No More Learning

The
governor-general was directed to establish a legislative council in
Bengal and empowered to set up similar councils in the North-
Western Provinces and the Panjab when the time was ripe. Councils
were established in Bengal in 1862, in the North-Western Provinces
in 1886, and in the Panjab and Burma in 1898.
The legislative councils established by the act of 1861 were com-
mittees by means of which the executive government obtained advice
and help in legislation. While the government enacted the laws
through its council, the public had a right to make itself heard, and
the executive was able to defend its legislation. When the laws were
once made they were binding on the government as well as on the
public. They had been made in a manner which ensured publicity
and discussion and could only be changed by the deliberate and
public process by which they had been made. The councils could only
deliberate on the legislation immediately at issue. They could not call
for information on other subjects or impugn acts of the administra-
tion. 4
In the year 1870 there was a discussion 5 between Lord Mayo's
1 Hansard, CLXIII, 1016, 18 June, 1861.
2 Idem, p. 1027.
3 Ilbert, Digest, pp. 215-16, 566, para. 26, Wood's dispatch of 9 August, 1861.
4 See Report on Constitutional Reforms, 1918, p. 54.
5 See Accounts and Papers, 15, East India, 1876, LVI, 6-10.
5


## p. 237 (#273) ############################################

LEGISLATIVE CONTROL FROM LONDON
237
government and the Duke of Argyll, then secretary of state, the former
claiming that they had been endowed by section 22 of the 1861
Councils Act with legislative discretion which they should exercise to
the best of their judgment. The secretary of state could, of course,
disallow any law which they passed. They could not, however, be expected
to introduce any measure of which they disapproved.
Any other view would invest the Secretary of State with the character of the
legislator for British India and would convert the Legislative Council into a mere
instrument to be used by him for that purpose.
On 24 November, 1870, the duke replied that theoretical incon-
veniences were inseparably connected with the working of such a
machinery of government as t'iat through which the empire of India
was ruled from England, but these could in practice be reduced to
a minimum by mutual respect on the part of those concerned. One
great principle underlay the whole system. The final control and direction of
affairs in India rested with the Home Government. It made no real difference
if its directions related to legislative affairs. If the crown's interposition
were limited to a veto on acts passed in India, the queen's government
would be helpless to secure legislative sanction for any measures
however essential it might deem them to be, for the welfare or safety
of the Indian Empire. It followed, then, that this government must
hold in its hands the ultimate power of requiring the governor-
general to introduce a measure and requiring the members of the
Indian government to vote for it. This was the practice in all parts
of the queen's dominions where the authority of the legislative body
was not derived from the principle of popular representation. It
was a question of abstract right, not of ordinary procedure. It was
only necessary to bear in mind where the seat of ultimate authority
was placed in order to secure on both sides that fairness and modera-
tion without which no political constituțion could work with smooth-
ness and success. Lord Mayo's government on 1 February, 1871,
accepted this doctrine, as it defined a principle which they had never
intended to question; they were glad, however, to hear that the
ruling would not be applied to ordinary procedure but only “with
great deliberation and on the rarest occasions”.
The enlargements of the legislative councils in 1892, 1909 and 1919
are described in later chapters. Those of 1892 were made in response
to the demands of“ a limited but important section of Indian opinion
and established the fact of election to the councils by certain public
bodies; but the government nominated a majority of the members of
each council and maintained cfficial majorities on the ground that no
administration which did not possess sufficient power to carry out
whatever measures it considered to be for the public interest could
remain at the head of affairs among the different İndian nationalities. 1
* See Lord Dufferin's picture of the India of his day, Report on Constitutional Reforms,
1918, p. 117.


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238
THE INDIAN GOVERNMENTS
The Morley-Minto reforms were the first real breach in the system
of 1861. The king's proclamation of 2 November, 1908, had an-
nounced that “the principle of representative institutions which had
from the first been gradually introduced” would now be "prudently
extended”. The reforms conceded non-official majorities on the
provincial legislative councils composed mainly of elected members,
but also of persons nominated by the governments concerned. They
allowed any member to divide his council on financial questions and
all councils to discuss matters of public importance and to make re-
commendations to the executive governments. But on the imperial
legislative council the official majority was retained. This reservation
was justified by Morley on the ground that the new councils were not
designed to pave the way to the establishment of a parliamentary
system, a goal to which he would not "for one moment aspire”. But
by establishing non-official majorities on provincial legislative councils
and by admitting an Indian gentleman to a seat on the governor-
general's executive council, the core of authority in India, a step
which was taken, with some searchings of heart, on the viceroy's
recommendation, the way was prepared for further developments
which were to follow with unexpected rapidity under the pressure of
movements which are described in later chapters.
. . .
. . .
THE PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS
The following are now the major provinces of British India:
Province
Population (1921)
Madras . . .
42,300,000
Bengal . . .
46,700,000
United Provinces of Agra and Oudh 45,600,000
Bihar and Orissa
34,000,000
Bombay
19,300,000
Assam
7,600,000
Panjab . . .
20,700,000
Central Provinces and Berar
13,900,000
Burma . . .
13,200,000
The minor provinces are:
The North-West Frontier Province
2,250,000
British Baluchistan
422,000
Ajmer-Merwara
496,000
Coorg . . .
164,000
Andaman and Nicobar Islands
27,000
Delhi
486,000
Thus the total population of British territory in India is 247 millions.
I
Between the years 1858 and 1918 changes were made in the titles,
boundaries and governments of certain provinces originally without
any friction or difficulty, but on one occasion resented by a local
1 Morley, Indian Speeches, p. 92.
2 See Morley, Recollections, 11, 301-3.


