign authority. They learned . . . to claim the revenue of lacs²⁹ as their right, though they could gamble away more than two lacs (I allude to a known fact) at a sitting.³⁰

The demands of the English increased from £250,000 to £700,000 per annum, under Lord Cornwallis, with a further increase under Lord Teignmouth. In 1801, Lord Wellesley, under threat of seizing the whole, extorted from the Nawab one-half his dominions, valued at £1,300,000 per annum. From 1815 to 1825 more than four million pounds were extracted from the Nawab under the name of loans, for which he received the title of King, and a territory little better than a wilderness. Says the Reform Pamphlet, commenting upon the dealings in Oude:

" This is a brief history . . . not penned by those who have suffered, but by the doers themselves. It is based upon facts that are upon our records, and indisputable. If Oude then, is misgoverned,— if its people are impoverished and oppressed who is to blame — the native sovereigns, or those who have thus trampled upon the Native Sovereigns? "

At the time Lord Cornwallis, then Governor-General, was pronouncing Bengal to be in process of decay under British mismanagement, the Kingdom of Mysore, under the rule of Poorneah, was in a state of high prosperity, so much so, that the Duke of Wellington pronounced its government worthy of applause, and as a mark of his approbation, presented the Dewan Poorneah with his picture.

British publicists are fond of drawing the blackest possible picture of India under the administration of the Mahrattas. Sevaji, the great founder of the Mahratta Empire, has been termed a " robber " by them, but all classes of modern India hold him in memory as a hero worthy of universal respect. The following estimate of his character is based on Grant Duff’s History of the Mahrattas, vol. II. ³¹

" The ’ robber,’ Sevajee, who entered upon the scene in the latter part of the sixteenth century, and who shook the Mogul Empire to its foundation during the reign of Aurungzebe, was an able as well as skilful general. His civil government was regular, and he was vigorous in exacting from his provincial and village officers obedience to the rules he laid down for the protection of his people. His enemies bear witness to his anxiety to mitigate the evils of war by humane regulations, which were strictly enforced. Altogether, this robber hero has left a character which has never since been equalled or ever approached by any of his countrymen. None of his military successes raise so high an idea of his talents as his domestic administration, and the effect of this appears to have been permanent for eighty years after his death.”

Anquetil du Perron, in his “Brief Account of a Voyage to India,” published in the Gentleman’s Magazine of 1762, gives an interesting glimpse of the state of the Mahratta Territory:

“From Surat, I passed the Ghats, . . . about ten in the morning, and when I entered the country of the Mahrattas, I thought myself in the midst of the simplicity and happiness of the golden age, where nature was yet unchanged, and war and misery were unknown. The people were cheerful, vigorous and in high health and unbounded hospitality was an universal virtue; every door was open, and friends, neighbours and strangers were alike welcome to whatever they found.”

The successors of Sevaji were also rulers of sagacity and ability. Bajee Rao Bullal is said to have united the enterprise, vigour and hardihood of a Mahratta chief with the polished manners, wisdom and address which distinguished the Brahmins of Concan. He possessed eloquence, penetration and vigour, was simple in his habits, a successful military leader, who at all times partook of the privations of his soldiers. Ballajee Rao, who succeeded him, was characterised by the same political ability, devoting, amid the distractions of war, much time to the civil administration of his territory; in his reign the condition of the population was improved, the system of farming the revenues was abolished, and the tribunals of justice were rendered accessible to all. Following him came Mahdoo Rao, whose character as a sovereign was as conspicuous as were his military talents.

“He is deservedly celebrated for his firm support of the weak against the oppressive, of the poor against the rich, and . . . for his equity to all.”

At that time, the Mahratta territory was more thriving than any other part of India. The celebrated Ram Shastree was the pure and upright minister who served Mahdoo Rao. The weight and soundness of his judgments have made them to this day precedents in Hindu law. By his unwearied zeal, he improved the condition of the people of all ranks. His integrity was never corrupted. It was the custom of this man of simple habits, never to keep in his house more food than sufficed for one day’s consumption.³²

The territory of the Peishwah was administered, for a quarter of a century, by Nana Furnawese, during the minority of Bajee Rao. He has been described as a minister of unequalled ability, who held together, by force and energy of mind, and the versatility of his genius, the incongruous interests of his empire. The wisdom, firmness and moderation of his government are testified to by Sir John Malcolm, who thus describes the condition of the country:

“It has not happened to me ever to see countries better cultivated, and more abounding in all the produce of the soil as well as in commercial wealth, than the southern Mahratta districts. . . Poonah, the capital of the Peishwah, was a very wealthy and thriving commercial town and there was as much cultivation in the Deccan, as it was possible an arid and unfruitful country could admit.” About another large part of the Mahratta territory under the sovereignty of Holkar we have the testimony of the same distinguished writers:

