No More Learning

The effect of this announcement was startling. In the first place
it dramatically confirmed the hopes of those who aspired for India's
equality with the self-governing dominions, thus suddenly enlarging
the scope of “legitimate” aspirations. But in the second place it
threw the apple of discord into the Nationalist camp. The moderate
party, after being temporarily submerged beneath the domination of
the left wing, found in the declaration a long-sought battle-cry. The
extremists in their turn were heartened by what they regarded as
merely the firstfruits of intensive agitation, and prepared to exploit
their control over the impressionable youth of the educated classes.
Thirdly, the Muhammadan community, already disquieted by the
misfortunes of Turkey, saw in the declaration at once a triumph of
Hindu ideals, and a threat to themselves. The “political" section lost
ground; communal tension grew, and a serious breach between
Hindus and Muslims shortly developed. The visit of the secretary of
state to India, which called forth a flood of separate memorials and
representations, increased the sectional spirit already prevailing.
In the midst of all these currents and cross-currents came the war
crisis of 1918. For the moment discord ceased, and the old unanimity
of feeling was in some measure restored. But long before the dissen-
sions really healed, the armistice intervened. Peace found India
united indeed, so far as the war effort was concerned, but divided on
every other ground, and fiercely discussing the merits and demerits
of the Montagu-Chelmsford Report. The terrible influenza epidemic,
which accounted for more victims in India alone than had perished
in four years of world war, cast a sombre shadow over the scene of
victory. Economic dislocation, now become serious, was causing deep
distress to the masses. The educated classes were but little happier.
Their political horizon had, indeed, enlarged, but they felt themselves
disappointed of their hopes. They were distracted by conflicting pro-
grammes, perplexed by divergent ideals. Their country had been set
upon the path of dominion status; their representatives had found
admission to the innermost councils of the empire in the war cabinet
and the imperial conference. The old stigma upon Indian military
prowess had been removed by admitting Indian gentlemen to king's
commissions in the army. A territorial force and a university training
corps were being organised to give the lie to the charge that England
had “disarmed and emasculated ” India. Yet the millennium had not
come to pass. The alien was still master in their country. What was
left to them but agitation, agitation and yet more agitation?
As succeeding years were to prove only too plainly, the closing
scenes of the world war brought to India, despite all her sacrifices in
the cause of victory, not peace, but a sword.


## p. 489 (#529) ############################################

CHAPTER XXVII
THE RELATIONS OF THE GOVERNMENT OF
INDIA WITH THE INDIAN STATES, 1858-1918
The relations of the Government of India with the Indian states
offer questions of extraordinary difficulty for the historian, especially
in the period covered by the present chapter. The position at the
outset in 1858 is full of ambiguities, the available information is most
imperfect, and the existing treatises either confuse arguments drawn
from treaty-rights with others drawn from moral considerations or
attempt to show that the relations ought to have been international
in character as between independent European states. Lee-Warner's
well-known volume, The Native States of India, an admirable exposition
of the government's standpoint about 1900, is an outstanding example
of the first; and Nicholson's Scraps of Paper, a characteristic specimen
of the second. Both are concerned rather to prove a case than to lay
bare and analyse the facts.
Indeed from the beginning the facts are strangely elusive. In what
did the paramountcy of the Company consist and what were its
foundations? The enquirer of 1858 would have found that within
seven-eighths of the 600 odd states with which the Company's govern-
ment was in actual or potential contact, its relations were not and had
never been defined. All these states were tiny and many of them
insignificant. No treaty or agreement had ever been necessary. They
lay under the shadow of their great neighbour, and carried out such
orders as they might receive from it. Nor did their existence represent
any new phenomenon in Indian politics. Every Indian conqueror
had found himself embarrassed by the difficulties of administering the
great extent of India, and had always left more or less undisturbed
great numbers of local chiefs who thus fell into dependence without
ever undergoing the rigours of conquest. Their position had always
depended on the attitude and might of the dominant power; and
what they had been under the Moghul emperor they continued to be
under the East India Company.
With the remaining eighth the Company's relations had once been
defined by a series of treaties. The contents of these documents varied
a
greatly. One class—the treaties with Baroda, with Mysore, with Oudh
-gave the Company wide powers of interference in the internal
affairs of the state, besides transferring to the Company the control
of external relations. Since the occasions of interference would
assuredly be selected by the Company and not by the state, such