## p. 239 (#275) ############################################

PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS
239
government and on another raising an unexpected but violent storm
of local fury.
Madras and Bombay remained under a governor in council
throughout. Distinguished by the traditions of their old independence
and by the presence of great seaports, they still retained some relics of
their original privileges. Each government could correspond directly
with the secretary of state if no financial considerations were involved.
Each could appeal to him against orders of the Government of India
and possessed full discretion in selecting men for important provincial
offices. Both were less liable to supervision than other provinces in
the administration of forests and land-revenue. In 1909, under the
Morley-Minto reforms, the executive council of the governor in each
was increased by the addition of an Indian member. In emergencies
the governor could overrule his colleagues, but ordinarily questions
were decided by majority votes.
Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Assam remained under one lieutenant-
governor until 1874, when Assam was constituted a separate province
and placed under a chief commissioner.
In the year 1905 Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and Assam were converted
by the ill-fated “Partition” into two provinces under lieutenant-
governors, one composed of Western Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, the
other of Eastern Bengal and Assam. In 1910 the lieutenant-governor
of Western Bengal was given an executive council of two British civil
servants and one Indian non-official.
In 1911 Lord Curzon's partition was set aside. The two new pro-
vinces became three. Bengal became the charge of a governor in
council; Bihar and Orissa were placed under a lieutenant-governor
in council; Assam was entrusted to a chief commissioner.
At the commencement of our period the present United
Provinces of Agra and Oudh were two provinces under separate
administrations. The Agra Province was known as the North-
Western Provinces and was under a lieutenant-governor. Oudh was
the charge of a chief commissioner. In 1877 the offices of lieutenant-
governor of the North-Western Provinces and chief commissioner of
Oudh were united in the same person. In 1902 the provinces were
named the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh in order to avoid all
confusion between their title and that of the then newly-created
North-West Frontier Province.
The chief commissioner of the Panjab became a lieutenant-
governor in 1859. In 1901 the frontier districts of the Panjab beyond
the Indus were formed into a separate charge under a chief com-
missioner and called the North-West Frontier Province.
The Central Provinces were formed in 1861 by combining the
Sagor and Narbada territories with the Nagpur territories in one
charge under a chief commissioner. Berar was placed under the same
· See Ronaldshay, Life of Lord Curzon, vol. 11, chap. viii. 2 Idem, chap. xxiv.


## p. 240 (#276) ############################################

240
THE INDIAN GOVERNMENTS
administration when, in 1902, it was leased in perpetuity to the
British by the Nizam of Hyderabad.
Lower Burma became the charge of a chief commissioner in
1860. In 1886 the kingdom of Upper Burma was added to it after
the third Burmese War, and the whole was called the province of
Burma. In 1897 the chief commissioner became a lieutenant-
governor.
The six minor provinces are under chief commissioners. The North-
West Frontier Province was carved out of the Panjab in 1901. British
Baluchistan was incorporated in British India in 1887. The Andaman
and the Nicobar Islands were united under a chief commissioner in
1872. The city of Delhi with a small area surrounding it was con-
stituted an "administrative enclave" under a chief commissioner in
1912 when the imperial capital was transferred there from Calcutta.
RELATIONS BETWEEN THE CENTRAL AND THE
PROVINCIAL GOVERNMENTS
The central government necessarily kept in its own hands functions
which concerned the whole empire. It also exercised financial,
legislative and administrative control over the provincial govern-
ments.
The Charter Act of 1833 had centralised the administration of the
country's finances in the hands of the Government o: India. The act
of 1858 vested the superintendence of the revenues and expenditure
of the country in the secretary of state in council. More than
£42,000,000 were added to the public debt by the troubles of 1857–8;
all branches of the administration needed reorganisation, and im-
provements of every kind were called for. An efficient system of
public accounts and strict financial control was absolutely necessary;
and James Wilson, financial secretary to the treasury, was dispatched
to India as member of the governor-general's council and lived just
long enough to lay the foundations of a system under which the
central government was to retain in its own hands an extensive
measure of financial control. Rules of great stringency were imposed.
But the central government possessed neither time nor knowledge
sufficient to exercise such far-reaching responsibility in many details
which should have been left to the discretion of local governments;
and much wrangling and waste of time resulted from these rigid
arrangements. For some years the central government, which was
itself subject to the secretary of state in all such matters as related
to borrowing, changes of taxation and general fiscal policy, main-
tained this meticulous control. But friction increased; and after
.
careful deliberation, a system of financial decentralisation was in-
augurated by Lord Mayo which was afterwards developed with
beneficial effect. Even at the end of our period, however, special


