HISTORY PROJECT

DAMODARAM SANJIVAYYA NATIONAL LAW UNIVERSITY

VISAKHAPATNAM
FEBRUARY 2014

ADMINISTRATION OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE

I would sincerely like to put forward my heartfelt appreciation to our respected Histoy
professor, Prof. Viswachandra Nath Madasu for giving me a golden opportunity to take up
this project regarding Administration under the British Empire. I have tried my best to
collect information about the project in various possible ways to depict clear picture about
the given project topic.

Acknowledgement

Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 4
The East India Company ............................................................................................. 5
Gaining of foothold in Indian Administration .................................................. 6
The Companys Regulations and its Evolution ................................................ 8
Revenue system and its influence on administration ................................. 12
The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857 ...................................................................................... 16
Administration under the crown ........................................................................... 17
The Government of India Act, 1858 ................................................................... 19
Montague-Chelmsford Reforms (Government of India Act, 1919) ... 21
Government of India Act, 1935 ............................................................................ 22
The Indian Independence Act, 1947 ................................................................... 24
Conclusion ....................................................................................................................... 26
Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 27

Contents

Introduction
Great Britain theres a reason why Great Britain is called Great Britain. Virtually every part
of the world was under their rule as their colonies the epitome of colonization. Asia, Africa,
North America, South America, and Australia nothing was left to be conquered; no stone was
left unturned. Administration of these empires was generally assumed to be the same

but it was not. The British Administration was different from those in their colonies which
underwent a huge process of evolution and had left a mark in the history of those countries.
Perhaps the most influenced countries were Canada and India the latter of which we shall
focus on.
The influence of the British in India is huge to the extent that most of our modern culture is
derived from British roots, along with the rich Indian heritage that has always been there for
thousands of years unchanged, unscathed as a shining jewel even in the dark days of the
world. The main language of communication is English, the clothes we wear are western
clothes, and in that context, we even shower thanks to the Englishmen!
No matter how profound the impact of the British in India is, Indians had an impact on the
western civilization too not as deeply as the other way round though. To begin with, words
like verandah, juggernaut, bungalow exist because of Indians! So we can clearly see there is a
mix of cultures in the recent times as an impact of British rule in India; but was it always this
way? To answer that question, we have to first dive into the radix of the advent of the British
Empires entry into India what led to the magnificent rule of the westerners in India for
almost a period of 250 years. Quarter of a millennium is no joke and one is bound to behold
great changes in policies and scenario as it was travelling through time to be mature and as
close to perfect as it can be.
This brings us back to the question, so how did the British come in India in the first place?
The British had ongoing wars with some nations, which included the Spanish. The Spanish
were in control of Indian waters till 1588, and the British civilians could not venture out into
the troubled waters lest they be killed by the Spanish. In 1588, however the tables turned
1

during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, the Spanish Armada was defeated by the British when
the British merchants could then venture out for the Eastern countries with the prior
permission of the crown.

Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. II 1908, p. 454

5
The East India Company
India was not new, and had been in trade relations with many countries since time immemorial.
During the 16

th

century, the Dutch and Portuguese had a strong foothold in India. The British

merchants sought to seek permission from the crown to establish trade relations with the Asian
countries, that is, namely the East Indies. After the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1951, the
Queen granted power to merchants to sail into the Indian Ocean. However, this was not under a
formal company name now. Ships sailed from England, around the Cape of Good Hope, then via
the Arabian Peninsula, to Cape Comorin and Malaysia, and returned. The first ship to return was
in 1594. So, in 1596, a fresh fleet of ships sailed into the Indian Ocean again, this time making
huge profits. They sought to form a corporation for exclusive trade rights into the East Indies, and
were not successful in their first attempt. On the second request, in 1600, the Queen granted a
Royal Charter forming a corporation coming to be known as Governor and Company of
2

Merchants of London trading into the Eat Indies . This charter granted them monopoly of trade
eastwards towards the Cape of Good Hope and westwards towards the Strait of Magellan. This
was one of the oldest East India Companies formed, and was in rivalry with the already formed
Dutch East India Company.

The British East India Company sought to establish trade relations with all the countries in
the East Indies, but ended up trading mainly with the Indian Subcontinent. Little was known
that this would be a source of political power and governance in those days that the company
initially formed for silent trade would be so much more than just a source of revenue.
The Mughals were in their last phase when the British had entered and had become weak, so
they were readily accepted by the Islamic rulers in India. The East India Company was very
aggressive towards the Indian administrative system and ultimately took over the entire
Indian administration.
What this project aims to study is not the administrative policies of the British East India
Company, but their administration of India, and how changes took place. Let us have a look
into the various acts that governed them.

Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. II 1908, p. 6

6
Gaining of foothold in Indian Administration
The English East India Company gained a strong stance in India in 1612 after Mughal
emperor Jahangir granted it the rights to establish a factory, or trading post, in the port of
Surat on the western coast of India. In 1640, after receiving similar grants from the king of
Vijayanagara farther south, a second factory was established in Madras (Machulipatnam) on
the south-eastern coast. Bombay Island, not far from Surat, a former Portuguese outpost
gifted to England as dowry in the marriage of Catherine of Braganza to Charles II, was leased
by the Company in 1668. Two decades later, the Company established a stronghold on the
eastern coast as well; far up that coast, in the Ganga river delta, a factory was set up in
Calcutta eventually. Since, during this time other companiesestablished by the Portuguese,
Dutch, French, and Danish were parallely expanding in the region, the English Company's
unremarkable beginnings on coastal India offered no hints to what would become a lengthy
presence on the Indian subcontinent.

The Company's victory under Andrea Bustamante and Robert Clive power in the 1757 Battle
of Plassey and another victory in the 1764 Battle of Buxar (in Bihar), consolidated the
Company's power, and forced emperor Shah Alam II to appoint it the diwan, or revenue
collector, of Bengal, Bihar, and Orissa as a grant from the then weakening Mughal emperor.
The Company thus became the de facto ruler of large areas of the lower Gangetic plain by
1773. It also proceeded by degrees to expand its dominions around Bombay and Madras. The
Anglo-Mysore Wars (17661799) and the Anglo-Maratha Wars (17721818) left it in control
of large areas of India south of the Sutlej River. With the defeat of the Marathas, no native
3

power posed to be a threat for the Company any longer . The end of the last Anglo-Maratha
4

War in 1818 marked the era of British paramountcy over India .