## p. 490 (#530) ############################################

490 RELATIONS OF GOVERNMENT WITH STATES
princes were undoubtedly dependent. With a second class—the
Rajput states, for example-treaties had been made vesting in the
Company the whole control of external relations, entitling it to de-
mand in he event of war the whole resources of the states, but stipu-
lating at the same time that the princes should be absolute rulers
within their own territories. Chiefs so bound clearly enjoyed nothing
like international status, but equally clearly retained wide sovereign
powers which according to the letter of the treaty they could exercise
as they pleased. A third class is illustrated by the Nizam of Hydera-
bad, who originally entered into treaties with the Company on at
least equal terms. At the close of the century, however, he was reduced
by his inferiority of power, especially as compared with his Maratha
neighbours, to accept the Company's military protection, in return
for which he surrendered control of his foreign policy, and engaged if
necessary to assist the Company with a specific (not unlimited) force.
No clause in his treaties deals with the matter of his internal au-
thority, which when the earlier treaties were concluded was regarded
as unquestionable.
These treaties all have one peculiarity
which marks them out from
most of the documents familiar to the European diplomatist. Most
European treaties relate to states not indeed of equal power, but of
equal rank. They rarely cede any element of sovereignty. Territory
may be neutralised and guaranteed, a succession may be guaranteed,
even in the case of Greece a constitution may be guaranteed. But
even in the last case which went near in principle to the Indian
treaties, the sovereignty of the guaranteed constitution remained un-
impaired. The nearest European parallel seems to be offered by the
treaties which Prussia concluded with the other German states after
defeating Austria in 1866. But time was not given to develop these
agreements as time developed Indian agreements. But no prince can
accept a foreign garrison, which remains under the orders of a foreign
state and constitutes the only reliable military force in his dominions
(and this was the case with the Nizam), without losing a great deal
more than the control of his foreign policy. Whatever his treaties may
declare, he has ceased to be master in his own house, and the effects
of such agreements must in fact always prove extensive, however
moderate their actual terms may be, for the prince's sole remedy is to
denounce his treaties, engage in a desperate war, and place himself
yet more completely at the mercy of the other party than he was
before. What was true of the Nizam was a fortiori true of the other
princes who passed more formally under the Company's tutelage. In
fact, while European treaties have normally constituted a settlement
of past questions, the Indian treaties much more often have formed
a point of departure; the first have generally recognised and defined
existing conditions, while the second have by their very signature
created a new situation. In form the relations between the Company


## p. 491 (#531) ############################################

THE COMPANY'S PARAMOUNTCY
491
9
and the Indian states seem to follow the international practice of
Europe; but in substance they follow much more closely the lines of
a constitutional development. This confusion of form and substance,
of theory and practice, has produced many of the uncertainties and
difficulties with which the study of the subject is beset. Again, the
language of the treaties is often inconsistent. The Gaikwar's treaty of
1817, regarding an exchange of territory with the Company, speaks
of the transfer “in sovereignty”. One might suppose from this that
the Gaikwar enjoyed sovereign status in the Company's eyes. A letter
from the governor of Bombay in 1841, even explicitly acknowledges
the Gaikwar to be "sole sovereign” of his territories. But this view is
scarcely reconcilable with the fact that the Company not only
managed his external relations, but possessed a formal right of inter-
ference when it judged proper in his internal management and a
formal right of being consulted in the choice of his principal minister.
Such controlled powers amount to something appreciably lower than
sovereign status. In these circumstances a wide latitude of inter-
pretation had been introduced. In the Company's eyes one funda-
mental purpose of the treaties had always been the protection of the
respective states, usually undertaken by the Company on specific
financial conditions. Financial disorder within a state would therefore
threaten to undermine a vital condition of the promised protection,
and was normally held by the Company's government to justify
interference alike when the treaty was silent on the point of internal
management and when it contained an express stipulation against
interference. Again, in some cases the Company had specifically
agreed to protect the prince not only against external attack, but also
against rebellion. Such obligations were considered to involve a right
of internal interference whatever might be the other provisions of the
treaty in question. Frequently we find the Company's government
following the practice of advising certain princes on the choice of their
chief minister, at Baroda, for instance, where it was a treaty right, and
at Hyderabad, where it was not. After about 1834 also the Company
made a practice of insisting that no succession should take place
without its sanction and approval. The ground for this would seem
to consist, not in any inheritance from the Moghul Empire which
indeed the Company never claimed, but in the need of securing the
succession of rulers who would not persistently evade their treaty
obligations.
However, in this matter of constructive rights claimed under the
treaties, there had been little uniformity of policy. The attitudes of
successive governors-general might differ completely. Dalhousie, for
instance, was rigidly consistent in his view that the treaties should be
observed to the letter. When urged, for example, by the resident at
Hyderabad to interfere actively in the Nizam's internal administra-
tion, he repudiated wholly the doctrine that the Government of India