## p. 241 (#277) ############################################

METHODS OF CONTROL
241
revenues were assigned to each province by the central government,
and were shown with corresponding expenditure in the imperial
budget while each provincial budget required the approval of the
central government, whose sanction was requisite for proposals in-
volving large expenditure and the creation of posts. The responsi-
bility of that government to the secretary of state was firmly insisted
on. In 1907 Lord Morley appointed a Decentralisation Commission
to simplify relations between the central government and its sub-
ordinate and co-ordinate parts; but this body proposed no material
change in financial relations between the central and provincial
governments. The secretary of state himself continued to hold the
central government in strict financial subordination. He watched
the expenditure of Indian revenues “as the ferocious dragon of the
old legend watched the golden apples”. 1 Held in such rigid sub-
ordination, expected to keep down provincial charges, sharing in
provincial proceeds, controlling provincial taxation, the central
government could not effectively decentralise finance.
While legislating for British India, that government also controlled
provincial legislation. Local legislatures, however, made laws “for
the peace and good government” of their provinces on condition that
no such laws affected any act of parliament, or, without previous
sanction, any act of the governor-general's legislative council. They
could not, without the previous permission of the governor-general
in council, consider any law affecting the religion or religious rites
and usages of any class of British subjects in India, or regulating
patents or copyright, or affecting the relations of the government with
foreign princes or states. Their discretion was further curtailed by the
fact that the field open to them was largely covered by acts of the
imperial legislative council. That body still exercised its powers in
matters which were handled for all provinces on uniform lines such
as Penal and Procedure Codes, laws for prisons and police, for forests,
mines, factories and the preservation of the public health. Every
local act required the subsequent assent of the governor-general; and
local governments submitted all projects for legislation to the central
government and secretary of state for approval. Provincial legisla-
tures were still in theory expansions of the executive government for
the purpose of law-making. 2
Every provincial government was required to obey the orders of
the governor-general in council, and to keep him constantly and
diligently informed of its administrative proceedings and of all
matters which ought to be reported to him. He was required by
statute to control all its proceedings. The reasons for so much cen-
tralisation of authority are thus explained in the Montagu-Chelmsford
Report:
1 Morley, Indian Speeches, p. 46. • Report on Constitutional Reforms, 1918, p. 98.
• See section 45, Government of India Act, 1915 (which consolidated all previousstatutes).
CHIVI
16


## p. 242 (#278) ############################################

242
THE INDIAN GOVERNMENTS
It is easy to see that in many respects India is one single and undivided country,
in which much work must be done on uniform lines. The main Services which
execute the orders of provincial governments have been recruited from England
on terms guaranteed by the Secretary of State, with the result that many questions
affecting them cannot be determined by any provincial government. Again the
development of trade and industry and science throughout India has favoured the
tendency at headquarters to formulate and pursue a uniform policy. Business and
industry might be seriously hampered if (even with one law for India) the provinces
were left to administer such matters as statistics, patents, copyright, insurance,
income-tax, explosives or mining on different lines. Particularly in the more
scientific spheres—such as bacteriology, or agricultural and veterinary science-
advance has tended to concentration, because the expert services were much too
small to be organised on a provincial basis, and also because the experience and
resources of any one institution would not be fully used unless they were placed at
the disposal of the whole country. Moreover in the past the Government of India
have regarded themselves as distinctly charged with the duty of framing policy
and inspiring reforms for the whole of India. i
The central government, with the sanction of the secretary of state,
frequently appointed commissions of enquiry to report on such
questions of grave concern as famine, irrigation, police or education.
After consultation with provincial governments regarding recom-
mendations contained in the reports of such commissions the Govern-
ment of India formulated decisions which were often accompanied
by grants earmarked for the purpose of carrying out reforms. Such
reforms sometimes included the appointment of new advising or
inspecting officers at headquarters and then tended to encourage
interference with local discretion. In any case the report of a com-
mission enabled the central government to take careful stock of a
critical situation, and tr shape new policy.
The whole position was aptly summed up by Lord Morley's
Decentralisation Commission:
Among the important matters which the Central Government retain in their
own hands are those relating to foreign affairs, the defences of the country, general
taxation, currency, debt, tariffs, posts and telegraphs, railways and accounts and
auditing. Ordinary internal administration, police, civil and criminal justice,
prisons, the assessment and collection of the revenues, education, medical and
sanitary arrangements, irrigation, buildings and roads, forests and the control over
municipal and rural boards fall to the share of provincial governments. But even
in these matters the Government of India exercise a general and constant control.
They lay down lines of policy and test their application from the administration
reports and returns relating to the main departments under the Local Governments.
They also employ expert officers to inspect and advise upon a number of depart-
ments which are primarily administered by the Local Governments, including
Agriculture, Irrigation, Forests, Medical, Sanitation, Education, Excise and Salt,
Printing and Stationery, and Archaeology.
The control of the Government of India is, moreover, not confined to prescription
of policy and to action taken upon reports and inspections. It assumes more specific
forms. They scrutinise, and when necessary, modify the annual budgets of the
Local Governments. Every newly created appointment of importance, every
material alteration in service grades, has to receive their specific approval, and in
many cases reference to the Secretary of State is likewise necessary. . . . Moreover
1 Report on Constitutionel Reforms, 1918, p. 99.