The proliferation of the Company's power chiefly took two forms. The first of these was the
outright annexation of Indian states and subsequent direct governance of the regions lying
underneath, which collectively came to comprise British India. The annexed regions included

3
4

Claude Markovits , A History of Modern India, 1410 1950, Anthem Press, 195, page 12
J H.S. Bhatia, Justice System and Mutinies in British India, Deep and Deep Publications, 1997, page.51

Delhi (1803), Assam (Ahom Kingdom 1828), and Sindh (1843). Punjab, North-West Frontier
Province, and Kashmir, were annexed after the Anglo-Sikh Wars in 1849; however, Kashmir
was immediately sold under the Treaty of Amritsar (1850) to the Dogra Dynasty of Jammu,
and thereby became a princely state. In 1854 Berar was annexed, and the state of Oudh two
5

years later .

The second form of asserting power involved treaties in which Indian rulers acknowledged the
Company's hegemony in return for limited internal autonomy. Since the Company operated under
6

financial constraints, it had to set up political underpinnings for its rule . The most important
such support came from the subsidiary alliances with Indian princes during the first 75 years of
Company rule. In the early 19th century, the territories of these princes accounted for two-third of
India. When an Indian ruler, who was able to secure his territory, wanted to enter such an
alliance, the Company welcomed it as an economical method of indirect rule, which did not
involve the economic costs of direct administration or the political costs of gaining the support of
7

alien subjects . In return, the Company undertook the "defence of these subordinate allies and
treated them with traditional respect and marks of honor." Subsidiary alliances created the
princely states, of the Hindu maharajas and the Muslim nawabs. Prominent among the princely
states were: Cochin (1791), Jaipur (1794), Travancore (1795), Hyderabad (1798), Mysore (1799),
Cis-Sutlej Hill States (1815), Central India Agency (1819), Cutch and Gujarat Gaikwad territories
(1819), Rajputana (1818), and Bahawalpur (1833).

David Ludden, India and South Asia: A Short History, Oneworld Publications, 1987,page 54

6
Judith Margaret Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy, Oxford University Press p. 68
7

Judith Margaret Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy, Oxford University Press p. 67

the North-Western Provinces (comprising Rohilkhand, Gorakhpur, and the Doab) (1801),

The Companys Regulations and its Evolution

Until Clive's victory at Plassey, the East India Company territories in India, which consisted
largely of the presidency towns of Calcutta, Madras, and Bombay, were governed by the
mostly autonomousand sporadically unmanageabletown councils, all composed of
merchants. The councils barely had enough powers for the effective management of their
local affairs, and the ensuing lack of oversight of the overall Company operations in India led
8

to some grave abuses by Company officers or their allies . Clive's victory, and the award of
the diwani of the rich region of Bengal, brought India into the public spotlight in Britain. The
Company's money management practices came to be questioned, especially as it began to
post net losses even as some Company servants, the "Nabobs," returned to Britain with large
9

fortunes, which according to rumors then current were acquired unscrupulously . By 1772,
the Company needed British government loans to stay afloat, and there was fear in London
that the Company's corrupt practices could soon seep into British business and public life.
The rights and duties of the British government with regards the Company's new territories
came also to be examined. The British parliament then held several inquiries and in 1773,
during the premiership of Lord North, enacted the Regulating Act, which established
regulations, its long title stated, " for the better Management of the Affairs of the East India
10

Company, as well in India as in Europe"

Although Lord North himself wanted the Company's territories to be taken over by the British
state, he faced determined political opposition from many quarters, including some in the City of
London and the British parliament. The result was a compromise in which the Regulating Act
although implying the ultimate sovereignty of the British Crown over these new territories
asserted that the Company could act as a sovereign power on behalf of the Crown. It could do this
while concurrently being subject to oversight and regulation by the British government and
parliament. The Cosurt of Directors of the Company were required under the Act to submit all
communications regarding civil, military, and revenue matters in India for scrutiny by the British
11

government . For the governance of the Indian territories, the act asserted the supremacy of the
Presidency of Fort William (Bengal) over those of Fort St. George (Madras) and Bombay. It also
nominated a Governor-General (Warren Hastings) and four councilors for administering the
Bengal presidency (and for overseeing the Company's
8

Sekhar Bandhyopadhyay, From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India, Orient Longman
Publishing p. 76
9
Douglas M. Peers, India Under Colonial Rule: 1700-1885, Pearson Education Canada p. 35
10

11

Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 2007, p. 14

Sekhar Bandhyopadhyay, From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India, Orient Longman
Publishing p. 77

treaties without the previous consent of the Governor-General of Bengal in Council, except in
case of imminent necessity. The Governors of these Presidencies were directed in general
terms to obey the orders of the Governor-General-in-Council, and to transmit to him
intelligence of all important matters." However, the imprecise wording of the Act, left it open
to be variously interpreted; consequently, the administration in India continued to be hobbled
by disunity between the provincial governors, between members of the Council, and between
the Governor-General himself and his Council. The Regulating Act also attempted to address
the prevalent corruption in India: Company servants were henceforth forbidden to engage in
private trade in India or to receive "presents" from Indian nationals.
William Pitt's India Act of 1784 established a Board of Control in England both to supervise the
East India Company's affairs and to prevent the Company's shareholders from interfering in the
12

governance of India . The Board of Control consisted of six members, which included one
Secretary of State from the British cabinet, as well as the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Around
this time, there was also extensive debate in the British parliament on the issue of landed rights in
Bengal, with a consensus developing in support of the view advocated by Philip Francis, a
member of the Bengal council and political adversary of Warren Hastings, that all lands in Bengal
should be considered the "estate and inheritance of native land-holders and families ..." Mindful
of the reports of abuse and corruption in Bengal by Company servants, the India Act itself noted
numerous complaints that "'divers Rajahs, Zemindars, Polygars, Talookdars, and landholders
13

had been unjustly deprived of 'their lands, jurisdictions, rights, and privileges ." At the same
time the Company's directors were now leaning towards Francis's view that the land-tax in Bengal
should be made fixed and permanent, setting the stage for the Permanent Settlement (see section
14