## p. 492 (#532) ############################################

492 RELATIONS OF GOVERNMENT WITH STATES
was responsible for the good administration of the state. But this
strict stand upon the treaties was singularly dangerous to the states
themselves. Many states were financially mismanaged, and the
financial clauses always were precise. States which had been created
by force of the Company's arms, states which had been conquered
and regranted, states which had been dependent on the Peshwa when
the Peshwa was overthrown by the Company, were restricted from
adoption in case of a failure of natural heirs either by the explicit
clauses of their treaties or by the traditional need of sanction which
the Company inherited with the Peshwa's other political rights. The
net result was that the position of the Indian states was reduced by
those who desired above everything to avoid annexation, while their
very existence was threatened by those who adopted as their guide
strict diplomatic right.
The position in 1858 was therefore exceedingly indefinite. Beside
the rights vested by treaty in the Company, there had arisen under
no sanction but that of superior power on the one side and reluctant
acquiescence on the other a body of precedents relating to successions
and to interference in the internal administration of the states.
Together these constituted the Company's paramonintcy, undefined,
undefinable, but always tending to expand under the strong pressure
of political circumstances. The process, as has already been suggested,
was a constitutional, not a diplomatic development. The princes who
in the eighteenth century had been de facto sovereigns but de jure
dependents, had become de facto dependents though possessing treaties
many of which recognised them as de jure sovereigns.
The change of government in 1858 offered a great opportunity for
the removal of these anomalies. What was needed was discussion and
definition. But the need seems to have been completely overlooked.
At a moment when it was the fashion to describe the Indian states as
breakwaters on which the Mutiny had dashed in vain, it would have
seemed perhaps unwise, certainly ungracious, to insist on the princes'
formal recognition of the changes that had taken place after the earlier
treaties had been made, and to define precisely their position and
obligations. No attempt was made to simplify the ambiguities of the
situation. The treaties were confirmed en bloc, first in the new Govern-
ment of India Act, and then in the proclamation announcing the
policy which the crown would follow. This meant plunging yet deeper
into the embarrassment arising from the inexperience of early nego-
tiators and the looseness of oriental political terms. The dilemma
remained unsolved. The representatives of the crown, like the repre-
sentatives of the Company, would have to choose between giving
treaties a literal effect (which in the past had invariably led to mis-
government, disorder, and annexation) or giving them such a con-
1 Fraser, Memoir of J. S. Fraser, p. 291.
? But cf. Durand, Life of Sir H. M. Ďurand, 11, 222.


## p. 493 (#533) ############################################

THE CROWN'S PARAMOUNTCY
493
>
32
structive interpretation as would materially affect some of them, but
would at the same time promote the main purpose of all, the main-
tenance and protection of the states themselves, in a growing closeness
of union with British India.
The language of the early viceroys shows conclusively that they
never hesitated about the course they meant to follow. Canning
writes that the Government of India is not debarred
from stepping in to set right such serious abuses in a native government as may
threaten any part of the country with anarchy or disturbance, nor from assuming
temporary charge of a native state when there shall be sufficient reason to do so.
This has long been the practice. We have repeatedly exercised the power with
the assent, and sometimes at the desire, of the chief authority in the state; and it
is one which, used with good judgment and moderation, it is very desirable that
we should retain. It will indeed, when once the proposed assurance (against
annexation) shall have been given, be more easy than heretofore to exercise it. '
Canning's successor, Elgin, is equally explicit.
"If we lay down the rule”, he says, “that we will scrupulously respect the right
of the chiefs to do wrong, and resolutely suppress all attempts of their subjects
to redress their wrongs by violence,. . . we may find perhaps that it may carry
us somewhat far-possibly to annexation, the very bug-bear from which we are
seeking to escape.
In short, both Canning and Elgin assumed that the act and the
proclamation only confirmed the treaties in so far as they were actually
operative in 1858.
This assumption was accompanied by a measure that was more
welcome to the princes than any other that could have been devised,
except perhaps a decision to revert to the chaos of the eighteenth
century. “We desire”, ran the queen's proclamation of 1858, "no
extension of our present territorial possessions. ” This marks a great
contrast with the Company's later policy of abandoning no just and
honourable accession of territory”. The change was so important that
it was resolved to signalise it by a declaration of more than ordinary
solemnity. In the recent past several staics had been annexed under
claims arising from the "doctrine of lapse”, on a failure of natural
heirs. Such claims were for the future emphatically renounced. In
1860 a number of sanads, commonly known as “sanads of adoption"
were issued to the leading princes. The Hindu chiefs were informed
that adoptions on a failure of natural heirs would be recognised and
confirmed, and Muslim rulers that any succession which might be
legitimate according to Muslim law would be upheld. The significance
of this was that the
states were to be perpetuated as an integral part
of the Indian system. They were no longer mere transitory govern-
ments awaiting the political chances which would permit and justify
their gradual extinction. It is clear that neither this most formal
i Quoted ap. Lee-Warner, Native States of India, p. 164.
3 Walrond, Elgin's Letters and Journals, p. 423.