## p. 243 (#279) ############################################

CENTRALISATION
243
1
the general conditions of Government Service, such as leave, pension and travelling
allowance rules, and the Public Works and Forest Codes are all strictly prescribed
by the Central Government, either suo motu or on instruction from the Secretary
of State. Lastly there is a wide field of appeal to the Government of India, as also
the Secretary of State, from persons who may deem themselves aggrieved by the
action of a Local Government.
The essential point to be borne in mind is that at present, even in matters pri-
marily assigned to the Provincial Governments, these act as agents of the Govern-
ment of India who exercise a very full and constant check over their proceedings.
Public policy and legislation were everywhere controlled by the
central government which was, in its turn, dominated by its re-
sponsibility to parliament through the secretary of state. Both policy
and laws were latterly much influenced by Indian councillors; but
the last word and the whole responsibility lay with the British govern-
ment. The basic principle was defined by Lord Dufferin:
It is absolutely necessary, not merely for the maintenance of our own power, but
for the good government of the country and for the general content of all classes,
and especially of the people at large, that England should never abdicate the supreme
control of public affairs, or delegate to a minority or a class, the duty of providing
for the diversified communities over which she rules. 1
Tradition and practice operated to demarcate "spheres of in-
fluence” for the central and the provincial governments, but the
demarcation was neither clear-cut nor legally recognised. As the
major provinces were really different countries, their governments
necessarily exercised considerable liberty in the management of
domestic affairs. Differences of opinion periodically arose as to the
lengths to which this libertyshould go. Provincial governors sometimes
complained of vexatious interference. 2 Lord Curzon, on the other
hand, complained in 1901 that in respect of educational policy the
local governments had become a “sort of heptarchy", and at another
time proposed to reduce Madras and Bombay to the status of pro-
vinces in the charge of lieutenant-governors. Yet no constitution can
work successfully in a sub-continent so vast and various as India which
does not concede a large degree of discretion to provincial rulers. The
best of these were willing to trust their executive officers; and they
were certainly justified in expecting a generous measure of confidence
from their own superiors. This, as a rule, they received; but we find
Lord Morley writing to Lord Minto on 15 July, 1909:
All that you say about lieutenant-governors fills me with sympathy, compre-
hension and holy rage. You have now three capable men below you, each of them
bent in a more or less quiet way on having his head, and each entitled to have his
views respectfully considered, and nine times out of ten probably right, but the
tenth time capable of bringing things into a dangerous mess. And then there is
the weak man, who is a greater nuisance than the strong uppish man. "
Lord Sydenham illustrates Morley's reluctance to rely on the con-
Lyall, Life of Dufferin, IT, 203:
? Life of Frete, 1, 441-2; Lord Sydenham, My Working Life, pp. 229-31, also 247,
· Ronaldshay, op. cit. 11, 57-60, 416.
* Morley, Recollections, 1, 263.
1
16-2


## p. 244 (#280) ############################################

244
THE INDIAN GOVERNMENTS
victions of responsible rulers in personal and daily touch with facts1
and realities. Morley certainly carried this feeling to excessive
lengths. A uniform policy which sets the time for all subordinates is
obviously necessary. But India is still the country of which Wood
said in 1853, "On nearly all sides I find that there is the greatest
difference between its various parts". Diversity of circumstances
renders general. conditions difficult to arrive at; and provincial rulers
who are not backward in pressing their convictions, even at the cost
of jarring on doctrines and theories conceived in a very different
atmosphere, are entitled to a full and unbiassed hearing. It is still
true that
there can be no successful government in India unless the fundamental fact of the
immense diversities of Indian countries and peoples be recognised, and each great
province be administered by its own separate government with a minimum of
interference from outside. ?
THE LAST WORD
We have seen the secretary of state growing in stature as years went
by, anxious at times to play an energetic part in the actual governing
of India, and reluctant to think that after all this must be the task of
the men on the spot. Throughout our period it was the central and
provincial governments who, working through the officers of the public
services among vast Asiatic communities split into thousands of
sections and possessed of traditions and usages of immemorial an-
tiquity, gave shape and living form to the policies of distant parlia-
ments and cabinets. It was they who brought India through the
supreme trial of more than four years of a world-wide war. It was
the governor-general in council who designed the arrangements of
1861, initiated the discussions which led to the constitutional changes
of 1892 and 1909, and suggested the momentous declaration of
20 August, 1917, although he did not frame its terms.
In Lord Birkenhead's words of 5 November, 1929, we find an
echo of the Duke of Argyll's dispatch of 1870.
“The authority and position of the secretary of state”, said the late holder of
that office, “are complementary of the authority and position of the viceroy.
Sometimes the special atmosphere in which the viceroy lives, or the wholly different
atmosphere in which the secretary of state lives, may be the corrective of a rash
impulse, whether that be formed in Delhi or in Whitehall. ”
Differences of opinion, he added, must sometimes arise between these
high authorities. With good will on both sides these were almost
invariably accommodated. The last word necessarily rested with the
representative of the cabinet and parliament of this country. It is
much to be regretted that so great a public servant as Lord Curzon
found it so hard to accept this obvious consideration. But only on
these terms can viceroys discharge their heavy and harassing re-
sponsibilities.
· My Working Life, p. 226. 2 Strachey, India, p. 64. • Hansard, Lords Debates.


## p. 245 (#281) ############################################

CHAPTER XIII
DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN BENGAL
1858–1918
The sixty years which followed the suppression of the Mutiny were
in Bengal years of rapidly increasing population, of growing wealth,
of expanding communications, of widely extending knowledge and
contact with Western ideas. In spite of a daily burden of increasing
case-work, district officers and their subordinates were constantly
called on to make fresh efforts in new directions, to push forward
education, vaccination, sanitary improvement, local self-government,
to throw all their energies into carrying out schemes devised by higher
authority. But before proceeding with the history of district adminis-
tration, we must observe the succession of changes which finally
transformed the old Lower Provinces (Bengal, Bihar, Orissa and
Assam) into the modern provinces of (a) Bengal, (6) Bihar and
Orissa, and (c) Assam.
The first of these changes was the transfer of Assam in 1874 from
the charge of the lieutenant-governor of Bengal to that of a separate
chief commissioner. The next in 1905 was the partition of Bengal,
Bihar and Orissa into two new provinces of Western Bengal, Bihar
and Orissa and Eastern Bengal and Assam. Each of these charges
was committed to a lieutenant-governor; and the lieutenant-governor
of the western province was from 1910 assisted by an executive council
which consisted of two British members and one Indian. In 1912
Assam was again handed over to a chief commissioner; Bihar a:d
Orissa were entrusted to a lieutenant-governor in council; and
Bengal was made over to a governor in council. Each executive
council consisted of two British members of the civil service and a
non-official Indian gentleman.
We have seen that from 1859 the magistrate-and-collector, or
district officer, once more became sole head of the district. The police
were his subordinates, although from 1861 they were managed and
disciplined by a British superintendent, often supported by an as-
sistant superintendent. These officers and their men belonged to a
provincial force which was presided over by an inspector-general and
two or more deputy inspectors-general with whom the district officer
constantly corresponded. He also conducted business with the
director of public instruction, with the opium agent, with the chief
engineer, and, as time went on and communications extended, with
the heads of other departments which gradually came into being,
such as excise, jails, sanitation, land records. He had long been
subordinate to a commissioner, but now was menaced by a variety of