Revenue settlements under the Company below ). The India Act also created in each of the three
presidencies a number of administrative and military posts, which included: a Governor and three
Councilors, one of which was the Commander in Chief of the Presidency army. Although the
supervisory powers of the Governor-General-in-Council in Bengal (over Madras and Bombay)
were extendedas they were again in the Charter Act of 1793the subordinate presidencies
continued to exercise some autonomy until both the extension of British possessions into
becoming contiguous and the advent of faster communications in the next century. Still, the new
Governor-General

12

Robert Travers, Ideology and Empire in the Eighteenth Century India, Cambridge University Press p. 124
Robert Travers, Ideology and Empire in the Eighteenth Century India, Cambridge University Press p. 217
14
Durham, NC, A Rule of Property for Bengal: An Essay on the Idea of the Permanent Settlement,
Duke University Press p. 161
13

operations in India). "The subordinate Presidencies were forbidden to wage war or make

support of a powerful British cabinet minister, Henry Dundas, who, as Secretary of state for
the Home Office, was in charge of the overall India policy. From 1784 onwards, the British
government had the final word on all major appointments in India; a candidate's suitability
for a senior position was often decided by the strength of his political connexions rather than
that of his administrative ability. Although this practice resulted in many Governor-General
nominees being chosen from Britain's conservative landed gentry, there were some liberals as
well, such as Lord William Bentinck and Lord Dalhousie.
British political opinion was also shaped by the attempted Impeachment of Warren Hastings;
15

the trial, whose proceedings began in 1788, ended, with Hastings' acquittal, in 1795 .
Although the effort was chiefly coordinated by Edmund Burke, it also drew support from
within the British government. Burke, accused Hastings not only of corruption, but
appealing to universal standards of justicealso of acting solely upon his own discretion and
without concern for law and of willfully causing distress to others in India; in response,
Hastings' defenders asserted that his actions were in concert with Indian customs and
traditions. Although Burke's speeches at the trial drew applause and focused attention on
India, Hastings was eventually acquitted, due, in part, to the revival of nationalism in Britain
in the wake of the French Revolution; nonetheless, Burke's effort had the effect of creating a
sense of responsibility in British public life for the Company's dominion in India.
Soon rumblings appeared amongst merchants in London that the monopoly granted to the East
India Company in 1600 to facilitate it to better organise against Dutch and French competition in
a distant region, was no longer needed. In response, in the Charter Act of 1813, the British
parliament renewed the Company's charter but terminated its monopoly except with regard to tea
16

and trade with China, opening India both to private investment and missionaries . With
increased British power in India supervision of Indian affairs by the British Crown and parliament
increased as well; by the 1820s British nationals could transact business or engage in missionary
work under the protection of the Crown in the three presidencies. Finally, in Charter Act of 1833,
the British parliament revoked the Company's trade licence altogether, making the Company a
part of British governance, although the administration of British India remained the province of
Company officers. The Charter Act of 1833 also charged the Governor-General-in-Council (to
whose title was now added "of India") with the supervision of civil and military administration of
the totality of India, as well the exclusive power of
15
16

Douglas M. Peers, India Under Colonial Rule: 1700-1885, Pearson Education Canada p. 36-38
David Ludden, India and South Asia: A Short History, One world Publications p. 137

10

appointed in 1786, Lord Cornwallis, not only had more power than Hastings, but also had the

also sanctioned the creation of a Presidency of Agra, later constituted, in 1936, as the
Lieutenant-Governorship of the North-Western Provinces (current-day western Uttar
Pradesh). With the annexation of Oudh in 1856, this territory was extended, and eventually
became the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh. In addition, in 1854, a Lieutenant-Governor
was appointed for the region of Bengal, Bihar and Odisha, leaving the Governor-General to
concentrate on the governance of India.

11

legislation. Since the British territories in north India had now extended up to Delhi, the Act

In the remnant of the Mughal revenue system existing in pre-1765 Bengal, zamindars, or "land
holders," collected revenue on behalf of the Mughal emperor, whose representative, or diwan
17

supervised their activities . In this system, the assortment of rights associated with land were not
possessed by a "land owner," but rather shared by the several parties with stake in the land,
18

including the peasant cultivator, the zamindar, and the state . The zamindar served as an
intermediary who procured economic rent from the cultivator, and after withholding a percentage
for his own expenses, made available the rest, as revenue to the state. Under the Mughal system,
the land itself belonged to the state and not to the zamindar, who could transfer only his right to
collect rent. On being awarded the diwani or overlordship of Bengal following the Battle of
Buxar in 1764, the East India Company found itself short of trained administrators, especially
those familiar with local custom and law; tax collection was consequently farmed out. This
uncertain foray into land taxation by the Company, may have gravely worsened the impact of a
famine that struck Bengal in 1769-70, in which between seven and ten million peopleor
between a quarter and third of the presidency's populationmay have died. However, the
19

company provided little relief either through reduced taxation or by relief efforts , and the
economic and cultural impact of the famine was felt decades later, even becoming, a century
later, the subject of Bankim Chandra Chatterjee's novel Anandamath.