## p. 494 (#534) ############################################

494 RELATIONS OF GOVERNMENT WITH STATES
disavowal of annexationist policy nor its most scrupulous observance
could affect the individual rights of the princes. But it is equally clear
that the new policy afforded them a strong reason to acquiesce in con-
structive interpretations of their treaties, and so tended to strengthen
that element in their relations with the crown which was sanctioned
rather by usage and sufferance than by any documentary engagements.
The first and most general consideration suggested by a review of
the half-century following the Mutiny is that the abandonment of
annexation was in fact accompanied by an ever-growing closeness of
control from the time of Canning to the close of Curzon's administra-
tion. In part this development was less the result of conscious policy
than of changed conditions. The development of communications,
the building of railways, the construction of telegraph lines, and the
growth of the public press, accompanied by an ever-rising standard of
administration in British India itself, all made for an increased degree
of interference in the territories of the princes. Incidents which in the
Company's time would have passed unreported or only have become
known to the Government of India months after their occurrence,
came to its notice at once, when perhaps it was still possible to inter-
vene with effect, while the changing temper of the time converted
into “atrocities" actions which a former generation would have
contemplated with resigned regret. Interference would therefore
have increased in frequency even if the current view of political
obligations had remained quite unchanged. But the tendency was
strengthened by a growing disposition to extend the process of con-
structive interpretation. It will be most convenient first to illustrate
the actual policy followed by the Government of India, and then to
discuss the basis on which the policy was raised.
One new element emerged from the direct relations, established for
the first time in 1858, between the princes and the crown. "There is
a reality”, wrote Canning in 1860, “in the suzerainty of the sovereign
of England which has never existed before, and which is not only felt
but is eagerly acknowledged by the chiefs. "1 No personal loyalty
could be expected towards a corporation of merchants, despite the
qualities of their government and the characters of most of their
governors-general. But towards Queen Victoria it was expected.
- Allegiance to Her Majesty”,2 "loyalty to the British crown”,3 such
are the new phrases that appear. In a legal sense such terms had
much the same force as the "subordinate co-operation" of the earlier
documents. But the underlying sentiment had changed, and though
changes of sentiment cannot possibly alter legal rights they may
deeply affect political conduct. The princes were no longer looked
upon as rulers driven by force into an unequal alliance. They had
>
>
1
i Quoted ap. Lee-Warner, op. cit. p. 317.
2 Instrument of Rendition, Aitchison, Treaties.
3 See any of the sanads of adoption.


