No More Learning

For instance
retaliatory mutilation as a sentence, the loss of a limb for a limb, had
been abolished in 1793; but it was only in 1825 that women were
exempted from flogging, and in 1849 that branding was replaced by
imprisonment as a punishment for perjury. In the Panjab a manual
of criminal law was issued by the executive as a guide to the magi-
stracy, and in Bombay a code had been passed in 1827, which,
however, in the opinion of Macaulay and his Law Commission de-
served even severer criticism than the more miscellaneous systems
established by the various laws and regulations in other provinces.
This fortuitous and unscientific legislation resulted inevitably in
illogical classification of offences and apportionment of penalties.
Thus in Bengal scrious forgcries were punishable with a term of
imprisonment double that fixed for perjury; in Bombay the rule was


## p. 384 (#422) ############################################

384
LAW REFORM
the reverse; and in Madras both offences were treated alike. In
Bombay the escape of a convict was punished with imprisonment
double that imposed in the other provinces, whilst coining was punish-
able with little more than half the term assigned for the offence else-
where. In Bengal the unlicensed vendor of stamps was liable to a
moderate fine and in Madras to a short term of imprisonment, whilst
in Bombay he and also the purchaser (who elsewhere committed no
offence) were liable to five years' imprisonment and also to flogging.
General recognition of the uncertain, localised and on the criminal
side arbitrary character of the systems thus established had led to the
reference already quoted in the act of 1833 to the expediency of
ascertaining and consolidating the law and to the further provision
for the appointment of an Indian Law Commission to enquire and
from time to time to make reports which were to be transmitted by the
governor-general in council with his opinion to the court of directors
and to be laid before parliament. The commission thus constituted
was composed of Macaulay, the first member appointed to the council
for legislative purposes, and a civilian from each of the presidencies.
It first under the instructions of government busied itself with the
draft of a Penal Code, completing it before Macaulay's departure
from India in 1837. Subsequently, however, it confined itself to the
periodical issue of reports, containing proposals on which legislation
has since been founded, and became defunct after submitting a draft
limitation law in 1842 and a scheme of pleading and procedure with
forms of criminal indictments in 1848. It was succeeded by a body of
commissioners appointed in England under the Charter Act of 1853
to examine and report on its recommendations within three years.
The commission included Sir John Romilly, Master of the Rolls;
Sir John Jervis, Chief Justice of Common Pleas; Mr Lowe, afterwards
Lord Sherbrooke; Mr Cameron, known as a disciple of Bentham; and
other members with Indian experience; and its first duty was the
preparation of the Code of Civil Procedure, pending which the erection
of the new High Courts had been postponed. This code, as it was
passed in 1859, did not apply to the Supreme Courts, but the greater
part of it was extended to the High Courts by their letters patent in
1862. The law of limitation and prescription was next taken up; and
in 1859 a bill drafted by the first Indian Law Commission and revised
by the second became law. In 1860 the Penal Code, based on the
draft proposed by Macaulay's commission and revised by Mr Bethune,
the legal member of council, and Sir Barnes Peacock, was passed. It
was followed in 1861 by a Code of Criminal Procedure for the courts
other than those in the presidency towns, where the English procedure
was retained until the passing of acts for the High Courts in 1875 and
for the magistrates' courts in 1877.
The prominent and distinctive features of the procedure, civil and
criminal, thus introduced may be mentioned at once, for they have


## p. 385 (#423) ############################################

THE CODES
385
remained unchanged in the numerous subsequent revisions of the law.
Both codes followed in the main the English procedure, some pro-
visions in the Civil Procedure Code being adopted in substance from
the Common Law Procedure Act, 1852. There is no jury in civil
actions in the districts. The pleadings are not required to be, but may
be, in writing. In every case the framing of issues is obligatory and
a written judgment stating the points for decision and, except in petty
cases, giving reasons for the decision on each, is required. One appeal,
except in petty cases, is allowed on the facts; on the law petty cases
can be brought before the High Court and others can be taken in
appeal to the district court and the High Court or to the latter in case
the former or a court of concurrent jurisdiction with it has held the
trial. Imprisonment is one method provided for the recovery of sums
decreed, the maximum period having originally been two years and
the minimum three months; but these periods were reduced in 1882
to six months and six weeks. Both codes contain clear provisions for
preparation of the record of evidence by the hand of the judge or
magistrate. The Criminal Procedure Code deals, not only with the
actual trial, but also with the preventive proceedings and the police
investigations. It allows in all but petty cases an appeal on fact and
law, and also provides machinery by which questions of law can in
all cases be brought before the High Court. Indian conditions further
made it necessary to enable the government to appeal against ac-
quittals. The most important innovation was, however, the extension
of trial by jury. It had in accordance with English procedure been
the method of trial in the presidency towns from the beginning, the
grand jury then having been abolished in 1865. It was now applied
to such districts and in respect of such offences as the government
might direct, the normal procedure in the absence of such directions
being trial by the judge with the aid of assessors. The number of jurors
in the High Court is nine and in the districts is fixed by the govern-
ment, but must not be more than nine or less than three. The verdict
of six jurors in the High Court or a majority in the districts can in the
discretion of the judge be accepted. In the districts the judge is
however at liberty, in any case in which he thinks it necessary for the
ends of justice, to submit a unanimous verdict for the consideration
of the High Court, which may set the verdict aside and order a retrial
or at once convict or acquit. Trial by jury was on the passing of the
code applied only in a few districts of Bengal and Madras to the less
serious offences, and it was more than ten years before it was sub-
stantially extended. It has been applied in some provinces even to
the most serious crimes against the person, but in others, Madras and
the United Provinces, it has been restricted, entirely or almost so, to
offences against property.
In 1861 a third commission was constituted, again in England, which
included among its members Sir J. Romilly, Lord Chief Justice Erle,
CHI VI
25


## p. 386 (#424) ############################################

386
LAW REFORM
a
Mr Justice Willes, and later Messrs, afterwards Lord Justices, James
and Lush. The first result of their labours was a draft law of succession,
which was carried through the council in 1865 by Sir Henry Maine,
as law member. They then submitted proposals relating to the law of
contracts, negotiable instruments, evidence, transfer of property and
the revision of the Code of Criminal Procedure. But the criticism to
which their Contract Bill was subjected in select committee of the
council and the failure of the government to proceed with their other
recommendations led to their resignation in 1870; and until 1879 the
work of codification with that of the consolidation of the law applicable
to each province was carried on by the law member. Sir James
Stephen was thus responsible in 1871 for a new Limitation Act and in
1872 for a revised Criminal Procedure Code, an Evidence Act and
a Contract Act based, though with important amendments, on the
commissioners' draft; and Mr, afterwards Lord, Hobhouse in 1877 for
the Specific Relief Act. The secretary of state had since 1875 been
pressing for the completion of codes for the remaining branches of the
law, and had suggested the appointment of a small English committee.
But the Government of India, recognising the growing public appre-
hension that codification might be proceeding too fast, made good its
contention that it should retain responsibility for decisions as to the
occasion for and nature of further progress; and Sir Whitley Stokes
as law member, Sir Charles Turner and Sir Raymond West were
appointed commissioners, their first duty being to consider certain
draft bills already prepared. Their labours resulted in the passing in
1881 and 1882 of measures dealing with negotiable instruments,
private trusts, transfer of property and easements. A Guardians and
Wards Act was added in 1890, and a Provincial Insolvency Act in
1908 to supersede the provisions of the Civil Procedure Code which
had hitherto provided the very rudimentary Insolvency law applicable
outside the presidency towns. No further additions of importance
were made to the system thus created. The codification of the law of
master and servant and the law of torts has been considered, draft
bills having been prepared, for the former by the third Law Com-
mission and for the latter in 1886 in England by Sir Frederick Pollock.
But neither has been carried farther, the one because the stringent
penal clauses in the draft were considered open to objection and the
other because in the districts the cases arising from that branch of the
law were neither numerous nor complex and in the presidency towns
the more competent bench and bar found the common law sufficient.
The law of agricultural tenancy which is not dealt with in the Transfer
of Property Act did not call for codification, since it depended on
local considerations and was dealt with by the local legislatures.
The extent to which revision of those codes has been found necessary
affords one test of their success. Allowance must no doubt be made
for the natural reluctance of the government to remove obscurities of