In 1772, under Warren Hastings, the East India Company took over revenue collection
directly in the Bengal Presidency (then Bengal and Bihar), establishing a Board of Revenue
with offices in Calcutta and Patna, and moving the pre-existing Mughal revenue records from
Murshidabad to Calcutta. In 1773, after Oudh ceded the tributary state of Benaras, the
revenue collection system was extended to the territory with a Company Resident in charge.
The following year with a view to preventing corruptionCompany district collectors,
who were then responsible for revenue collection for an entire district, were replaced with
provincial councils at Patna, Murshidabad, and Calcutta, and with Indian collectors working
within each district. The title, "collector," reflected "the centrality of land revenue collection
to government in India: it was the government's primary function and it moulded the
20

institutions and patterns of administration. "

17

Metcalf, Barbara Daly; Metcalf, Thomas R, A concise history of modern India, Cambridge University Press,
2006, p. 20
18
Metcalf, Barbara Daly; Metcalf, Thomas R, A concise history of modern India, Cambridge University Press,
2006, p. 78
19
Douglas M. Peers, India Under Colonial Rule: 1700-1885, Pearson Education Canada, 2006, p. 47
20

Brown, Judith Margaret, Modern India: the origins of an Asian democracy, Oxford University Press 1994, p.

55

12

Revenue system and its influence on administration

proportion of the tax burden fell on the cultivators, with one-third of the production reserved
for imperial entitlement; this pre-colonial system became the Company revenue policy's
21

baseline . However, there was vast variation across India in the methods by which the
revenues were collected; with this complication in mind, a Committee of Circuit toured the
districts of expanded Bengal presidency in order to make a five-year settlement, consisting of
five-yearly inspections and temporary tax farming. In their overall approach to revenue
policy, Company officials were guided by two goals: first, preserving as much as possible the
balance of rights and obligations that were traditionally claimed by the farmers who
cultivated the land and the various intermediaries who collected tax on the state's behalf and
who reserved a cut for themselves; and second, identifying those sectors of the rural economy
that would maximise both revenue and security. Although their first revenue settlement
turned out to be essentially the same as the more informal pre-existing Mughal one, the
Company had created a foundation for the growth of both information and bureaucracy.
In 1793, the new Governor-General, Lord Cornwallis, promulgated the permanent settlement of
land revenues in the presidency, the first socio-economic regulation in colonial India. It was
named permanent because it fixed the land tax in perpetuity in return for landed property rights
for zamindars; it simultaneously defined the nature of land ownership in the presidency, and gave
individuals and families separate property rights in occupied land. Since the revenue was fixed in
perpetuity, it was fixed at a high level, which in Bengal amounted to 3 million at 1789-90
22

23

prices . According to one estimate , this was 20% higher than the revenue demand before
1757. Over the next century, partly as a result of land surveys, court rulings, and property sales,
the change was given practical dimension. An influence on the development of this revenue
policy were the economic theories then current, which regarded agriculture as the engine of
economic development, and consequently stressed the fixing of revenue demands in order to
encourage growth. The expectation behind the permanent settlement was that knowledge of a
fixed government demand would encourage the zamindars to increase both their average outcrop
and the land under cultivation, since they would be able to retain the profits from the increased
output; in addition, it was envisaged that land itself would become a marketable form of property
that could be purchased, sold, or mortgaged. A feature of this

21

Douglas M. Peers, India Under Colonial Rule: 1700-1885, Pearson Education Canada, 2005, p. 45-47
Sekhar Bandhyopadhyay, From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India, Orient Longman
Publishing, 2006, p. 82
23
Marshall, P. J, Bengal: The British Bridgehead, Eastern India, 17401828, Cambridge and London:
Cambridge University Press, 1997, p. 141-144
22

13

The Company inherited a revenue collection system from the Mughals in which the heaviest

24

best interest, would not make unreasonable demands on the peasantry . However, these
expectations were not realised in practice, and in many regions of Bengal, the peasants bore
the brunt of the increased demand, there being little protection for their traditional rights in
the new legislation. Forced labour of the peasants by the zamindars became more prevalent as
cash crops were cultivated to meet the Company revenue demands. Although commercialised
cultivation was not new to the region, it had now penetrated deeper into village society and
made it more vulnerable to market forces. The zamindars themselves were often unable to
meet the increased demands that the Company had placed on them; consequently, many
defaulted, and by one estimate, up to one-third of their lands were auctioned during the first
25

three decades following the permanent settlement . The new owners were often Brahmin
and Kayastha employees of the Company who had a good grasp of the new system, and, in
26

many cases, had prospered under it .

Since the zamindars were never able to undertake costly improvements to the land envisaged
under the Permanent Settlement, some of which required the removal of the existing farmers,
they soon became rentiers who lived off the rent from their tenant farmers. In many areas,
especially northern Bengal, they had to increasingly share the revenue with intermediate
tenure holders, called jotedars, who supervised farming in the villages. Consequently, unlike
the contemporaneous Enclosure movement in Britain, agriculture in Bengal remained the
province of the subsistence farming of innumerable small paddy fields.
The zamindari system was one of two principal revenue settlements undertaken by the
Company in India. In southern India, Thomas Munro, who would later become Governor of
Madras, promoted the ryotwari system, in which the government settled land-revenue directly
with the peasant farmers, or ryots. This was, in part, a consequence of the turmoil of the
Anglo-Mysore Wars, which had prevented the emergence of a class of large landowners; in
addition, Munro and others felt that ryotwari was closer to traditional practice in the region
and ideologically more progressive, allowing the benefits of Company rule to reach the
lowest levels of rural society. At the heart of the ryotwari system was a particular theory of
economic rentand based on David Ricardo's Law of Rentpromoted by utilitarian James
Mill who formulated the Indian revenue policy between 1819 and 1830. "He believed that the
24

Bose, Sumit, Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital: Rural Bengal since 1770 (New Cambridge History of
India), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press, 1993,p.223
25
Tomlinson, B. R, The Economy of Modern India, 18601970 (The New Cambridge History of India, III.3),
Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press, 1993, p. 43
26
Metcalf, Barbara Daly; Metcalf, Thomas R, A concise history of modern India, Cambridge University Press,
2003, p. 79