## p. 246 (#282) ############################################

246 DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN BENGAL
masters. Such a state of affairs was likely to lead to overmuch corre
spondence, to neglect of the real work of administration and to loss
of touch with the needs of the people of his charge. Perceiving the
danger, George Campbell, lieutenant-governor from 1871 to 1874,
laid down emphatically the principle that heads of departments were
on no account to dictate to district officers, who within their charges
should, subject to the control of their commissioners, be supreme over
everyone and everything except the courts of justice. The police, who
were then their sole agency for all purposes connected with the peace,
,
order and conservancy of their districts, the regulation of public
assemblies and other administrative matters, must be employed with
discrimination. Campbell was anxious to devise some other sub-
ordinate agency which would relieve the police of such miscellaneous
duties as attention to the state of the roads; but he did not succeed
in an attempt to do this. There was in Bengal no village record system,
no collection of revenue by subdivisional Indian officials. It was,
therefore, impossible to find sufficient employment for a new sub-
ordinate executive establishment.
The great and growing city of Calcutta was not included in a
district, although it formed part of the charge of the commissioner of
the principal or presidency division. Its stamps and customs were
under the direct superintendence of the Board of Revenue. It
possessed a special police establishment under the control of a special
commissioner assisted by deputy commissioners. Criminal justice was
administered by five stipendiary magistrates, and by a municipal
magistrate appointed to try exclusively offences under the municipal
acts.
Honorary magistrates had been appointed in some districts of the
Lower Provinces in the year 1857 in order that the services and in-
fluence of land-holders and resident non-official Europeans might be
actively enlisted in support of the administration. Indigo planters in
Bihar had in that stormy time been authorised to raise small bodies
of police for the protection of their immediate neighbourhoods and
in command of these had done good service. In 1859, when the
Mutiny was over, Sir Frederick Halliday abolished honorary magis-
tracies; but their value had been proved and on the suggestion of the
Government of India, his successor, Sir John Peter Grant, appointed
forty-five honorary magistrates in Calcutta and forty-five more in the
mufassal or outlying districts. All of these were zamindars, European
planters, or other persons of position; they were generally invested
with power to try minor cases only, and nowhere exercised control
over the police. The system was extended in 1872-3 by Sir George
Campbell, and again in 1889 by Sir Stuart Bayley, with a view to
promoting habits of self-government. Benches of honorary magis-
trates were established in municipalities. Much good work was done
1 Buckland, Bengal under the Lieutenant-Governors, 1, 74.


## p. 247 (#283) ############################################

LAW COURTS AND THE BAR
247
by the honorary magistrates, and an accumulating burden of litiga-
tion was somewhat lightened.
Municipal boards and local cess committees, established at first
under strict official control with very limited powers, developed in
the 'eighties into municipal and district boards with wider responsi-
bilities, containing an official element and generally presided over by
district officers. Innovations transplanted from the West, they were
at first hardly appreciated or understood except in large centres of
population where municipal boards formed "an oasis of popular
control in the midst of an official system”, concerning themselves
with roads, schools, hospitals, sanitation and vaccination. The district
boards excited no popular interest partly perhaps because no attempt
was made to graft them on to the village “chaukidari” panchayats, or
councils of five, whose duties were still confined to assessment and
collection of the local police rate levied for payment of the village
chaukidars (watchmen).
Civil and criminal courts were subject to the jurisdiction of the
Calcutta High Court of Judicature which was established by letters
patent on 14 May, 1862, and took the place of the old Supreme Court
and the Company's “Sadr Adalat”. Small cause courts for the trial
of civil suits were set up in 1860 under judges, who in 1867 were
amalgamated with the “Principal Sadr Amins” and the munsiffs 2 in
a single provincial department, the higher grade of which was com-
posed of "subordinate judges”, and the lower of munsiffs. The district
and sessions judge presided over the civil and criminal courts of a
district; but the district officer was expected to watch and supervise
generally the proceedings of his subordinate magistrates. By Act X
of 1859, to which we shall refer later on, original jurisdiction in suits
between landlord and tenant was transferred from the civil courts to
the (revenue) courts of the collector and his assistants. But this
arrangement was cancelled by Act VIII of 1869 when suits for rent or
ejectment of tenants returned to the civil courts. Suits and cases, the
whole volume of work transacted by district establishments, increased
very greatly during our period, particularly in Eastern Bengal, and
led to proposals for the partition of certain districts which at first
excited little or no popular opposition.
But gradually there came a change. With a rapid extension of
communications, of intercourse with England, of Western education,
lawyers grew and multiplied. Local bars increased, developing not
only at district but at subdivisional headquarters. In Mymensingh,
for example, the local bar in 1872 consisted of fifty-two pleaders; in
1913 it mustered 403 pleaders and barristers, 384 mukhtars (law-
agents) and ninety-six revenue agents. The population of that district
indeed had almost doubled within the period; but legal business
would not have afforded a livelihood, adequate or inadequate, to so
1 Report on Constitutional Reforms, 1918, p. 104.
: Cf. chap. ii, supra.
>