## p. 387 (#425) ############################################

REVISIONS OF THE CODES
387
language which had been made plain by judicial interpretation and
in respect of which no conflict of opinion between the different High
Courts has arisen. But it is satisfactory that only comparatively few
amendments and additions to only three of the codes dealing with
substantive law, the Contract Act, the Transfer of Property Act and
the Penal Code, have been called for. On the other hand the law
relating to procedure, in which the earliest experiments were made
and in which mistakes would most easily be discovered in the light of
experience, has required more than the normal periodical revision.
The Civil Procedure Code of 1859, after four amending acts in the
next four years, further amendments in 1877 and a revision of over
one hundred sections in 1879, was replaced by revised codes in 1882
and 1908, this last retaining the fundamental provisions of its pre-
decessor and, in accordance with the scheme of the English Judicature
Act of 1873, substituting for the others rules which can be modified
by a Rule Committee in each province with the sanction of the local
government. The first Code of Criminal Procedure was after four
amendments succeeded by revised codes in 1872, 1882 and 1898,
there having been sixteen amending acts between the two last men-
tioned. Only one of these calls for notice as representing any new
departure in principle. In 1883 the law member, Mr (afterwards Sir)
Courtney Ilbert, introduced a bill withdrawing entirely the privilege
hitherto enjoyed by every European British-subject in the districts of
trial only by a sessions judge or justice of the peace of his own race.
But in deference to strong expressions of European public opinion the
bill, as it became law, withdrew this privilege merely to the extent of
conferring jurisdiction in such cases on all sessions judges and district
magistrates of whatever race as well as on justices of the peace,, being
magistrates of the highest class, and European British subjects; a
European British subject on trial before a district magistrate was
enabled to claim a jury of which at least half the members might be
Europeans or. Americans; the sentences which those courts could
inflict were still limited, though enhanced in the case of district
magistrates, and committal to the High Courts was still necessary in
case a penalty more severe was required.
The sources of the law stated in the codes were various. The Penal
Code for instance was influenced by the French Code Pénal and the
Louisiana Code which had lately been published, when Macaulay's
commission completed its labours; and the Contract Act, perhaps the
least successful of the series, reproduced important provisions of the
draft New York Code, a model of questionable value. But the founda-
tion was throughout the English common law, adapted, as necessity
required, to Indian conditions and divested, as far as possible, of
technicalities. Thus the Penal Code authorises an alternative sentence
of transportation for life in cases of murder, and deals with offences
against property without reference to the English law of larceny or
25-2


## p. 388 (#426) ############################################

388
LAW REFORM
fine distinctions regarding possession; and the Succession and Transfer
of Property Acts disregard the English distinction between the legal
incidents of real and personal property and depart in material respects
from the English rules against perpetuities and accumulation. The
drafting and arrangement of the codes are substantially in accordance
with the practice of parliamentary draftsmen of the present day and,
if, particularly in those dealing with procedure, the result is sometimes
unsatisfactory, that must be ascribed mainly to an inevitable failure
to foresee and provide for exceptional cases and to the use of language
which no doubt attains in appearance the ideals of simplicity and
lucidity, but does so in some instances at the expense of accuracy and
comprehensiveness. One expedient calls for notice as an experiment
regarding the success of which opinions have differed, the use of illus-
trations, concrete examples appended to particular definitions or
provisions. This innovation was due to a suggestion of Bentham and
to the initiative of Macaulay. It was defended in connection with the
Penal Code by his commission, on the ground that “when each
definition is followed by a collection of cases falling under it and of
cases which, though at first sight they seem to fall under it, do not
really do so, the definition and the reasons for it may be readily
understood”; and it was generally the ase that the illustrations
“made nothing law which would not have been law without them"
and were merely instances of “the application of the written law to the
affairs of mankind”. So used, it may be doubted whether they are
required by the competent judge or practitioner. But in the later
codes, as the framers of the Succession Act pointed out, they were the
equivalent of decided cases and "an important part of the law, settling
points which without them would have been left to be determined by
the judges”; and this is particularly applicable to that act and the
Contract and Specific Relief Acts, where many of the illustrations
simply reproduce decisions of the English courts, which it was desired
to adopt. The innovation has not been followed in any subsequent
codification of importance. Its real justification was that the majority
of the judges and magistrates who were to administer the codes on
their enactment had not the assistance of adequate legal training or
a law library or a competent bar and had no settled course of judicial
authority to refer to.
These conditions, and not the requirements of a developed European
or American community, supply in fact the test by which the form
and matter of the codes must be tried. No doubt in practice it has
not been feasible to check the accumulation of Indian case law by
regular periodical revision, as Macaulay proposed, by a permanent
Law Commission. There is further no reason for supposing that the
certainty at which he aimed has been attained to any extent which
affects the readiness of the Indian litigant to raise questions of law
and carry them to the appellate courts. The result is rather that the