14

economic rationale was the additional expectation that the zamindars, recognising their own

the profit left over on richer soil when wages and other working expenses had been settled."
Another keystone of the new system of temporary settlements was the classification of
agricultural fields according to soil type and produce, with average rent rates fixed for the
period of the settlement. According to Mill, taxation of land rent would promote efficient
27

agriculture and simultaneously prevent the emergence of a "parasitic landlord class ." Mill
advocated ryotwari settlements which consisted of government measurement and assessment
of each plot (valid for 20 or 30 years) and subsequent taxation which was dependent on the
fertility of the soil. The taxed amount was nine-tenths of the "rent" in the early 19th century
and gradually fell afterwards. However, in spite of the appeal of the ryotwari system's
abstract principles, class hierarchies in southern Indian villages had not entirely disappeared
for example village headmen continued to hold sway and peasant cultivators sometimes came
28

to experience revenue demands they could not meet . In the 1850s, a scandal erupted when
it was discovered that some Indian revenue agents of the Company were using torture to meet
the Company's revenue demands.
Land revenue settlements constituted a major administrative activity of the various
governments in India under Company rule. In all areas other than the Bengal Presidency, land
settlement work involved a continually repetitive process of surveying and measuring plots,
assessing their quality, and recording landed rights, and constituted a large proportion of the
work of Indian Civil Service officers working for the government. After the Company lost its
trading rights, it became the single most important source of government revenue, roughly
half of overall revenue in the middle of the 19th century; even so, between the years 1814
and 1859, the government of India ran debts in 33 years. With expanded dominion, even
during on-deficit years, there was just enough money to pay the salaries of a threadbare
administration, a skeleton police force, and the army.

27
28

Judith Margaret Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy, Oxford University Press, 2006 p.
66
Judith Margaret Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy, Oxford University Press, 2006, p. 65

15

government was the ultimate lord of the soil and should not renounce its right to 'rent', i.e.

Although it is claimed that India had got independence by non-violence, the history of India does
show much of uprisings and violence against the British subjects. For people had no other option
but to resort to violence to protest against the unchecked exploitation of the Indians by the British
in their own lands. They were helpless against the Britishers and had no other option but to turn
their means of protest violent so that it would make an impact on the minds of the British. Lets
look at some reasons behind why this happened and what its consequences were.

The East India Company, by the 1850s were engaged with military activities of India and had
to maintain their own army in order to ensure peace and order. The manpower, naturally,
came from the indigenous Indians. These soldiers were called the Sepoys, and hence comes
the name Sepoy Mutiny. This event was also called The Revolt of 1857 and the Indian
Rebellion of 1857. The reasons for the revolt were as follows:
1. The Doctrine of Lapse was introduced by the British, which stated that whenever the
princely states did not have a legal heir to their kingdom, the kingdom would be taken
over by the British
2. The Indians thought that the British were trying to convert India into a Christain
theocratic state where the Indians were, is and will be abused for time eternity and
henceforth there was an uneasiness in the minds of the Indians.
3. The introduction of a new type of cartridge in the Enfield rifle provoked religious
sentiments

29

as the cartridge had to be loaded with pig and cow fat, which was degrading

to both the sentiments of Hindus and Muslims alike. This sparked the feeling

of nationalism and anti-oppressive movements all over India in a violet manner when
the sepoys realized they were being used against their own brothers.
The uprising first took place through Mangal Pandey, who in the first in Indian History, shot
a British Sergeant-Major and Lieutenant dead as he refused to load the rifle cartridges. He
protested against it in a manner which led to the huge movement in all parts of India. There
were a lot of Britishers and Indians killed, and it ultimately led to the winding up of the East
30

India Company .

29
30

http://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armycampaigns/indiancampaigns/mutiny/mutiny.htm
Spear, Percival A History of India, Volume 2, Penguin Publishers, 1990, p. 147-148

16

The Sepoy Mutiny of 1857

The British India went from being a company-controlled territory to a direct dominion of the
British Empire, and that is when the administration took a different turn to free it from all the
evils present in the then Indian empire. But the question remains, was it satisfactory? Did it
correct the wrongs present in the society? To look into that, we shall the states and influence
of British Administration first.
In 1858, the power was transferred to the British Crown, and it was exercised through the
31

Governor General of India; the then ruling Queen was Queen Victoria . The Queen was
proclaimed as the Honourable Empress of India, and her influence can be well seen in the
Victoria Memorial present in Calcutta today the magnificent structure just as a token of
appreciation for Queen Victoria. It is noteworthy of mention that India was then already
32

divided into two parts and did not remain undivided India the Union of India , and the
33

Islamic dominion of Pakistan .

The result of the power shifting to the crown was mainly because of the Revolt of 1857 (as
mentioned in the previous page of the project), and the British then realized that India cannot
be governed as is from then. So there was a need to fundamentally reorganize things like
states and administration policies and goals of the British government.
Tolerance of religion, inclusion of Indians in Civil Services and various measures were taken
to meet the demands of the Indians and to restore peace and security all across India. The
British knew their days were numbered if they did not resort to strengthen their military, and
they did so. The British Crown had not intended to take control of the territory of India, but
as things had gone out of control, the Crown had to take power.
The beginning of the Imperial British Rule in India was marked by the sanction of the post of
the Viceroy who served a signature flagship of the British Rule in India headed by the Crown
of England itself.

31

Kaul, Chandrika. "From Empire to Independence: The British Raj in India 18581947" available at
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/independence1947_01.shtml accessed 27th February
2014 10:28AM
32

It is interesting to note that Burma (present day Myanmar) was included within the Union of India, Lower
Myanmar in 1858, already was included and the upper half of the nation became eventually included in 1886. In
1937, it became a separate entity, free from the Indian Union, but was a British Dominion till their
independence in 1948, after India got its independence
33
The Islamic Dominion of Pakistan included the present day Bangladesh in itself after the division of
Bengal, and they got separated as an independent nation only after the declaration of Independence in 1947

17

Administration under the crown

princely states ruled by the indigenous rulers as a subordinate of the British. The exact
definitions adopted by the British parliament were:
(4.) The expression "British India" shall mean all territories and places within Her
Majesty's dominions which are for the time being governed by Her Majesty through the
Governor-General of India or through any governor or other officer subordinate to the
Governor-General of India.
(5.) The expression "India" shall mean British India together with any territories of any
native prince or chief under the suzerainty of Her Majesty exercised through the GovernorGeneral of India, or through any governor or other officer subordinate to the Governor34

General of India.
So, what the ordinary plain meaning of the British India says that is the areas of the British
which was previously under the rule of the East India Company, and the princely states
referred to the states with the indigenous rulers as the titular head but the de facto ruler as the
British Governor General or The Crown.
There were a lot of princely states when the power was transferred to the Crown, being more
than 600 in totality.
The 175 princely states got placed under the Crown, and power was exercised by the Viceroy
over these States. These states were the most powerful ones and required direct control of the
Crown to curb rebellion and battle between the states and the British Empire. These empires
required direct influence of the British so that the empires policies could not go against the
35

British and their interests .