## p. 495 (#535) ############################################

THE QUEEN AND THE PRINCES
495
become members of the empire, and the new position was accepted
not unwillingly. The visit of the Prince of Wales to India in 1875 was
made by all but one notable state the occasion of eager demonstrations
of welcome; and when in the following year Lytton held his great
durbar to announce the queen's assumption of the title of Empress of
India, the leading Maratha prince rose immediately after Lytton's
speech to salute the queen under the old Delhi title-Shah-inshah
Padshah. 1 The Company had never attempted to bestow honours on
the princes. In its time the Nawab Wazir of Oudh had been en-
couraged to assume the independent title of Shah; but in form the act
had been his own. But now a change was made. Titles were bestowed.
In quite recent times the additional title of “His Exalted Highness
was conferred on the Nizam. In 1861 the order of the Star of India
was founded and bestowed on many of the leading princes. This was
a very different matter from the interchange of orders between crowned
heads. And while the obligation of loyalty to the crown has been
repeatedly and publicly asserted, it has also been repeatedly and
publicly admitted by the princes themselves. Even the modern
lawyer, seeking painfully to disentangle the legal rights and duties of
the princes from a mass of conflicting documents and questionable
practice, concludes emphatically that loyalty is owed, though he
would find it hard to justify his opinion save by a constructive inter-
pretation such as he so gravely reprobates. ? Relations in fact havecome
into being not envisaged in the treaties concluded by the Company.
In the field of external relations (until very recent times) less change
has appeared under the crown administration than in any other.
From the first the control of foreign relations was so essential to the
maintenance of a general peace and so indispensable an accompani-
ment to promises of external protection, that the treaties commonly
lay down the Company's right of control in unmistakable language.
Nor did the development of events produce here any general conflict
between the treaty rights and the political needs of the Government of
India. In the case of Kashmir however difficulties did arise. When
that territory was granted to Gulab Singh in 1846, the Pamirs in-
spired the government with no political terrors. The Russian advance
in Central Asia had been directed on and through Persia, and the
extension of Russian authority from Orenburg to Tashkent was as yet
undreamed of. Article 5 of the treaty with Gulab Singh therefore
merely declared that any disputes with neighbouring states were to
be referred to the arbitration of the British Government and that its
decision was to be accepted. Nor was any resident appointed to the
new state. A verbal promise is stated to have been given to Gulab
Singh that no such appointment should be made. This sounds
1 Roberts, Forty-one Years in India, 11, 97.
2 Sir Leslie Scott, ap. Report of the Indian Slates Commillee (1929), p. 73.
• Aitchison, op. cit. XI, 264.
* Panikkar, Gulab Singh, p. 132.


## p. 496 (#536) ############################################

496 RELATIONS OF GOVERNMENT WITH STATES
"
possible, since at that time the only disputes likely to possess political
importance were those which might arise with the still independent
Sikh power. The Russian movements towards the North-West Frontier
however introduced new problems and dangers. In 1873 Northbrook
was very anxious to appoint a permanent resident but at that time the
secretary of state was unwilling to overrule the objections of the state.
The measure, however, was decided on by Ripon and Hartington in
1884 and carried into effect in the following year on the death of the
old maharaja, Gulab Singh's son. 1 The claims put forward by the
state were that it was independent and “outside the Indian political
system”. ? The first of these was seemingly based on article i of the
treaty by which the territory was transferred “in independent
possession”.
3 The phrase is exceedingly vague, and is indeed more
applicable to private ownership than political dominion; and what-
ever meaning it may carry is limited by the unqualified assertion of
British supremacy in the last article. Any claim to independent status
does not seem justified by the language of the treaty; while the further
assertion seems entirely inconsistent with the article declaring that
British adjudication on all external disputes should be final. The
evidence on which Ripon and Hartington decided to appoint a
resident has never been published; but the political character of the
two men warrants the assumptions, (1) that they were not seeking a
pretext for extending British authority, and (2) that the evidence
before them appeared to them conclusive. It is in fact highly probable
that Russian agents were busy in Kashmir, although they may not
have been countenanced by the maharaja. So far the conduct of the
government appears unexceptionable. The published evidence re-
garding the remainder of the story is too slender to permit judgment
either way. In 1889 a quantity of correspondence reached the resident
by a very questionable channel, implicating the maharaja in Russian
intrigues. The Government of India, while refusing to take these
documents very seriously, “accepted the maharaja's resignation” and
set up a council of regency upon the ground of the maladministration
of the state. Their action certainly rested on mixed political and
administrative motives; and it seems unlikely that they would have
done anything but for the importance of the external issues involved.
As in the control of external relations, so also in the matter of
successions, the crown adopted in its entirety the position which the
Company had occupied. The sanads of adoption issued by Canning
in no way derogate from the claim that the Government of India is
entitled to determine all successions. The existing practice was con-
tinued. Every heir on his accession was installed by an agent of the
government; none was recognised as prince until he had been so
installed. “It is the right and duty of the British Government”, runs
i Parl. Papers, 1890, LIV, 231.
2 The British Crown and the Indian States, p. 85.
3 Aitchison, op. cit. XI, 264.
* Parl. Papers, 1890, LIV, 251 and 265.