## p. 389 (#427) ############################################

HINDU LAW
389
discussion of such questions turns on the construction of the statute,
not, as it would under a common law system, on principle, and ac-
cordingly that the former and matters of procedure are relied on
more readily than the latter and the merits of the case. The experi-
ment of codification was moreover tried in India in favourable con-
ditions, because the hands of the legislation were not tied by any
previous coherent system of law. It is therefore difficult to draw any
general inference from its results. But, all deductions made, it may
fairly be claimed that, after the early mistakes had been corrected,
a body of law was evolved in the compact and serviceable form which
the circumstances of the country require.
One important division of the law administered in the presidency
towns as well as in the districts has not yet been referred to, the family
law applicable to Hindus, Muhammadans, Parsis and in Burma to
Buddhists. Its application was provided for in the High Courts by
their letters patent and eventually the Civil Courts Act which regulated
the jurisdiction of the other courts in each province, so far as it related
to succession, inheritance, marriage, caste or any religious usage or
institution, subject to any law or custom to the contrary. In the
Muhammadan, Parsi and Buddhist law since 1834 there has been
no marked development. But the Hindu family law requires fuller
treatment on account, not only of its intrinsic interest, but also of its
direct influence on the way in which property is enjoyed by the
majority of the population and on their social and economic progress.
The earliest sources of the law, the code of Manu and the writings
of Yajnavalkya, Narada and Brihaspati, have been described in an
earlier chapter. 1 They were followed some five hundred years after
Narada, the latest, by the commentaries, which are however regarded
as having independent authority, the most important being the
Mitakshara (A. D. 1000-1100), a commentary on Yajnavalkya and the
foundation of the law throughout India except in Bengal, where it is
on some points superseded by the Daya Bhaga (A. D. 1200-1400), and
in Gujarat and other parts of Bombay, where on some points the
Viyavahara Mayukha (circa A. D. 1600) prevails. It was for the British
courts, when late in the eighteenth century they undertook to ad-
minister law resting on these remote foundations, to acquaint them-
selves with this literature, written in Sanskrit, and with the develop-
ment of legal conceptions during the intervening period. For the
former purpose the initiative of Warren Hastings and Sir William
Jones no doubt resulted in translations of Manu by the latter in 1794,
of the Mitakshara and the Daya Bhaga by Colebrooke, a Bengal
civilian, in 1810, and of the Mayukha by Borrodaile in 1827. There
were also two digests made under British influence, Halhed's Gentoo
Code and Colebrooke's or Jagannadha's Digest. The former (1776) was
compiled at Calcutta by eleven pundits in Sanskrit and translated by
1 Vol. 11, chap. xii.


## p. 390 (#428) ############################################

390
LAW REFORM
Halhed, also a Bengal civilian, from a Persian translation at the
request of Hastings; the latter, a work of far greater value, translated
and edited by Colebrooke, a Sanskrit scholar and lawyer of established
reputation, contained extracts from original authorities. But these
digests went very little way towards supplying the necessary guidance
as to the progress of the law during the previous four centuries and the
manner in which it was actually being understood. Recourse was there-
fore had to the pundits, persons of the Brahmin caste, whose families had
handed down legal knowledge and tradition from generation to genera-
tion and who were attached to each court and were invariably con-
sulted, if doubt as to a particular case arose. Their opinions were at
first followed imp! icitly in spite of their natural tendency to discourage
departure îrom the authorities, in which they were practically the
only experts, even when such departure corresponded, as it must
sometimes have done, with established custom or altered social con-
ditions, and in spite of the fact that, to quote Sir William Jones, “even
if there were no suspicion of corruption on their part, the science they
professed was in such a state of confusion that no reliance could be
placed on their answers”. Later the courts began to scrutinise their
opinions more closely and to notice discrepancies between them and
the authorities cited, and in western and northern India decisions
were based also on evidence from the heads of the caste concerned as
to its actual usage. In the south, however, where the Mitakshara and
the opinions based on it were accepted as conclusive, the result has
been aptly described as similar to that which would be reached, “if a
German were to administer English law from the resources of a
library furnished with Fleta, Glanville and Bracton and ending with
Lord Coke”. 1 No doubt the pundits, whose employment ended in
1864, had been a safeguard against the importation of European
notions into the law of the country. But it is possible that their
influence generally resulted in too uniform an application of the texts
and in disregard of the growth of particular family and local con-
ditions, by means of which social development would naturally
proceed.
The foundation of the Hindu law, as it was received and has been
administered by the British courts, may be stated in the words of an
accepted authority as being that,
whereas in England the ownership of property is simple, independent and un.
restricted, in India not only is joint ownership by the family the rule and presumed
to exist until the contrary is proved, but that is the description of ownership into
which all private property eventually falls. ?
For, although each male member of the family is entitled at any time
to have his share per stirpes ascertained by means of a division of the
whole property and delivered to him, what he receives will at once
1 Mayne, Hindu Law and Usage, p. 44.
2 Idem, p. 305.


## p. 391 (#429) ############################################

HINDU LAW OF PROPERTY
391
become in his hands the nucleus of the property of a new family
composed of himself and his descendants and, although what the
individual may acquire without assistance from the family or its
resources remains at his sole disposal, such acquisitions will become
family property after they have once passed by an elaborate system
of inheritance or, as eventually became possible, by will. Unless and
until a division is claimed, the members of the family are, in Hindu
legal language, joint in food, worship and estate.
"The proceeds of individual property must", as Lord Westbury put it, “be
brought io the common chest or purse and then dealt with according to the modes
of enjoyment by the members of an individual family, the maintenance and educa.
tion of the members, their religious requirements including marriages and the
general advancement of the family's interests, and the only person competent so to
deal with them is the father or managing member, who can even alienate for family
purposes. "
It follows on the same authority that “no individual member of the
family, whilst it remains individual, can predicate of the joint and
individual family property that he, that particular member, has a
certain definite share in it” and a fortiori that he cannot without a
division deal with any particular item of it as his own. Those were the
conditions on which property was held, as the courts understood them,
except in Bengal where under the Daya Bhaga in some respects the
father's sole ownership, in others the sons' right of disposition, was
recognised more clearly. This conception of the individual's ownership
as merely of an interest in property, the extent of which was liable to
alteration as the number of the shares increased or diminished by
birth, adoption or death, was no doubt suitable to a society simply
organised and mainly agricultural with land and cattle, the use of
which one member could superintend, for its chief possessions.
Alienations, claims to a division and acquisitions made independently
of the family or its funds, would be rare and are noticed shortly and
indistinctly in the texts. The absence of testamentary power over
property of the last-mentioned description and the obligation of a
member of the family to account to it for all professional earnings
which its expenditure, however small, on his education had in any
degree enabled him to make, would seldom cause hardship. Other
features imposing restrictions on individual initiative and develop-
ment, which can only be mentioned, were the liability of sons to the
extent of the family property for all debts of their father, whether
incurred or not for their benefit, so long as their purpose was not
illegal or immoral, and the limitation of the right of female heirs to
separate property to enjoyment for their lives, alienation by them
being allowed only in exceptional cases.
The law thus evolved with its restraints on individual enjoyment
of and control over property was evidently unfavourable to social
progress; but it remained unaltered in any material particular in