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248 DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN BENGAL
many had it not been stimulated by a liberal employment of touts.
It incr-ased eno: mously; and the energies of district and subdivisional
officers were more and more confined to the business of trying cases.
District officers vere also oppressed by growing correspondence with
the various provincial departments. Not only were they prevented
from moving freely about their districts and becoming acquainted
sufficiently with actual conditions, but the quality of their work at
headquarters necessarily suffered. The eventual situation has been
faithfully described by one of their number, 2 who wrote in 1913:
As matters stand at present, we are neglecting the work which matters most
because neglect does not show; and in order that we may do the work which is
intrinsically of no greater importance, but which must have the preference because
it comes more immediately to the notice of the government. It is because the mass
of the people are so submissive to authority, and because they cherish an old belief
that the British government desires to do justice, that they do not make their voices
heard, when the district officer fails to secure them from such delay in obtaining
justice in the criminal courts as amounts to a denial of justice, because he has no
time to control the work of the courts; when the district officer fails to give them a
fair price for their homestead land acquired for a public purpose because he has
not time to control the work of the “Land Acqusition Deputy Collector". . . . None
of these defects come very prominently before the notice of government, because
the people do not often complain; but the cumulative effect of these omissions,
though slow, cannot fail to be far-reaching; and there is grave danger that the
effect may become more rapid, now that ill-disposed people have got to work to
persuade the masses that government does not care for their interests. 1
Partition or rearrangement of charges was the only effective remedy
for such a state of affairs, but involved considerable initial expenditure
of public revenues and for this reason excited adverse criticism. As,
too, every partition implied some disturbance of vested interests, some
apprehensions of loss of clients, some loss of custom to shops in
particular towns; as after 1905 the agitation against the partition of
Bengal struck a key-note which reverberated among the Hindu
educated classes in every town throughout the province; however
desirable a partition might be, it was always a signal for loud news-
paper protest. But we have carried this part of our narrative far, and
must return to the peaceful period which followed the Mutiny.
It was recognised then that no more time must be lost in providing
the Lower Provinces with improved communications, and that in
other to finance a satisfactory scheme local rates must be introduced.
The landlords, however, urged that when the permanent settlement
was concluded, they were informed that no demand would ever be
made on them, their heirs and successors, "for an augmentation of
the public assessment in consequence of the improvement of their
respective estates”. They were therefore not liable to pay road or
education cesses. The dispute was finally settled by the Duke of
Argyll, secretary of state, who ruled in 1870 that
rating for local expenditure is to be regarded, as it had hitherto been regarded in
all provinces of the empire, as taxation separate and distinct from the ordinary
1 Report of the Bengal District Administration Committee, 1913-14, p. 24.


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TENANCY LAW
249
land-revenue; that the levying of such rates upon the holders of land irrespective
of the amount of their land assessment involves no breach of faith on the part of
the government, whether as regards holders of permanent or temporary tenures;
and that where rates are levied at all, they ought, as far as may be possible, to be
levied equally without distinction and without exemption upon all holders of
property assessable to the rate.
Effect was given to this decision by the Road Cess Act passed in 1871,
which authorised the raising of a local rate or cess for the construction
and maintenance of roads and other means of communication, pre-
scribing a valuation of land and a registration of the holders of landed
interests. Landlords,lessees, mortgagees, sub-proprietors were required
to present returns of receipts, and were informed that only rents
returned would be realisable by process of law. Records and valua-
tions of all landed property liable for payment of the cess were pre-
pared. Cesses were to be spent entirely within the districts wherein
they were levied. 1
Tenants generally still suffered from the absence of any system of
registration of their rights and holdings. Act X of 1859, the first
tenant law passed for Bengal, Bihar and Orissa, named classes of
tenants whose rents were unalterable, and conferred a right of
occupancy on tenants who had held the same land for at least twelve
years, either personally or through predecessors from whom they had
inherited their holdings. It also limited the right of distraint which
till then had been exercised by landlords in a very arbitrary fashion.
a
But while doing these things, it failed adequately to secure the
occupancy rights which it created. It further failed to safeguard the
power which it conferred on landlords of enhancing occupancy rents
which fell below prevailing rates. Above all it made no provision for
any field-to-field survey, or for the preparation of records of rights.
Thus the tenants, and indeed any party to a case on whom lay a
burden of proot, still suffered from serious disabilities in law courts.
Tenants too were frequently shifted by their zamindars from one
holding to another in order to prevent their acquiring occupancy
right in any holding. In 1872 serious trouble developed in the Pubna
district, where landlords habitually exacted heavy cesses from tenants
and even endeavoured to obtain written agreements to pay rents
swollen by such unjust demands. The victims organised themselves
for systematic resi-tance, proclaiming that they were'rebelling against
their tyrants and not against the government. Disturbances took
place; the neighbouring district of Bogra caught the contagion; and
outward peace was only restored by the mediation of the district
officers, while discussions were started which eventually led to legisla-
tion in 1885, when a new Bengal Tenancy Act superseded the act of
1859. It was based on three principles, fixity of tenure for the tenant,
an adjustment of rent which would enable the landlord to obtain his
1 O'Malley, History of Bengal, p. 458.