“With respect to Malwa, I saw it in a state of ruin, caused by the occupancy . . . of the predatory hordes of India. Yet, even at that period, I was surprised . . . to find that dealings in money to large amounts had continually taken place between cities, where bankers were in a flourishing state, and goods to a great extent continually passed through the province, . . . the insurance offices which exist through all parts of India . . . had never stopped their operations. . . . I do not believe that in Malwa the introduction of our direct rule could have contributed more, nor indeed so much, to the prosperity of the commercial and agricultural interests, as the re-establishment of the efficient rule of its former princes and chiefs. With respect to the southern Mahratta districts, of whose prosperity I have before spoken, . . . I do not think either their commercial or agricultural interests likely to be improved under our rule. . . . Their system of administration is, on the whole, mild and paternal. I refer their prosperity to be due . . . to the knowledge and almost devotion of the Hindus to agricultural pursuit; to their better understanding, or better practice than us . . . in raising towns and villages to prosperity, from the encouragement given to moneyed men, and the introduction of capital . . . but above all causes which promote prosperity, is the invariable support given to the village and other native institutions, and to the employment, far beyond what our system permits, of all classes of population.” ³³

The same writer praises the administration of the Mahratta Queen, Ahalya Bai, the internal tranquillity of whose territory was as remarkable as her freedom from foreign attack. The object of her rule was to promote the prosperity of all her subjects; she was said to rejoice when she saw bankers, farmers, merchants and cultivators rise to affluence; she was regarded as the model of good government in Malwa. She built several forts, and constructed a road over the almost perpendicular Vindhya range. Among the princes of her own nation, all would have held it sacrilege to become her enemy, or to fail to defend her from hostile attack.³⁴

The dominions of the Rajah of Berar, another member of the great Mahratta Confederacy, were equally flourishing. European travellers comment on the thriving districts, the industrious people, the fertile soil, the magnificent temples and the greatness of public works.³⁵

From the Mahratta, let us pass to other States. The Reform Pamphlet quotes from a report from Commissions upon the Northwest Provinces, which it might be well to cite:

“In passing through the Rampore territory, we could not fail to notice the high state of cultivation to which it has attained when compared with the surrounding country; scarcely a spot of land is neglected and although the season was by no means favourable the whole district seemed covered with an abundant harvest. . . . The management of the Nawab Fyz-oolah Kahn is celebrated throughout the country. It was the administration of an enlightened and liberal landlord, who devoted his time and attention, and employed his own capital, in promoting the prosperity of the country. When works of magnitude were required . . . the means of undertaking them were supplied from his bounty. Watercourses were constructed, the rivulets made to overflow and fertilise the adjacent districts, and the paternal care of a popular chief was constantly exerted to afford protection to his subjects, to stimulate their exertions, to direct their labours to useful objects and to promote by every means the success of their undertaking.”

“If the comparison for the same territory be made between the management of the Rohillas and that of our own government, it is painful to think that the balance of advantage is clearly in favour of the former. After seven years’ possession of the country, it appears by the report that the revenue has increased only by two lacs of rupees, or 20,000 pounds. The papers laid before Parliament show that in the twenty years which have since elapsed, the collective revenues of Rohilcund and the districts forming the ceded province of Oude, actually declined 200,000 pounds per annum!

“While the surrounding country seemed to have been visited by a desolating calamity, the lands of the Rajahs Diaram and Bugwaut Singh under every disadvantage of season were covered with crops produced by better husbandry or greater labour.” These neighbouring lands consisted “of British territory, already five years in our occupation.”³⁶

Bishop Heber, in his “Journal,” Vol. II, pages 77-9 bears testimony to the enlightenment and prosperity of Oude at this period under Saadat Ali, whom he rates as a man of talents and acquirements, fond of business, with a penchant for science. He is described by Lord Hastings as a sovereign admirable for uprightness, humanity and mild elevation. The prosperous condition of the state of Bhurtpore under native rulers is likewise testified to.³⁶

“This country . . . is one of the best cultivated and watered tracts which I have seen in India. The crops of corn on the ground were really beautiful; that of cotton . . . a very good one. What is a sure proof of wealth, I saw several sugar-mills, and large pieces of ground where the cane had just been cleared. . . . The population did not seem great, but the villages were in good condition and repair, and the whole afforded so pleasing a picture of industry, and was so much superior to anything I had been led to expect in Rajputana, which I had seen in the Company’s territories . . . that I was led to suppose that either the Rajah of Bhurtpore was an extreme exemplary and parental governor, or that the system of management adopted in the British provinces was less favourable to the improvement and happiness of the country than some of the native states.”