## p. 392 (#430) ############################################

392
LAW REFORM
spite of the changes in conditions effected by improved communica-
tions and migration from rural tracts to towns and the colonies, the
spread of education and the increase in professional employment and
the growth of a more complex civilisation. It is useless to speculate
regarding the extent to which a more liberal recognition by the
Supreme and Sadr Courts of local and personal deviations from the
system, as sanctioned by custom, might have led to its relaxation. In
fact such deviations from the normal as were allowed affected mainly
the law of marriage and succession to separate property. Two ex-
ceptions to this may, however, be referred to as indicating the attach-
ment of the Hindu temperament to joint ownership. One section of
the important Khoja community in Bombay as well as other Hindu
converts to Islam insist on retaining the Hindu joint family law in
combination with the Muhammadan law for other purposes; and the
numerous followers of the Marumakattayam law in Travancore and
Malabar, who in the absence of any formal marriage relation trace
kinship only in the maternal line, adhere to the joint family system in
its most rigid and possibly more primitive form, no member having
the right to claim his share on a division at all except with the unani-
mous consent of the others. Subject to such exceptions and to some
relaxation in the case of trading families, the law as described was
administered by the Supreme and Sadr Courts and received from
them by the High Courts. It has since been substantially maintained
except in two respects, the gradual recognition of the right of the
individual to deal otherwise than by gift with his share of the family
property and of his right to dispose by will of property independently
acquired.
The legal history of these rights is of interest. The former was not
recognised by the earlier text-writers and the earliest English authori-
ties denied or were uncertain as to its existence; but as to the advantages
of recognising it there could be no doubt. The first step taken by the
courts was to allow, not an ordinary sale, but the recovery by a
crcditor of his debt by bringing to sale the debtor's interest, whatever
it might be, in the family property, the purchaser being left to obtain
delivery of the specific items representing that interest after they had
been ascertained in a division. This result was reached in Madras in
1855, in Bombay rather later, but in Bengal only in 1872. To hold
next that a member can himself sell what can be sold under a decrce
against him would seem to be easy. But that step was taken in Madras
only in 1862 and in Bombay in 1873, whilst in Bengal, Oudh and the
North-Western Provinces the strict doctrine prohibiting alienations has
been maintained except in cases in which some special consideration,
for instance fraudulent representation by the alienor of his right to
alienate, is in question. This development of the law in Madras and
Bombay rested on a recognition of the consideration due in equity to
an alienee for values and therefore it has never even in those provinces


## p. 393 (#431) ############################################

HINDU WILLS
393
a
been applied to alienations by gift. But it has lately been extended to
justify assignment to the alienee of the particular property alienated
in the division which must be made, if that can be done without
unfair prejudice to other members of the family. In such cases at least
a substantial departure from the original conception of joint family
ownership would seem to have been taken.
The course of development of the testamentary power was far
shorter. It was recognised in the texts, if at all, only in a rudimentary
form, and its use was from the first regarded by the British courts as
an innovation. Whether Hindu wills originated in the example of
English or Muhammadans or in the Brahminical influence exerted in
favour of a practice facilitating the endowment of religious objects,
is uncertain. But the first known will of a Hindu, the notorious
Omichund, was made in 1758. The testamentary power naturally
obtained recognition most easily where the largest measure of control
over property by the individual during his lifetime was admitted;
and accordingly wills received effect in Bengal from 1792, the law
being finally settled by a certificate given by the Sadr Court at the
request of the Supreme Court in 1831. Elsewhere, however, stricter
views regarding individual control over property delayed progress,
and there has never been any question of the right to bequeath
property which could not be transferred by gift—that is property of
the family. In Bombay the pundits held first that, as wills were not
mentioned in the Shastras, they ought not to be made; and, although
they were recognised in Bombay city, where English influence was
strong, they were refused effect elsewhere in the province until after
1820, even in cases in which a gift would have been valid. In con-
sequence, however, of the increasing frequency with which they were
being made after that year, the High Court in 1860 pronounced
generally in their favour. In Madras the privilege was established
less easily. At first, although there had been no actual decision, the
tendency of the Sadr Court had been to accept the views of such
authorities as Sir Thomas Strange and Mr Colebrooke and of the
pundits, that the validity of a will must be tried by the same tests as
that of a gift, and a statute had recognised the right of executors to
take charge of a testator's property. But in 1829 the legislature inter-
vened, repealing the previous law and declaring that wills were hitherto
unknown and were repugnant to the authorities prevailing in the
province and should have no force except so far as those authorities
allowed. This led the courts to treat wills as wholly inoperative, the
Sadr Court generally continuing to do so in spite of the confirmation
by the Privy Council in 1856 of a decision by one of its judges in their
favour; and it was only in 1862 that the newly created High Court
recognised the validity of Hindu wills in the south of India.
The law thus originated was unsatisfactory. The courts were con-
stratued to hold that a will might be oral and that a written will was


## p. 394 (#432) ############################################

394
LAW REFORM
valid without alteration; and there was further no probate procedure
or recognised limit to the powers of executors. The Succession Act
already referred to did not apply to the wills of Hindus, Muhamma-
dans or Buddhists. That omission was repaired by two of the very
few
statutes passed to alter or supplement the indigenous family laws of
the various religious communities. The Hindu Wills Act, 1870, and
the Probate Act, 1881, applied the essential provisions of the Succession
Act with appropriate amendments to the wills of Hindus and Buddhists
in Lower Bengal and the cities of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay. The
latter provided for the application of those provisions to other tracts
in the discretion of the local government concerned; but this power
has been used only to an insignificant extent.
Other instances of legislative interference with family law in spite
of its quasi-religious foundation are afforded by the Freedom of
Religion Act, 1850, by which so much of any law or usage as affects
the right to property or to an inheritance by reason of change of
religion or loss of castc was made unenforceable; the Hindu Widow
Re-marriage Act, 1856, abrogating the law under which a widow
forfeited all rights over her deceased husband's estate on her re-
marriage; the Indian Majority Act, 1875, under which majority
occurs at the end of the eighteenth year instead of at the sixteenth
under Hindu or earlier under Muhammadan law; and the Age of
Consent Act, 1891, which in effect forbids consummation of marriage
before the wife has attained the age of twelve. It may be observed
that two recent enactments, the Anand Marriage Act, 1909, dealing
with the legality of a particular Sikh form of marriage and the
Muhammadan Wakf Validity Act, 1913, dealing with the law
applicable to Muhammadan religious institutions, are expressed, not
as modifying, but as declaring the existing unwritten law. There have
been no important modifications by the legislature of that law other
than those referred to; and only one unsuccessful attempt to alter it
by statute went far enough to call for mention. The Hindu Gains of
Learning Bill was intended to determine the existing obligation of a
member of a Hindu joint family, whose education has been assisted
in any degree by family funds, to account to the family for the addi-
tional earnings which that education enables him to make. The bill
was passed by the legislative council in Madras in 1900, but was
vetoed by the governor of the province, Sir Arthur Havelock, and has
not been brought forward again.