## p. 497 (#537) ############################################

SUCCESSIONS
497
1
a dispatch of 1881, “to settle successions in subordinate native states.
Every succession must be recognised by the British Government, and
no succession is valid until recognition has been given. "1 The basis of
this claim certainly does not lie in text of any treaty. Lee-Warner
would relate it to the customary investiture under the Moghul and
the Peshwa, and the Company undoubtedly inherited the rights of
the latter, though not of the former. But this would cover the cases of
only a restricted number of minor chiefs. Another possible source
might be the idea universally prevalent in Moghul India that engage-
ments held good only for the lifetime of the parties concerned. In
1775 the majority of the Bengal Council had insisted on this as a
ground for forcing a new treaty on the young Nawab Wazir of Oudh;
and in 1803 Wellesley had sent to the new Nizam a formal declaration
a
that his treaties continued in force. But most of the treaties are
specifically extended by mention of heirs and successors. One must
conclude, therefore, that the claim originated in a constructive inter-
pretation of the treaties, reinforced, as time went on, by usage.
For a long time, too, the same attitude was adopted towards the
armies of the states. From the earliest times the military forces of
the princes had been regarded with suspicion or dislike. The first
sentiment was more prominent in the Company's days, when the
possibility of a hostile combination of the princes was a constant
preoccupation of the governors-general. At a later period the second
became more evident, on the general ground that excessive expendi-
ture on military purposes diverted funds from more beneficial em-
ployment. But while the Company's servants might often advise, they
seldom insisted on military retrenchment, and in this delicate matter
they kept in general closely to the letter of the treaties. Indeed, the
forces of the states were in general so irregularly paid, poorly organised,
and ill-equipped as to offer no serious danger after 1818. In one case
only was an Indian prince bound by treaty not to increase his armed
forces above a definite limit. In 1844, after the battle of Maharajpur,8
Sindhia had agreed in future to limit his troops (exclusive of the
contingent under British officers) to 9000 cavalry and infantry, and
200 artillerymen. In the 'sixties, however, Jayaji Rao Sindhia had
made a hobby of his state army. “The army was his idol; its discipline
his constant occupation; the only books with which he has any
acquaintance are those connected with drill and military pursuits. "'5
He had made a practice of enrolling men nominally as police but in
fact under military discipline, and keeping the whole continuously
assembled at his capital, Lashkar. In 1867 he was desired to disband
his military police as exceeding the force he was entitled to keep up,
and to refrain in future from maintaining masses of men at his capital.
i Parl. Papers, 1890-91, no. 392, p. 13.
: Op. al. p. 324.
3 Cf. vol. v, p. 579, supra.
• Aitchison, op. cit. iv, 80.
6 Daly, Memoirs of Sir H. D. Daly, p. 267.
• Thornton, Sir Richard Meade, p. 116; cf. Daly, op. cit.
CHIVI
32


## p. 498 (#538) ############################################

498 RELATIONS OF GOVERNMENT WITH STATES
>
But matters of internal management produced the most charac-
teristic illustrations of policy under the crown. In Alwar, a Rajput
state, a boy of thirteen succeeded to the gaddi in 1857. He fell so far
under the influence of Muslim ministers as to have agreed to marry
a Muslim lady. This so shocked the Rajput nobles of the state that
they rose in rebellion, drove out the Muslims, and set up a council of
regency. The change was recognised by the appointment of a political
agent to advise and assist the council. A little later the raja became
the head of a conspiracy to murder the president of the council and
expel the resident. In 1863 he was formally installed as ruler of the
state. But in 1870 he again provoked a rebellion against his authority.
Mayo, the governor-general, first attempted to settle matters by the
joint mediation of the raja of Jaipur and a British officer. When that
failed, he intervened decisively, superseding the raja's authority by
a board of management composed of the chief nobles of the state with
the British agent as the president. With Alwar there was a treaty of
1803, by which the Company became “guarantee. . . for the security
of his country against external enemies", and at the same time engaged
not to "interfere with the country” of the raja. 1 This seems to be the
most positive instance in which treaty terms have been overridden by
moral considerations.
In 1865 the raja of Jabwa, one of the “mediatised chiefs"2 of
Central India, was fined 10,000 rupees and deprived of his salute for
permitting a thief, who had robbed a temple founded by the chief's
mother, to be mutilated according to ancient Indian custom. One
hand and one foot were chopped off. 3 None of the"mediatised chiefs"
has powers of life and death. They must submit all sentences of death
or imprisonment for life to the local political agent for confirmation. 4
In 1867 the nawab of Tank was deposed, his son set up in his stead,
the salute reduced from seventeen guns to eleven, and the territory
of a dependent chief detached and placed directly under the local
political agent for complicity in an affray in which fifteen relatives
and followers of the dependent chief were shot down. The Tank
treaty of 1817 guaranteed the nawab's territorial possessions, but
contained no provision touching the internal administration.
In 1892 the khan of Kalat was obliged to resign and was replaced by
his son in consequence of having executed five women and a man, and
mutilated two other men "in a most brutal manner" in revenge for
a theft of money from his treasury, and for having “barbarously'
slain. his wazir and two members of the latter's family. ? The Kalat
treaty in force had been concluded in 1876. It declared that the
British Government would respect the independence of Kalat and
1 Aitchison, op. cit. II, 322.
Cf. vol. v, p. 571, supra.
3 Tupper, Our Indian Protectorate, p. 295. * Aitchison, op. cit. iv, 7.
6 Parl. Papers, 1871, L, 441 599:
6 Aitchison, op. cit. mi, 241.
? Forrest, Administration of Lord Lansdowne, p. 51.