The other princely states, amounting to more than 500 princely states cumulatively was under
the provincial government of the British which was headed by the Governor General, or
Lieutenant Governor or Chief Commissioner depending on specific provinces and their
necessities.

34
35

Interpretation Act 1889 (52 & 53 Vict. c. 63), s. 18

Imperial Gazetteer of India vol. IV 1907, p. 60

18

The British India consisted of two types of territories the British ruled India, and the

The Government of India Act 1858 made changes in the governance of India at three levels:
1. in the imperial government in London,
2. in the central government in Calcutta, and
3. in the provincial governments in the presidencies (and later in the provinces)

36

In London, it provided for a cabinet level Secretary of State for India and a fifteen-member
Council of India, whose members were required, as one prerequisite of membership, to have
37

spent at least ten years in India and to have done so no more than ten years before . Although the
Secretary of State formulated the policy instructions to be communicated to India, he was
required in most instances to consult the Council, but especially so in matters relating to spending
of Indian revenues. The Act envisaged a system of "double government" in which the Council
ideally served both as a check on excesses in imperial policy making and as a body of up-to-date
expertise on India. However, the Secretary of State also had special emergency powers that
allowed him to make unilateral decisions, and, in reality, the Council's expertise was sometimes
38

outdated . From 1858 until 1947, twenty seven individuals served as Secretary of State for India
and directed the India Office; these included: Sir Charles Wood (18591866), Marquess of
Salisbury (18741878; later Prime Minister of Britain), John Morley (19051910; initiator of the
Minto-Morley Reforms), E. S. Montagu (19171922; an architect of the Montagu-Chelmsford
reforms), and Frederick Pethick-Lawrence (19451947; head of the 1946 Cabinet Mission to
India). The size of the advisory Council was reduced over the next half-century, but its powers
39

remained unchanged. In 1907, for the first time, two Indians were appointed to the Council .
They were K.G. Gupta and Syed Hussain Bilgrami.
In Calcutta, the Governor-General remained head of the Government of India and now was more
commonly called the Viceroy on account of his secondary role as the Crown's representative to
the nominally sovereign princely states; he was, however, now responsible to the Secretary of
State in London and through him to Parliament. A system of "double government" had already
been in place during the Company's rule in India from the time of Pitt's India Act of 1784. The
Governor-General in the capital, Calcutta, and the Governor in a subordinate presidency (Madras
or Bombay) was each required to consult his advisory council; executive orders in Calcutta, for
example, were issued in the name of "Governor-General-in36
37

Robin J. Moore, "Imperial India, 18581914, Oriental Publications, New Delhi, 2005" pp 422-446

Ibid, p. 424
Judith Margaret Brown, Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy, Oxford University Press, New Delhi,
1998,p. 96
39
Moore, "Imperial India, 18581914", p. 426
38

19

The Government of India Act, 1858

"double government" had its critics, since, from the time of the system's inception, there had been
intermittent feuding between the Governor-General and his Council; still, the Act of 1858 made
no major changes in governance. However, in the years immediately thereafter, which were also
the years of post-rebellion reconstruction, Viceroy Lord Canning found the collective decision
making of the Council to be too time-consuming for the pressing tasks ahead, so he requested the
"portfolio system" of an Executive Council in which the business of each government department
(the "portfolio") was assigned to and became the responsibility of a single council member.
Routine departmental decisions were made exclusively by the member, but important decisions
required the consent of the Governor-General and, in the absence of such consent, required
discussion by the entire Executive Council. This innovation in Indian governance was
promulgated in the Indian Councils Act 1861.

If the Government of India needed to enact new laws, the Councils Act allowed for a
Legislative Council an expansion of the Executive Council by up to twelve additional
members, each appointed to a two-year term with half the members consisting of British
officials of the government (termed official) and allowed to vote, and the other half,
comprising Indians and domiciled Britons in India (termed non-official) and serving only in
40

an advisory capacity . All laws enacted by Legislative Councils in India, whether by the
Imperial Legislative Council in Calcutta or by the provincial ones in Madras and Bombay,
required the final assent of the Secretary of State in London; this prompted Sir Charles Wood,
the second Secretary of State, to describe the Government of India as "a despotism controlled
from home". Moreover, although the appointment of Indians to the Legislative Council was a
response to calls after the 1857 rebellion, most notably by Sir Sayyid Ahmad Khan, for more
consultation with Indians, the Indians so appointed were from the landed aristocracy, often
41

chosen for their loyalty, and far from representative . Even so, the "... tiny advances in the
practice of representative government were intended to provide safety valves for the
42

expression of public opinion, which had been so badly misjudged before the rebellion ".
Indian affairs now also came to be more closely examined in the British Parliament and more
43

widely discussed in the British press .