## p. 395 (#433) ############################################

CHAPTER XXII
THE INDIAN ARMY, 1858-1918
IN
N 1858 the government of India was transferred from the Company
to the crown, and after the suppression of the Mutiny the reorganisa-
tion of the military forces in India was the most urgent question before
the authorities. The viceroy, Lord Canning, at first favoured a system
advocated many years before by Sir Thomas Munro, of a large
European force enlisted for permanent service in India, but it was
finally decided that the European element should be provided by the
British Army, regiments and batteries being posted to India, as to
other places beyond the seas, for tours of foreign service.
The Company's European troops, now numbering over 15,000,
were transferred to the service of the crown, and the promulgation of
the decision raised protests and objections which were styled at the time
the White Mutiny. Both officers and men objected to the transfer of
their services without their wishes being consulted, and both were
insubordinate and disaffected. About 10,000 men claimed their dis-
charge, but a bounty offered to them, and a guarantee to the officers
of the pensions due to them under the Company's rules, allayed the
discontent, which need never have been aroused. One of the principal
grievances of the men was that many had made, and more, perhaps,
intended to make, India their home, and had married, or hoped to
marry, Indian or Eurasian wives whom they could not take to Europe.
The discontent of the officers is now less easy to understand, but it
was generally believed that though the “pagoda tree” could no
longer be shaken, the Company's service offered a better provision
than the royal service for a poor man, and the prospect of reduced
pay in a more expensive environment, and of less chance of extra
regimental employment, even when accompanied by the privilege
of serving for an Indian pension in their native climate, was not
welcomed by them. They had, however, the chance of remaining in
India with sepoy regiments, and of the officers of the two Bengal
Fusilier regiments considerably less than half volunteered to remain
with thosc regiments, now liable to tours of home service. 1
The corps of Bengal, Madras and Bombay artillery and engincers
were amalgamated with the Royal Artillery and the Royal Engineers,
and the European infantry regiments, now, including those raised
during the Mutiny, nine in number, became regiments of the line,
numbered from 101 to 109.
Of the regular native army of Bengal the cavalry and artillery had
1 Innes, Bengal European Regiment, pp. 530-3.


## p. 396 (#434) ############################################

396
THE INDIAN ARMY, 1858–1918
disappeared, and only eleven entire infantry regiments had remained
staunch. When the army was reconstituted nineteen irregular cavalry
regiments, some of which had been raised in the Mutiny, became the
Bengal cavalry, the eleven infantry regiments became the first eleven
of the line, next came two irregular regiments, then two Sikh regi-
ments, then two regiments formed from the faithful remnants of
regiments which had mutinied, then a military police battalion, then
fourteen irregular regiments of the Panjab, but not of the frontier
force, and the number of the line regiments of the Bengal army was
brought up to forty-nine by seventeen irregular regiments raised
during or after the Mutiny. Numbered separately from the line were
four regiments of Gurkhas, forming part of the Bengal army, and a
fifth, a unit of the Panjab frontier force. The three presidency armies
were reorganised on what was inaccurately termed the irregular
system, which had been advocated by Sir Thomas Munro and Sir John
Malcolm. It differed from the regular system only in the number of
British officers attached to a regiment of cavalry or battalion of
infantry. Under the regular system they commanded troops and
companies; under the irregular system they acted only as field and
regimental staff officers. In the Mutiny the irregular regiments had
proved, at least equal to the regulars, for they had been commanded
by younger men, and native troop and company officers, entrusted
with responsibility, had risen to the occasion. Henceforth troops of
cavalry and companies of infantry were commanded by native
officers. In the cavalry British officers commanded squadrons, and
in the infantry “wings”, or half-battalions. The regimental staff was
British, but the adjutant was assisted by a Jamadar-adjutant, in the
cavalry styled “Woordi-major", and British squadron and wing
officers assisted the squadron and wing commanders, and took their
places when they were absent on leave.
In order to render service with native troops more attractive the
appointments held by British officers in native regiments were treated
as staff appointments, and carried allowances, as well as pay of rank.
The officers on each of the three presidency establishments were
graded in a Staff Corps, recruited from the Company's and the queen's
services. There remained, in each presidency, two small bodies of
officers besides the Staff Corps, the first consisting of officers of the
pre-Mutiny armies and the second of officers who had received com-
missions since the outbreak of the Mutiny, who did not wish to join
the Staff Corps. These two bodies were known as the Local List and
the General List, the former, in Bengal, being stylcd the “lucky
Locals”, because, being promoted in the cadres of regiments which had
mutinied and murdered many of their officers, they were able to
retire on a full pension at a comparatively carly age. Promotion in
the General List and in the Staff Corps was fixed on a time-scale.
After twelve years' service, reduced afterwards to eleven, and later to
و
a


## p. 397 (#435) ############################################

PRESIDENCY ARMIES
397
a
nine, an officer became a captain; after twenty, reduced afterwards
to eighreen, a major; after twenty-six a lieutenant-colonel; and after
thirty-one a colonel; but officers in civil and political employ were
afterwards very properly debarred from rising above the rank of
lieutenant-colonel. The Company's military college at Addiscombe
was closed, and new appointments to the Staff Corps were made only
from British regiments. At a later date those examined for entrance
to Sandhurst competed for commissions in the Indian Army, and on
leaving the college were placed on an Unattached List, and, as had
been recommended by Munro, were attached for a year to British
regiments serving in India, before being posted to native regiments.
The establishment of each Staff Corps was calculated to provide
the number of officers required for service with native regiments, on
the staff and in army departments, and in civil and political employ,
and the establishments of presidency armies and local forces were
fixed as follows: Bengal army, nineteen cavalry and furty-nine infantry
regiments; Madras army, four cavalry and forty infantry regiments;
Bombay army, seven cavalry and thirty infantry regiments, and two
batteries of artillery; Panjab frontier force, six cavalry and twelve
infantry regiments, and five mountain batteries; local irregular corps,
two cavalry and five infantry regiments; Hyderabad contingent, four
cavalry and six infantry regiments, and four field batteries. When the
reductions were complete the forces in India amounted to 65,000
British and 140,000 native troops.
The uniform of the regular native armies, simple at first, had
gradually been assimilated in style and cut to that of British troops,
and had become most unsuitable to the Indian climate, but after the
Mutiny it was much modified. The shako and the Kilmarnock cap
were discarded in favour of the turban, and long, closely fitting
trousers in favour of wide breeches, or knickerbockers, and puttees,
approaching the Indian rather than the European style of dress.
After the second Afghan War, which broke out in 1878," and
severely taxed India's military resources and organisation, many
reforms were carried out, and in 1885, when the Panjdeh incident
presaged the possibility of war with Russia, it became necessary to
prepare the army in India to meet a European enemy. The British
force in the country was increased by 10,600 men, bringing its
strength to 73,500, and substantial additions to the Bengal and
Bombay armies brought the numbers of the native troops up to
154,000.
Until the Mutiny military officers in civil or political employ had
been retained on the establishments of their regiments, unjustly
blocking the promotion of those who remained with the colours, and
an officer had been permitted to rejoin the regiment when it was
ordered on active service, or when the officer in question succeeded,
· Cf. pp. 417 sqq. , infra.
• Cf. pp. 424-5, infra.