## p. 499 (#539) ############################################

MALHAR RAO GAEKWAR
499
protect the state against external attack, but that the resident would
endeavour to compose any disputes that might arise between the khan
and his sardars, and that in these matters the khan would abide by
the decision of the British Government. 1
But the outstanding example of interference by the Government of
India was certainly the deposition of Malhar Rao Gaekwar in 1875.
As the procedure adopted was unusual, and as the action of govern-
ment has since been stated to have aroused the distrust of many of the
princes, the matter evidently deserves statement and discussion.
British relations with this prince had been distinguished by a long
series of troubles, intensified by the fact that in more than one instance
the intellects of the rulers had been notably unstable. Malhar Rao
succeeded to the gaddi at Baroda in 1870. His character even then
stood low. He was believed to have been concerned in an attempted
outbreak in Gujarat in 1857. He had been imprisoned in 1863 by his
brother and predecessor for attempting to clear his way to the gaddi
by poison. After his accession he had pursued the chief agents of the
late ruler with singular vindictiveness, not by judicial process, but by
extermination. They had been cast into prison, where they had perished
mysteriously. After three years of his rule the inhabitants of the state
were exhibiting such unrest that the Government of India appointed
a commission to enquire into the nature of his administration. The
commission consisted of three British officials and the late chief
minister of the Jaipur state, in whom both his late master and the
Government of India placed great reliance. The commission found a
state of general maladministration calling urgently for remedy.
Malhar Rao was then required to remove the principal evils disclosed
within a period of eighteen months. Unluckily at this time the Baroda
resident was a man wanting in acuteness and in tact, who certainly
made matters much more difficult for the Gaekwar than he need have
done. The viceroy, Lord Northbrook, was requested by Malhar Rao
to remove the resident, and informed at almost the same moment by.
the resident that Malhar Rao had tried to poison him. The resident
was replaced by an abler man, who found that no material progress
had been made towards introducing the needed reforms; and investi-
gations disclosed a primâ facie case which the law-advisers considered
would have warranted prosecution had the accused been an ordinary
citizen. It was therefore determined to arrest the Gaekwar, to assume
the temporary administration of the state, and to enquire further into
the alleged attempt to poison the resident. : A new commission was
appointed for this purpose. It consisted of the Chief Justice of Bengal,
another judge, one high political official, two ruling princes—Sindhia
and Jaipur-and Sir Dinkar Rao. This was as independent a body as
>
1 Aitchison, op. cit. XI, 215.
The British Crown and the Indian Slates, p. 71.
3 Parl. Papers, 1875, C. 1252, pp. 3 599.
32-2