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250
DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN BENGAL
fair share of increment in the value of the produce of the soil, and
settlement of disputes between landlords and tenants on equitable
principles. It laid down the rule that occupancy right could be
acquired in all land held by a tenant provided that for twelve years
previously the occupier had held any land whatever in the village,
and thus put an end to the zamindars' practice of shifting tenants
arbitrarily from one holding to another. It empowered the central
government to order a survey and the preparation of a record of rights
in any area, and permitted the provincial government to direct
similar operations to be undertaken in any estate where they were
asked for by either side or were considered necessary to compose
disputes. A field-to-field survey, a preparation of records, and a
settlement of occupancy rents began in North Bihar; and later on
other surveys and settlements were begun in various Bengal districts.
All these operations were conducted by a staff which worked under
a director of land records. One-fourth of the cost was borne by the
government and three-fourths by landlords and tenants concerned.
In this way effective steps were at last taken to introduce system,
justice and clarity into revenue administration in Bengal. A further
act, passed by the provincial legislative council in 1895, required
privileged tenants to register all changes in their holdings due to
succession or transfer. Records of rights were to be revised periodically
and not checked and maintained continuously after the fashion
followed in the North-Western Provinces and Panjab. The results of
these new measures were beneficial.
We have now examined the system and framework of district ad-
ministration in Bengal and have reviewed agrarian legislation. Field-
to-field survey and settlement of occupancy rents, and preparation of
a record of rights, when at last ordered by the government, were
carried out under the supervision of the officers of the land records
and settlement departments. The outside world knows nothing of the
immense debt which rural India, and by far the greater part of India
is rural, owes to these men who were always selected with particular
care. Their devotion, their elaborate diligence, their tireless sympathy
with the people, can be adequately appreciated only by those who
have seen them at work or inherited the fruits of their labours. A very
accurate idea of economic conditions in a fairly typical Bengal district
may be gathered from a book written by the late Mr J. Č. Jack, of
the Indian civil service, a brilliant and devoted settlement officer.
The people of Faridpur, the district of which he wrote, are favoured
by a rich soil and generally live in comfort, obtaining sufficient sub-
sistence from agriculture and fishing, but often get into debt, mainly
by reason of their improvidence and lavish expenditure on marriages
and other domestic ceremonies. They pay little in taxes. Many
members of the cultivating classes enter menial or domestic service.
The big landlords of the province are generally absentees; the small


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THE BHADRALOK
251
9
or ordinary landlords, the co-sharers, the lessees, the mortgagees,
sub-lessees, sub-mortgagees are seldom in contact with the land and
content themselves with collecting their rents, having little or no
inclination for farming of any kind. The small land-holders are largely
intermingled with the professional and clerical classes, and all alike
are known as bhadralok (respectable people), who live not only in
towns as in other provinces, but also in villages. The original bhadralok
were Brahmans, Kayesthas (writers) or Baidyas (physicians); but the
spread of Western education and the practical advantages of university
credentials have caused many members of lower castes to adopt
bhadralok ideals. It is the bhadralok who have shown that consuming
passion for English education which has distinguished Bengal. It is
they who have established Anglo-vernacular schools in towns and
villages on a scale unknown elsewhere in India, schools attended by
throngs of youths, who look to the Calcutta University as their portal
to a profession and a satisfactory marriage. Mr Jack says that in
Faridpur the average income of the bhadralok is higher than that of any
other class, largely because the lawyers are all bhadralok and "an able
lawyer will make five or ten times as much a year as an equally able
doctor, while even an incapable lawyer will make a better income
than most capable members of other professions”. Competition,
however, is keen; and in Faridpur and elsewhere many bhadralok live
in poverty. The strong position of this class in rural areas is un-
challenged by any martial caste. There are none of the army pen-
sioners who count for so much in many districts of other provinces.
The agriculturists are generally timid or apathetic; and, as we have
seen, in earlier times bands of brigands battened on numbers of
unresisting victims. Between the years 1905 and 1906 brigandage and
terrorism were revived and practised by bhadralok youths known as
“political” dacoits.
Internal trade in Bengal depends largely on means of communica-
tion, which improved greatly within our period, but were defective
even at its close. In the eastern portion of the province trade is mainly
carried on boats. Fishing and weaving are the principal industries;
but weaving has suffered greatly from the introduction of factory-
made goods and from the ravages of malaria among workmen ab-
sorbed in sedentary pursuits. Mr Jack observes that weavers have
taken largely to agriculture or domestic service. From 1860 onwards
Calcutta and its neighbourhood were largely affected oy a remarkable
expansion of foreign trade, a general increase of prices, and a rise in
the standard of living. Large industrial works were started, conducted
by machinery and affording employment to numbers of labourers
who came from villages and returned to their lands at certain seasons.
In 1881 there were nineteen jute mills with 39,000 operatives; in 1911
there were fifty-eight jute mills and 200,000 operatives. Coalfields
were developed at Raniganj, Jherria and Giridih; but inland centres