## p. 398 (#436) ############################################

398
THE INDIAN ARMY, 1858-1918
by seniority, to the command. After the Mutiny, when British officers
were graded, according to length of service, in the three presidency
Staff Corps, an officer transferred to civil or political employ was no
longer borne on the strength of a regiment, but he retained the right
of reverting, when he wished, to military employ, and of promotion,
by seniority, to the rank of general officer, and at the age of fifty-five,
when he was considered too old for civil or political duties, his services
were replaced at the disposal of the commander-in-chief of the
presidency to which he belonged, and he was eligible for appointment
to an important command. This practice of allowing officers to return
to military duty after long periods of absence in civil or political
employ was most injurious to the efficiency of the service, owing to
their inevitable incompetence. This was less noticeable before the
introduction of arms of precision and rapid fire, but even in the days .
of Dundas's Manæuvres and the flint-lock musket it was already
apparent. Sir John Malcolm behaved gallantly at the battle of
Mahidpur, but his behaviour was that of a cornet of horse, not of a
general officer. ' At a later period an officer commanding a regiment
of native infantry was thus satirically described:
For twenty-seven years has old Capsicum been on civil employ at that out-of-
the-way district Jehanumabad, and the blossoms of his early military career, now
ripened into fruit, are exemplified by a happy obliviousness of everything con-
nected with the military profession. The movements of a company might possibly
be compassed by his attainments, acquired through the instrumentality of
“dummies” on his dining-room table; but of battalion and brigade manoeuvres,
I suspect he knows about as much of them as the Grand Lama !
The disaster of Maiwand at length convinced the authorities of the
danger of entrusting the command of troops, especially in the field,
to those who had in fact long ceased to be soldiers; and later, officers,
after ten years' absence from military duty, were transferred to a
supernumerary list, and deprived of the right of returning, in any
capacity, to the army, though in order to entitle them to their pensions
they continue to receive promotion up to the rank of lieutenant-
colonel. At the age of fifty-five their services are still replaced at the
disposal of the commander-in-chief in India, but this is a mere
formality, and their retirement on a military pension is immediately
gazetted.
The pacification of Upper Burma after its annexation in 1886
occupied some years, and, in order to set free the large number of
regular troops detained in the country, battalions of military police
were raised to suppress the prevalent disorders.
The inferior quality of the material to which the Madras army was
restricted for recruiting purposes had been discovered even before the
end of the eighteenth century, and it had certainly not improved since
that time. In each war in which Madras troops had taken the field
1 Prinsep, Transactions, p. 24. ? Atkinson, Curry and Rice, “Our Colonel".


## p. 399 (#437) ############################################

MILITARY REFORMS
399
beside those of Bengal and Bombay, their inferiority had been
apparent, and the third Burmese War convinced the authorities that
the Madras infantry regiments, with very few exceptions, were almost
worthless as soldiers. After that war eight Madras regiments were
converted into Burma regiments, which, though they remained
nominally on the strength of the Madras establishment, were recruited
from the warlike races of Northern India, and were permanently
quartered in Burma. In 1895 the recruitment of Telingas was dis-
continued; between 1902 and 1904 two of the Madras regiments were
converted into battalions of Moplahs, one into a Gurkha corps, and
nine into battalions of Panjabis; and the cavalry regiments, which in
1891 had been converted from four three-squadron into three four-
squadron regiments, were stiffened by a large infusion of personnel
from the Panjab.
In 1900 the native infantry throughout India was assimilated to the
British, and to that of continental armies, by the conversion of its
eight-company battalions into four-company battalions, which was
effected by combining the companies. For the purposes of internal
administration the eight companies remained, as before, under the
command of their native officers, but on parade and in the field the
double company was commanded by a British officer, and to each
battalion four double-company commanders, instead of two wing
commanders, were allowed, and each double-company commander
was assisted by a British double-company officer.
The independent development of the presidency armies has already
been mentioned. Its results were strange, and the presidency senti-
ment, a peculiar form of local patriotism, was very strong, not only
in the Indian ranks, but among British officers also, and did not die
until the present century, if, indecd, it is quite dead yet. Three armies,
each with its own commander-in-chief, subject to its own local govern-
ment, and governed by its own code of regulations, but all commanded
by British officers, grew up in the same British possession as strangers
and objects of curiosity, each to the others. The "Qui-hi”, the “Mull",
and the “Duck”, I as the British officers of the three presidencies were
termed, might almost have been regarded as men of different nations.
It is told of a gallant veteran of the old Bengal Artillery, who was full of
“Presidential” prejudices, that, on hearing the Bombay Army commended by
a brother officer, he broke out in just wrath: “The Bombay Army! Don't talk
to me of the Bombay Army! They call a chilamchi a gindi—the bcasts! "?
Many other stories of this nature illustrate a sentiment which long
prevailed, but is now, probably, almost obsolete.
In 1891 the Staff Corps of the three presidencies were amalgamated,
and became the Indian Staff Corps, and in 1893 the offices of com-
mander-in-chief in Madras and Bombay were abolished, and the
1 Yule and Burnell, Hobson-Jobson (2nd ed. ), s. vv.
• Idem, p. 196.


## p. 400 (#438) ############################################

400
THE INDIAN ARMY, 1858–1918
control of the two armies was withdrawn from the local governments.
The pretence that service with a native regiment was service on the
staff, no longer necessary as a bait for candidates, could not now be
maintained, and in 1903 the Indian Staff Corps was renamed the
Indian Army.
Under the presidency system the Madras army, for reasons already
given, had been gradually reduced; the Bombay army had remained
stationary; but the Bengal army had so grown, with the expansion
of the territory which it garrisoned, as to become a force too unwieldy
for one command. In 1895, therefore, the three old presidency armies
were converted into four Army Commands; the Bengal army being
divided into the Panjab and Bengal Commands, and the other two
armies forming the Madras and Bombay Commands. Each Command
was placed under a lieutenant-general, to whom was delegated much
of the authority exercised until then by army headquarters. In 1904
almost the last vestiges of the old presidency system were swept away
by the renumbering of the regiments, which were incorporated in one
list, and numbered consecutively, the Bengal regiments coming first,
the Madras next, and the Bombay last. Some attempt was made to
retain an indication of the old numbering. Thus, the ist Madras
Lancers became the 21st Lancers, the ist Madras Infantry (Pioneers)
the 61st Pioneers, and the ist Bombay Infantry (Grenadiers) the
101st Grenadiers, the gaps in the consecutive numbering being filled,
as far as possible, by the incorporation in the regular army of irregular
and local corps. In 1903, for example, a new arrangement made with
the Nizam regarding the province of Berar, which had been assigned
to the Government of India in 1853 for the maintenance of the
Hyderabad contingent, made it possible to incorporate that force in
the regular army, and its regiments helped to fill gaps in the numbering
of the regiments of the presidency armies.
In 1907 the four Army Commands were changed into Army Corps
Commands, each corps containing two or more divisions. The Northern
Command comprised the ist (Peshawar), and (Rawulpindi) and
3rd (Lahore) Divisions; the Western Command the 4th (Quetta),
5th (Mhow) and 6th (Poona) Divisions; and the Eastern Command
the 7th (Meerut) and 8th (Lucknow) Divisions. Two divisions, the
gth (Secunderabad) Division and the Burma Division, remained
directly under the commander-in-chief.
In the second Afghan War the Panjab native states placed at the
disposal of the government contingents of troops which did good
service on the frontier, and in 1885, when war with Russia seemed
almost inevitable, the ruling princes, with that loyalty to the crown
which they have seldom failed to display on critical occasions, offered
their resources to the government. The offer was accepted, and in 1889
1 Proclamation by Lord Curzon, at the Coronation Durbar of King Edward VII, in
1903,