40

Metcalf, Barbara Daly; Metcalf, Thomas R. (2006), A concise history of modern India, Cambridge University
Press p. 196
41

Douglas M. Peers, India Under Colonial Rule: 1700-1885, Pearson Education, Canada, 1993 p. 76
Bayly, C. A., Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (The New Cambridge History of India),
Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press.1990, P 195
43
Douglas M. Peers, India Under Colonial Rule: 1700-1885, Pearson Education Canada,1990, p. 72
42

20

Council" (i.e. the Governor-General with the advice of the Council). The Company's system of

The Government of India Act 1919 (9 & 10 Geo. 5 c. 101) was an Act of the Parliament of
the United Kingdom. It was passed to expand participation of Indians in the government of
India. The Act embodied the reforms recommended in the report of the Secretary of State for
India, Edwin Montagu, and the Viceroy, Lord Chelmsford. The Act covered ten years, from
1919 to 1929.
The Act received royal assent on December 23 1919. On the same day the King-Emperor
issued a proclamation which reviewed the course of parliamentary legislation for India and
the intent of the act:
"The Acts of 1773 and 1784 were designed to establish a regular system of administration
and justice under the Honourable East India Company. The Act of 1833 opened the door for
Indians to public office and employment. The Act of 1858 transferred the administration from
the Company to the Crown and laid the foundations of public life which exist in India to-day.
The Act of 1861 sowed the seed of representative institutions, and the seed was quickened
into life by the Act of 1909. The Act which has now become law entrusts the elected
representative of the people with a definite share in the Government and points the way to full
responsible Government hereafter".
The Act provided a dual form of government

44

(a "dyarchy") for the major provinces. In each

such province, control of some areas of government, the "transferred list", were given to a
Government of ministers answerable to the Provincial Council. The 'transferred list' included
Agriculture, supervision of local government, Health and Education. The Provincial Councils
were enlarged.
At the same time, all other areas of government (the 'reserved list') remained under the
control of the Viceroy. The 'reserved list' included Defence (the military), Foreign Affairs,
and Communications.
The Imperial Legislative Council was enlarged and reformed. It became a bicameral legislature
for all India. The lower house was the Legislative Assembly of 144 members, of which 104 were
elected and 40 were nominated and tenure of three years. The upper house was the Council of
States consisting of 34 elected and 26 nominated members and tenure of five years.

44

Lionel Curtis, Papers Relating to the Application of the Principle of Dyarchy to the Government of India:
To which are appended the Report of the Joint Select Committee and the Government of India Act, 1919,
Clarendon Press

21

Montague-Chelmsford Reforms (Government of India Act, 1919)

Indians had increasingly been demanding a greater role in the government of their country
since the late 19th century. The Indian contribution to the British war effort during the First
World War meant that even the more conservative elements in the British political
establishment felt the necessity of constitutional change, resulting in the Government of India
Act 1919. That Act introduced a novel system of government known as provincial "dyarchy",
i.e., certain areas of government (such as education) were placed in the hands of ministers
responsible to the provincial even for those areas over which they had gained nominal
control, the "purse strings" were still in the hands of British officialdom.

The intention had been that a review of India's constitutional arrangements and those princely
states that were willing to accede to it. However, division between Congress and Muslim
representatives proved to be a major factor in preventing agreement as to much of the
important detail of how federation would work in practice.

Against this practice, the new Conservative-dominated National Government in London

decided to go ahead with drafting its own proposals (the white paper). A joint parliamentary
select committee, chaired by Lord Linlithgow, reviewed the white paper proposals at great
length. On the basis of this white paper, the Government of India Bill was framed. At the
committee stage and later, to appease the diehards, the "safeguards" were strengthened, and
indirect elections were reinstated for the Central Legislative Assembly (the central
legislature's lower house). The bill duly passed into law in August 1935.

As a result of this process, although the Government of India Act 1935 was intended to go
some way towards meeting Indian demands, both the detail of the bill and the lack of Indian
involvement in drafting its contents meant that the Act met with a lukewarm response at best
in India, while still proving too radical for a significant element in Britain.
The significant features of the Act

45

included formation of All India Federation based on a

Union of the British India Provinces and the Princely States, a bicameral federal legislature
with disproportionate weightage to the States, Dyarchy at the Centre with important

45

http://www.houseofdavid.ca/Ind_uni.htm#Shah1937

22

Government of India Act, 1935

Governor-General retained special control (Special Responsibility) over the other subjects
transferred to the elected members and was to act under the control and directions of the
Secretary of State.
The Act provided for withdrawal of Dyarchy from the Provinces and Provincial Autonomy
was introduced, thus providing for responsible government in all of the 11 provinces
including Sindh

46

and Orissa (newly created by this Act itself).

The Government of India Act (1935), provided for division of the legislative powers between
the provincial and central legislature.
Three fold divisions of legislative powers were made. The Federal list under exclusive power
of the Federal Legislature included matters, such as, external affair, currency and coinage,
defence, census.
The Provincial list under exclusive jurisdiction of Provincial legislature included, police,
provincial public service, education etc. The Concurrent list consisted of matters over which
both the Federal and Provincial legislature had competence to legislate.
Moreover, the executive authority of a Province was also exercised by a Governor on behalf
of the Crown and not as a subordinate, to the Governor-General.
The Governors were also given special powers as they could veto legislative action and
legislate on their own in matters like law and order, interests of minorities the people of
backward areas, the protection of the British commerce and those of the rulers of the Princely
States.
The federal principle was introduced but the Centre was vested with more power. However,
the Provinces enjoyed many powers that were not a subordinate authority.
The federal character, however, was seriously distorted by the provisions of safeguards and
special responsibility which gave extraordinary powers to the Central and Provincial
executive heads.
Moreover, the goal of Dominion Status still remained a distant dream. The restricted adult
franchise based on property qualification (14% of population in British India), the system of

46

The making of Pakistan, available at http://www.storyofpakistan.com/articletext.asp?artid=A041

23

departments like defence, foreign affairs, ecclesiastical affairs etc. under reserved list. Further

The Congress rejected the Act because the Indian people were not consulted in its enactment
and thus not being representative of their will.
The liberals criticized the Act but were willing to work the reforms as a step towards
responsible government. The Muslim League also criticized the Act but was ready to give it a
trial.