## p. 252 (#288) ############################################

252
DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN BENGAL
of industry were few; the villages remained the chief units of economic
life and village lands were parcelled out in small holdings. Various
parts of the Lower Provinces have been visited by drought from time
to time. The most notable of these visitations was the terrible Orissa
famine. 1
Toward the close of the viceroyalty of Lord Curzon it became
increasingly apparent that the Lower Provinces generally, and the
eastern half of Bengal particularly, were administratively starved.
Service for Europeans in these eastern districts was generally solitary
and unhealthy. Its unpopularity encouraged a tacit assumption that
this rich and fertile area with its teeming populations required no
more than a meagre official establishment. Its communications were
bad; its government buildings were mean and inadequate; its police
stations were few. It contained no troops and no mounted police.
Several of its districts were too large for administration by a single
magistrate-and-collector. Its agricultural population was becoming
richer and more litigious; its law courts and district establishments
were over-burdened with work; its scattered schools and colleges were
multiplying and producing a growing throng of young men who
turned their faces persistently towards government service or the
overstocked bar. Disappointment bred discontent which was ag-
gravated by political and newspaper teachings that foreign rule was
the source of the mischief. Meantime civil servants, and especially
those whose lot lay in Eastern Bengal, were generally tied to their
desks and found little time for informal contact with the people of
their districts. In the extensive Dacca and Chittagong divisions with
their population of 17 millions, there were toward the close of the
year 1907 only twenty-one British covenanted civil servants and only
twelve British police officers. And while Eastern Bengal was so
scantily manned, the whole of the Lower Provinces needed a larger
administrative staff, more liberal financing and the attention of more
than one provincial administration. Thus the first partition of the old
Lower Provinces came about. For reasons with which this chapter is
not concerned, it was intensely unpopular with congress politicians
and the leaders of the Hindu bhadralok. A boycott of European goods
was proclaimed; schoolboys and students were enlisted in picketing
operations. Within the years 1906-9 no less than 557 resultant dis-
turbances came before the criminal courts of the new province of
Eastern Bengal and Assam, and in most of these disturbances school-
boys and students were concerned. But the worst was yet to come.
Young men belonging to the English-educated classes had for some
time been engaged in revolutionary conspiracy, and armed with
bombs and pistols commenced subterranean intermittent warfare
against the government and society, organising gangs for the per-
petration of "political” dacoities, the proceeds of which went to
1 Cf. chap. xvii, infra.


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TERRORISM
253
finance their campaign. The terrorism which they were soon able to
exercise showed that the character of the village people had altered
little since the far-away days of the first Lord Minto. The principal
theatre of their operations was Eastern Bengal; and the government
of that province was long unable to obtain sympathetic recognition
of its needs from higher authority. " As late even as 18 May, 1908,
the chief secretary of Eastern Bengal and Assam addressed the
Government of India in the following terms:
Every branch of education, every department of administration, makes urgent
demands upon the revenues of this ill-equipped province; and the normal income
barely suffices to meet the necessary items of expenditure.
The situation grew worse and at last forced recognition from Simla
and Whitehall. Adequate legislation was undertaken; the police
were strengthened materially in Eastern Bengal; the number of
British officers was increased, and schemes for administrative and
educational reforms were under discussion when the sudden alteration
of the partition in December, 1911, remanded all such plans for
further consideration in altered circumstances. Bengal became one
province again but was still plagued by revolutionary crime. At last
on 23 October, 1913, the central government appointed a committee
consisting of five experienced executive officers (one from Bihar and
Orissa, one from the United Provinces, one from the Central Pro-
vinces, and two from Bengal) to examine the conditions prevailing
in the districts of Bengal; to compare them with those existing in other
provinces; and to report in what respect the administrative machinery
could be improved,
whether by the reduction of inordinately large districts, by the creation of new
subordinate agencies or otherwise, with the object of bringing the executive officers
of government into closer touch with the people.
After extensive touring in Bengal and neighbouring provinces, the
committee submitted their conclusions in a detailed report. They
found that for some years a succession of revolutionary outrages had
obstructed and unsteadied the administration of certain districts; that
terrorism had been rampant; that Bengal district officers were, from
causes beyond their control, somewhat out of touch with the people.
“A district officer”, they wrote, “or a police superintendent who is over-worked
and borne down by a load of office and inspection duties, cannot be reasonably
expected either to become well acquainted with the people of his district or to
exercise over his subordinates that watchful and sympathetic control that is essential
to good administration. Still less can he be expected to devise or ascertain how
progress is attainable. Such matters require careful and deliberate reflection and
for this there is no time. The subordinate staff suffer with him, and it is idle to
expect officers overburdened by routine work to spare time for tours or interviews
with people whom they are not obliged to see. Their days are entirely occupied
with endeavouring to keep pace with those duties which they must perform.
1 Report of the Bengal District Administration Committee, 1913-14, chap. ii.
>
3 Idem, p. 18.
• Idem, p. 17.


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254
DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN BENGAL
The committee proposed the following remedies :
(a) partitions or rearrangements of certain districts or subdivisions;
(6) development of a village watch-and-ward and self-government
organisation by means of “union panchayats” under the control of
circle officers who would be subordinate to the subdivisional magis-
trates and would in some degree fill the place of the subordinate
tahsil agencies in neighbouring provinces;
(c) reforms in connection with the management of Anglo-
vernacular schools;
(d) measures calculated to promote industrial development;
(c) the
appointment of more European deputy directors of agricul-
ture for demonstration work.
The report was published by the Bengal Government in 1915. The
war was then in progress and money was needed in new directions.
Effective measures were taken under the Defence of India Act to
suppress revolutionary conspiracy; but in all other respects reform
was tarrying in Bengal in November, 1918.
In no province had the difficulties of district officers been so
harassing. The causes lay partly in the careless neglect with which,
as we have seen, the province was treated in the far-away past under
the vague impression that because its population contained no martial
element its problems could wait. In later times Bengal district officers
were also called on to suffer for short-sighted economy in high quarters
and for an obstinate reluctance there to face facts which they never
failed faithfully to represent. 1
· Chirol, Indian Unrest, pp. 96, 315; Morley, Recollections, I1, 212, 312; Bengal District
Administration Committee Report (1914), p. 17.


## p. 255 (#291) ############################################

CHAPTER XIV
DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN BOMBAY
1858–1918
In Bombay, as in other provinces, the main features of the adminis-
N
trative machinery had stood the test of time, and its practical working
had become stereotyped.