## p. 500 (#540) ############################################

500 RELATIONS OF GOVERNMENT WITH STATES
1
the Government of India could well have selected. It would have
included three ruling princes instead of two, for Holkar was also
invited to serve; but that prince found himself unable to do so. He,
however, described the proposed commission as attesting "the for-
bearance and generosity of the British Government”, deserving
"universal applause”. ! These words were not, or at least should not
have been, insincere. The selection of judges on the one side, of Indian
princes on the other, marked in no uncertain way a desire that the
accusation against Malhar Rao should be fully and candidly con-
sidered. Years earlier the queen had expressed a desire that in disputes
with the Indian states some way should be found of acting so as to
“relieve the government agents from the fearful responsibility of being
sole advisers on steps implying judicial condemnation without trial”.
This view was now being put into action, and it is noteworthy that the
method adopted in 1875 is substantially the same as that laid down
for future use in 1921. All the commissioners, after hearing voluminous
evidence and the addresses of counsel, seem to have agreed that an
attempt had been made to poison the resident by two of the residency
servants who had been in communication with Malhar Rao. The
English half went farther and found the Gaekwar guilty; the Indian
half found the accusation not proven. In these circumstances the
Government of India decided to take no further action on the poisoning
charge; but it considered the presumptive evidence against Malhar
Rao so strong, when coupled with his gross mismanagement of the
administration, as to "make it impossible to replace him in power. . . .
In deference to the opinions and feelings of the native commissioners
we should do no more than depose him and his issue, and place him
under restraint in British territory”. 4 This was accordingly done.
A young member of the family was selected as Malhar Rao's successor,
and the administration of the state placed under a council of regency,
а
with a most distinguished Indian administrator, Sir Madhava Rao,
at its head. So far as the government's interference goes, the action
seems well within the provision of the treaties themselves. The engage-
ments of 1802, confirmed in 1805 and 1817, granted a right of inter-
vention "should I myself or my successors commit anything improper
or unjust”. It can scarcely be argued that the protected, not the
protecting, state was to be the judge of the occasion. Nor can the
provision of the treaty be deemed nullified by the language of the
Bombay governor in 1841 describing the Gaekwar as “sole sovereign"
in his territories. Such informal statements cannot be taken as signi-
fying more than the existing intention of the government not to
exercise its treaty rights to the full; nor did the state appear to under-
stand otherwise, for in 1856 the Gaekwar wrote to the resident, “This
.
· Parl. Papers, 1875, C. 1271, p. 90.
: The Queen to Sir Charles Wood, 23 July, 1859; Queen Victoria's Letters, m, 360.
• Parl. Papers, 1875, C. 1252, pp. 8 599.
Idem, p. 7.


## p. 501 (#541) ############################################

MANIPUR
501
government in every way is dependent on the governor-general”.
What is noticeable, here as elsewhere, is a deplorable laxity in regard
to treaties. Sometimes they were to be enforced up to the very limit of
constructive interpretation; sometimes (though rarely) government
chose not to exercise its full rights and allowed its agents to use
language quite at variance with the fundamental facts, thus greatly,
needlessly, unwisely increasing the ambiguous position of the princes
and multiplying the occasions of misunderstanding.
What seems in 1875 to have impressed the princes was, not the
authority claimed by the Government of India, but the moderation
with, which it was exercised. Holkar, in the letter cited above, dwells
on the satisfaction with which the decision to preserve, and not to
annex, the state was regarded by himself and his fellows. He had used
similar language to Daly, the resident, in 1874, saying, “The person
for the time being is little; the state with its rights is the point for
consideration”. In the Company's days, if precedents may be taken
as a guide, Baroda would have been annexed and the state ex-
tinguished. The same would have been the fate of the hill state of
Manipur. Thence in 1890 the raja was driven out. It had been the
custom to support the ruler's authority and definite promises had been
given to this effect. The home authorities had regarded this engage-
ment as of dubious propriety.
“The position, however,. . . imposes on you as a necessary consequence", the
Company wrote to the Government of India in 1852, "the obligation not only
of attempting to guide him by. your advice, but, if needful, of protecting his
subjects against oppression on his part, otherwise our guarantee of his rule may
be the cause of inflicting on them a continuance of reckless tyranny. "
The obligation had, in fact, proved onerous; and the expelled raja had
proved himself but an indifferent administrator. After a considerable
a
delay, government decided to recognise and confirm the new raja,
who was in fact the heir apparent, but to remove from the state the
turbulent and ferocious chief who had brought about the revolution.
But in attempting to effect this decision, the chief commissioner of
Assam, and four other officers were seized, one was speared, and the
rest were publicly beheaded. A strong British force was then sent;
the chief and the new raja were captured and executed for murder;
their acts were treated as acts of rebellion, not those of war; and the
state was continued in separate existence. Lee-Warner rightly em-
phasises the significance of the contrast between the annexation of
Coorg in 1834 and the naintenance of Manipur in 1891. 3 Neither
misgovernment nor attacks on the queen's forces and the murder of
her officers were considered now as warranting annexation.
A yet more remarkable illustration of the same policy was afforded
by the rendition of Mysore to Indian rule.