## p. 401 (#439) ############################################

SERVICES, 1914-1918
401
the contribution of military force to be made by each state was deter-
mined, and constituted the force known as the Imperial Service
Troops. These, in times of peace, are under the control of the princes
who furnish them, and are commanded by Indian officers appointed
by them, but they are trained and disciplined under the supervision
of British inspecting officers appointed by, and responsible to, the
Government of India.
The last war subjected the resources of India, no less than those of
all parts of the empire, to a severe strain. The narrow limits of a single
chapter preclude anything of the nature of a complete account of
India's contribution of men, material, and money to the war, or a
record of the services rendered by Indian troops of all classes, but in
1914 an Indian army corps was dispatched to France, and there,
during a winter so inclement as to try severely men born and bred in
Northern Europe, endured not only the onslaughts of the German
army, but the hardships and the horrors of trench life. Indian troops
fought not only in Flanders, but in East Africa and Turkey, on the
Egyptian frontier, in Palestine, and in Mesopotamia, and kept the
peace in Southern Persia; and during the war the Government of India
recruited, on a voluntary basis, over 680,000 combatants and 400,000
non-combatants, and more than 1,215,000 officers and men were sent
overseas on service, the Indian casualties amounting to 101,000. 1
The Imperial Service Troops, among whom that fine old soldier,
the late Maharaja Pratap Singh, was the most prominent figure, were
a valuable addition to the forces of the crown, and distinguished
themselves in many actions, but among the most interesting and satis-
factory conclusions reached by critics who studied the conduct of
various classes in the war was one which related to classes regarded
as respectable soldiers, but not in the first rank of fighting men. Of
Pathans, Gurkhas, Panjabi, Musalmans and Sikhs much was ex-
pected, nor did they disappoint their advocates, but the Jats and
Marathas displayed a fine fighting spirit.
Until the outbreak of this war Indian sepoy officers had held
the viceroy's commission, the highest ranks which they could reach
being those of risaldar major in cavalry and subadar major in
infantry regiments, but in 1917 they were made eligible for the king's
commission in the rank of lieutenant, and in all ranks to which a
lieutenant may rise. An endeavour is now being made to entrust
the charge of whole battalions, by degrees, to Indian officers, who
are being appointed to them as lieutenants, and will in the ordinary
course of promotion hold all the commissioned ranks in them, but it
cannot yet be judged how the experiment will succeed.
In 1922 the Indian Army was radically reorganised. ? The number
of cavalry regiments was reduced, by the amalgamation of existing
I O'Dwyer, India as I knew it, pp. 417–23;
* Gazette of India, Army Orders and official Army Lists.
26
CHI V1


## p. 402 (#440) ############################################

402
THE INDIAN ARMY, 1858–1918
regiments, from thirty-nine to twenty-one; the number of mountain
batteries was fixed at nineteen, with an additional section for Chitral;
the engineers remained three distinct corps, the Bengal, Madras and
Bombay Sappers and Miners; and the infantry was organised in four
regiments of pioneers, nineteen regiments of the line, and ten regi-
ments of Gurkha Rifles. Three of the pioneer regiments and the
regiments of the infantry of the line consist of service battalions varying
in number from two to five, and a depôt battalion stationed per-
manently at the regimental centre, in the area from which the regi-
ment is recruited. The duty of the depôt battalion, which is always
numbered as the tenth, to admit of the consecutive numbering of
additional service battalions to be raised and formed when necessary,
is to keep the service battalions supplied with trained soldiers. One
of the pioneer regiments, the Hazara Pioneers, and the ten regiments
of Gurkha Rifles are recruited beyond the limits of British India, and
cannot, therefore, be organised on a territorial basis. The establish-
ment of each of these regiments is two battalions.
The old commissariat and transport corps, or departments, have
been reorganised as the Indian Army Service Corps; a proportion of
the infantry is trained as mounted infantry and a proportion as
machine gunners. The medical and all other departments of the army
have been reorganised in accordance with the lessons learned in the
late war.
An Auxiliary Force, raised from Europeans and British subjects of
mixed descent, and enrolled for local service only, consists of units of
all arms, with a total strength of about 36,000, and the Territorial
Force, composed wholly of Indians, consists of eighteen provincial
battalions affiliated to regular regiments, four battalions of urban
infantry in process of formation, eleven University training corps, and
a medical branch, with a total strength of about 19,000. The pro-
vincial battalions are liable to general service in India, or, in case of
emergency, beyond the Indian frontier, and the urban battalions to
service within the province in which each is situated, but the University
training corps are subject to no liability.
Of the combatant ranks of the regular army the Panjab alone
supplies nearly half, and the Panjab, the North-West Frontier
Province, Kashmir and the United Provinces together over 64 per
cent. , the independent state of Nepal 12 per cent. , the Bombay
Presidency and Rajputana each under 43 per cent. , and the Madras
Presidency rather more than 2} per cent. The great province of
Bengal, with a population of forty-eight millions, supplies not a single
soldier, nor does the neighbouring province of Assam, with a
population of eight millions. The contributions of other provinces,
with the exception of Burma, which contributes nearly 2 per cent. ,
are negligible. 1
1 Simon Report, 1, map facing p. 96; O'Dwyer, op. cit. pp. 417-23.


## p. 403 (#441) ############################################

CHAPTER XXIII
CENTRAL ASIA, 1858-1918
THROUGHOUT the second half of the nineteenth and the early
years of the twentieth century Central Asia continued to provide the
chief problem of Indian external policy. In some respects the problem
had been simplified by the course of events since the first Afghan War.
The conquest of Sind and the Panjab had placed the Government of
India in direct contact with the region concerned. But this tendency
was more than offset by other changes. Developing communications
were intensifying the reactions of regional interests. European necds
took an ever-increasing share in determining Indian policy. In 1857
Canning could write of “a fear at the India House that government
are going to do as Hobhouse boasted he had done, and dictate from
London what the Government of India shall do in Afghanistan”. 1
The fear became a reality. Half a century later Morley wrote from
the India Office: “The plain truth is. . . that this country [Great
Britain) cannot have two foreign policies”;? and from the Foreign
Office Sir Charles Hardinge observed of the negotiations for the
entente with Russia: "Recently we have left tł• Government of India
entirely out of our account”; In the old days, the Government of
India, as a member of it declared, “could, if we saw good, have
marched our army to Candahar or Herat, and trusted to the Court
[of Directors] approving”. 4 Foreign policy had been a matter in
which the governor-general had enjoyed a greater liberty of conduct
than in any other branch of his administration. The exigencies of
political action, the needs of a swiftly developing situation, had per-
mitted him, in the days before the Red Sea cable was laid in 1870,
to confront the home authorities with accomplished facts, with a
formal declaration of war or annexation of territory, in which they
could not but acquiesce, however reluctantly. But in the new period
telegraph and cable invested distant incidents with a growing in-
fluence upon European politics and at the same time permitted
European cabinets to control action which in the past had depended
on the wide discretion of local governors. Even, Curzon's vigour and
determination had been barely able to restore to the Government of
India the phantom of its old authority; and what he could not achieve
lesser men could not even attempt.
Nor was the growing predominance of European control the sole
1 Fitzmaurice, Life of Granville, 1, 153.
• Recollections, 11, 179.
• Gooch and Temperley, Origins of the War, iv, 294.
• Martineau, Life of Frere, 1, 245.
4
26-2