The British Government itself emphatically testifies to the high character of Pertaub Singh, the first Rajah of Sattara, and the prosperity of his kingdom. The government Records show a letter from the Court of Directors (1843, No. 569, page 1268).

“We have been highly gratified by the information from time to time transmitted to us from our Government, of your Highness’s exemplary fulfilment of the duties of that elevated situation in which it has pleased Providence to place you.

“A course of conduct so suitable to your Highness’s exalted station, and so well calculated to promote the prosperity of your dominions and the happiness of your people, as that which you have wisely and uniformly pursued, while it reflects the highest honour on your own character, has imparted to our minds unqualified pleasure and satisfaction. The liberality which you displayed in executing at your own cost, various public works of great utility . . . gives additional claim to our approbation, respect, and applause.”

While the British Government was thus congratulating the Rajah on the prosperity of his dominions, the wretched state of some thirty millions of natives under British rule is described by Dr. Marshman, in The Friend of India, April 1, 1852:

“No one has ever contradicted the fact that the condition of the Bengal peasantry is almost as wretched and degraded as it is possible to conceive; living in the most miserable hovels, scarcely fit for a dog kennel, covered with tattered rags, and unable in many instances, to procure more than a single meal a day for himself and family, the Bengal ryot knows nothing of the most ordinary comforts of life. We speak without exaggeration when we say that if the real condition of those who raise the harvest, which yields between three and four millions a year, were fully known, it would make the ears of one who heard thereof tingle.”

This, described by an unimpeachable eye-witness, was the condition of Bengal, the “Garden of Eden” after almost a century of British rule! If this appalling state had been normal before the English came, what had the Government been doing for a century not to extricate the people from it?

But the words of Clive are still upon record — “Bengal, the country of inexhaustible riches, capable of making its masters the richest corporation in the world.” What can the Government say for itself in the face of such a result? Lord Cornwallis said, in his time, that the people “were advancing hastily to a state of poverty and wretchedness.” By multiplied exactions and heavy assessments, from 1765 to 1790 the British revenue system enriched itself and left the country exhausted and impoverished. Governor General Lord Hastings declared in 1827 (Parl. Papers, page 157):

“A new progeny has grown up under our hand; and the principal features of a generation thus formed beneath the shade of our regulation, are a spirit of litigation which our judicial establishments cannot meet, and a morality certainly deteriorated.”

As with the judicial system, so with regard to person and property. Protection was so inadequate, that as stated in an article in The Friend of India (Aug. 28, 1851) “no man of property . . . can retire to rest with the certainty that he shall not be robbed of it before morning.” Small wonder that Governor-General Lord Bentinck admitted that “Our administration had, in all its branches, revenue, judicial and police, been a failure.” This was uttered in the first half of the nineteenth century.

Because of the gross ignorance on the part of the civilised world, regarding the facts discussed at such length, we have quoted somewhat lengthily from sources whose testimony, coming as it does, from the British camp, cannot be questioned. British publicists continue in their efforts to mislead the public mind by affirming that England rescued India from a state of widespread anarchy and confusion, and by conferring upon her, for the first time in her history, a settled government, saved her from herself. During her many centuries of political development, India was undoubtedly as good, and as bad, as the other evolving nations on the face of Mother Earth. She prospered under her beneficent rulers, and suffered under her bad ones. She had her periods of progress, as well as of stagnation. She had times of peace as well as of war. Her rulers were by no means immaculate. Her people were not always happy. They faced tyranny and oppression as often as good government and orderly justice. Were a chart of Indian politics for the past three thousand years to be compiled, it might be found that her eras of peace and prosperity perhaps exceeded those of any other country in the world. It is futile to pass judgment upon the India of the sixteenth century, from the pinnacle of twentieth century standards.

Even now there are native states in India which are admittedly better governed than British India. In several of them the rulers have introduced compulsory universal education, have established representative institutions and, last but not least, have started industries of their own to give employment to their subjects.

Dr. H. A. L. Fisher, the Minister of Education in the Lloyd George Cabinet says in his book “The Empire and the Future,” “My impression is that the inhabitants of a well governed native state are on the whole happier and more contented than the inhabitants of British India. They are more lightly taxed; the pace of the administration is less urgent and exacting; their sentiment is gratified by the splendour of a native court and by the dominion of an Indian Government. They feel that they do things for themselves instead of having everything done for them by a cold and alien benevolence.” [Italics mine. L. R.] We are sorry that consideration of space should have forced us to abridge many of the references given in this chapter. Independent enquirers are respectfully referred to the authorities quoted from.