The Indian Independence Act, 1947

Till 1947, the Government of India functioned under the provisions of the Government of
India Act 1919 as the provisions of 1935 Act relating to federation and Dyarchy did not come
into operation. Thus, the Executive Council provided by the 1919 Act continued to advise the
Governor-General till 1947. The 3rd June plan was given effect by the Indian Independence
Act 1947. This Bill was introduced in the British Parliament on July 4, 1947, and on 18th
July, got the royal assent. India had won her freedom but the price was partition. The
dominion of Pakistan was inaugurated in Karachi on 14th August, 1947. India became free
on 15th August, 1947. Lord Mountbatten was sworn in as the Governor-General. He swore in
Jawahar Lal Nehru as the first Prime minister of free India. Mohd. Ali Jinnah became the
Governor General of Pakistan. The June 3rd plan said nothing about princely states. The
British Prime Minister Clement Atlee had announced in his speech of 20th February 1947
that Britain would not hand over power and obligations to any successor government. In
theory, this meant that the states would become sovereign entities when the British left India.
The Indian Independence Act 1947

47

said that British rule over the Indian states was to lapse

on 15th August, 1947, they were allowed to join either India or Pakistan. The provisions of
the Indian Independence Act 1947 were as follows:
(a) It declared India as an Independent and Sovereign state and brought to an
end the responsibility of the British Parliament for administration of India.
(b) It established responsible government at both the centre and the provinces.
It designated the Governor-General of India and the Provincial Governors as

47

Dr. Durga Das Basu, Introduction to the Constitution of India, Oxford Publications, New Delhi, 1990.p.258

24

separate electorates the provisions of safeguards were not in conformity with the democratic
rights of the people.

on the advice of the respective council of ministers.

(c) It assigned dual functions (i.e. constituent and legislative) to the
Constituent Assembly formed in 1946. It declared this dominion legislature as
a sovereign body.
The Indian Independence Bill was passed by the British Parliament on 15th July,
1947 and it received the royal assent of 18th July. British Control over India ended on
15th August, 1947.
The Indian Constitution was adopted on 26th November, 1949 and it came into
effect on 26th January, 1950 thus ending the 250 years of British Rule in India.

25

constitutional heads (nominal heads). In other words, it made them to act

The British Rule in India was one of the consequences of the colonization boom that had
spread across Europe and it helped England gain supremacy over the other European nations.
We can also see in this project how the relations between several European nations impacted
what the British did in India, and how things took turns- why the Portuguese, Dutch or
French could not gain supremacy.
The timeline states an inevitable fact even the British had not expected to rule India at first.
The East India Company was formed for merely trading activities over the East Indies, and
not to rule over territory. That is why we can see no Indian administration through the
th

Charters of the 17 century, like the Charter of 1600. The administrative aspect of the British
came only after the advent of the 18

th

century, where we can see the government being run

by the British. This was mainly possible because of the complacent nature of the Indians, the
Mughals being weak, and the other princely states being in dispute with each other.
Not only the Mughals, the English could penetrate the South in totality too, because the
Southern rulers had become weak too, whereby the Nizam of Hyderabad and the Kings of
Vijayanagara had not excelled in their foresight of being thrown away by the Englishmen.
Overall, British administration did both good and bad.
The good side is that the British had injected the western system of educational mechanism
into India, where India had the tool to compete with the world, with their history of being the
best intellectuals all over the world. Science and Technology progressed through a different
form, and many social evils all throughout India got erased like Sati, Untouchability etc.
The British administration and their different phases has taught India a lot and India still
follows the systems backbone till date, whereby they already had readymade frameworks of
law and administration when the world was writing them all over again.

26

Conclusion

Books:
1. A History of Modern India, 1410 1950, Claude Markovits, Anthem Press
2. Justice System and Mutinies in British India, H.S. Bhatia, Deep and Deep Publications

3. India and South Asia: A Short History, David Ludden, Oneworld Publications
4. Modern India: The Origins of an Asian Democracy, Judith Margaret Brown, Oxford
University Press
5. From Plassey to Partition: A History of Modern India, Sekhar Bandhyopadhyay,
Orient Longman Publishing
6. India Under Colonial Rule: 1700-1885, Douglas M. Peers, Pearson Education Canada
7. Ideology and Empire in the Eighteenth Century India, Robert Travers, Cambridge
University Press
8. A Rule of Property for Bengal: An Essay on the Idea of the Permanent Settlement,
Durham, NC: Duke University Press
9. Metcalf, Barbara Daly; Metcalf, Thomas R. (2006), A concise history of modern
India, Cambridge University Press
10. Marshall, P. J. (1987), Bengal: The British Bridgehead, Eastern India, 17401828,
Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press
11. Bose, Sumit (1993), Peasant Labour and Colonial Capital: Rural Bengal since 1770
(New Cambridge History of India), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University
Press
12. Tomlinson, B. R. (1993), The Economy of Modern India, 18601970 (The New
Cambridge History of India, III.3), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University
Press
13. Spear, Percival (1990), A History of India, Volume 2, Penguin Publishers
14. Robin J. Moore, "Imperial India, 18581914
15. Bayly, C. A. (1990), Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (The New
Cambridge History of India), Cambridge and London: Cambridge University Press
16. Introduction to the Constitution of India- Dr. Durga Das Basu

27

Bibliography

Statutes:
1. Imperial Gazette of India
2. Government of India Act, 1858
3. Government of India Act, 1919

28

4. Government of India Act, 1935

5. Interpretation Act, 1889
Papers:
1. Lionel Curtis, Papers Relating to the Application of the Principle of Dyarchy to the
Government of India: To which are Appended the Report of the Joint Select
Committee and the Government of India Act, 1919, Clarendon Press
2. Meetika Srivastava, Evolution of the System of Public Administration in India from
the Period 1858- 1950: A Detailed Study Highlighting the Major Landmarks in
Administrative

History

Made

During

this

Period,

available

at

http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1482528
Online Articles:
1. http://www.britishempire.co.uk/forces/armycampaigns/indiancampaigns/mutiny/muti
ny.htm

2. The
making
of
Pakistan,
http://www.storyofpakistan.com/articletext.asp?artid=A041

available

at

3. http://www.houseofdavid.ca/Ind_uni.htm#Shah1937
4. Kaul, Chandrika. "From Empire to Independence: The British Raj in India 18581947"
available

at

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/modern/independence1947_01.shtml

accessed 27th February 2014 10:28AM