## p. 404 (#442) ############################################

404
CENTRAL ASIA, 1858–1918
difficulty with which the Government of India had to contend.
Unluckily external policy was the one aspect of Indian political affairs
which was capable of exciting interest in Great Britain. Nourished
on the myth of Anglo-Indian aggressiveness, accepting without question
the extravagance of Burke and the far less justifiable falsehoods of
Macaulay's essay on Warren Hastings, Radical opinion perceived
aggression behind every measure of Indian defence; in their eyes the
frontier tribes were a race of wronged and noble savages, and the
Afghans a nation rightly struggling to free itself from the meshes of
intrigue cast around it by a malevolent Indian Government.
At the outset, in 1858, the governor-general still retained much of
his former influence and discretion. The situation, however, was
obscure. In 1844 the visit of the emperor Nicholas I to England had
resulted in an understanding formulated in a memorandum prepared
a
by Count Nesselrode. This document declared that Russia and Great
Britain would work together to preserve the internal peace of Persia,
and that the khanates of Central Asia-Bokhara, Khiva, and
Samarkand-should be left “as a neutral zone between the two em-
pires in order to preserve them from a dangerous contact". 1 For ten
years this understanding had been observed. But the Crimean War
had ended it without establishing any substitute in Central Asia.
Indeed from that time onwards British policy was constantly but
unsuccessfully directed towards restoring the situation as it had stood
from 1844 to 1854.
Meanwhile, for ten years after the restoration of Dost Muhammad
as the ruler of Kabul, British relations with Afghanistan had been
undefined but sullen. They were modified under the pressure of
Persian eagerness to expand eastwards and reconquer Herat and
Kandahar. The former city had been seized by the Persians in 1852
and only relinquished under threats of vigorous British action. In
1854 the place was again attacked. Herbert Edwardes, the com-
missioner at Peshawar, perceived in this a heaven-sent occasion to
re-establish a definite friendship with Dost Muhammad. The chief
commissioner of the Panjab, John Lawrence, thought little of the
proposal; but Dalhousie was convinced of its propriety, and with his
approval Edwardes spent some months coaxing the amir into making
overtures to the British Government. The result was a treaty signed
early in 1855, by which the Government of India bound itself not to
interfere with the amir's territories, while he in return agreed to be
“the friend of the friends and the enemy of the enemies of the
Honourable East India Company”. 4 In one respect the treaty fell
short of what Dost Muhammad had desired. He had sought to extract
1 Étude diplomatique sur la guerre de Crimée, 1, 11 599.
2 Memorials of Sir Herbert Edwardes, 1, 236.
3 Bosworth Smith, Life of Lord Lawrence, I, 450, 452; Memorials of Sir Herbert Edwardes,
II, 239, 447
Aitchison, Treaties, xi, 340.


## p. 405 (#443) ############################################

DOST MUHAMMAD
405
a promise never to send an envoy to Kabul. This was deliberately
refused. The Afghan negotiator was to be assured (the instructions
said)
that the Government of India has no intention of sending and no wish to send a
representative to the court of Cabul; but it should be pointed out to him that this
government could not in prudence bind itself never to depute a representative to
the Ameer, for if Russia or other powers should be represented by envoys at Cabul,
the interests of the British government would plainly suffer injury if no envoy
were present on its behalf. 1
In 1856 Herat was again seized by the Persians, who boasted to
their Russian friends that they would occupy Kandahar and establish
themselves on the borders of the Panjab. This led to war not only
with the amir of Kabul but also with Great Britain. A force was
dispatched from Bombay, and the amir was assisted with money and
arms, the employment of the subsidy being placed under the in-
spection of British officers, who were to be withdrawn as soon as the
war was over. The Persians speedily came to terms by a treaty signed
at Paris on 4 March, 1857. The most interesting point of this agree-
ment was the care taken by the Russian Government to secure the
exclusion of English consuls from the Caspian ports, on the ground
that their appointment could have none but a political object. 5
For some years after this the Afghan question fell into a calm. Dost
Muhammad was busily consolidating his power. In 1862 he attacked
Herat. Though the governor-general, Elgin, admitted that in this he
was not the aggressor, the Government of India signified its disap-
proval by recalling the vakil—the Muslim agent—who had been
maintained at Kabul since 1857. 6 Ignoring this protest, Dost Muham-
mad persisted in his attack, took the place in 1863, and died shortly
after at the age of eighty. He had designated his son, Sher 'Ali, as his
successor. But in Afghanistan as in Moghul India, theoretical rights
of succession counted for little in comparison with force. A prolonged
period of fratricidal war ensued, now one, now another of Dost
Muhammad's sixteen sons gaining the upper hand. In 1864 Afzal
Khan and Azim Khan rebelled; in 1865 Azim Khan and his nephew
Abd-ur-rahman rose; in 1866 Sher 'Ali was driven from Kabul and
in 1867 from Kandahar; in 1868 he suddenly recovered them. ' An
incident of one of the actions of this period well illustrates the proud
ferocity with which the struggle was conducted. Amin Khan, Sher
'Ali's full brother, was killed fighting against him. His dead body was
brought in triumph to Sher ’Ali. "Throw the body of this dog away”,
he said, “and bid my son come and congratulate me on the victory. "
Memorials of Sir Herbert Edwardes, 1, 242.
? Dispatch from Anitschkoff, 27 October (O. S. ), 1856 (Legation Archives, vii, e).
: Goldsmid, Life of Outram, 11, 130 s99.
• Aitchison, op. cit. XI, 342.
• Gortchakoff to Lagofsky, 26 February (O. S. ), 1857 (Legation Archives, loc. cil. ).
• Walrond, Elgin's Letters and Journals, pp. 417, 419.
? A detailed narrative will be found in Wylly, External Policy of India, pp. i sqq.
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CENTRAL ASIA, 1858–1918
His officers, not daring to tell him that his son also had fallen, brought
his body. “Who is this other dog? ” the amir demanded. But when
the corpse had been laid at his feet and he knew it for his son's, he
rent his garments and cast dust upon his head. 1
Throughout this period, under the influence of John Lawrence, the
Government of India pursued that policy of inactivity which some
have called “masterly”, 2 although in truth it consisted merely in
waiting upon events. Upon the generation that had witnessed the
Indian Mutiny, Lawrence's vigour of character and singleness of
purpose produced a remarkable effect. His opinions were accepted
as oracles, and men forgot or ignored the fallibility of his judgment.
Even Lord Salisbury, during his first tenure of the India Office as
Lord Cranborne in 1866–7, “whole-heartedly” approved Lawrence's
ideas of Afghan policy. 3 Lawrence had always disliked the idea of
alliance with the ruler of Afghanistan. Both before and after Dost
Muhammad's death he had done his utmost to prevent the govern-
ment from taking any part in Afghan politics, on the score that the
British could not make a true friend of the amir. But his views (as
Dalhousie observed with customary incisiveness) were based on the
fallacy that the Afghans were too foolish to recognise their own in-
terests.