No More Learning

The early Indian jail system was
justly described as insanitary, demoralising, and non-deterrent, and
was responsible for the appointment in 1838 of a commission which
recommended radical reforms. Financial stringency, however, pre-
vented these being carried out, and no appreciable change for the
better took place until the appointment in 1855 of an Inspector-
1 Report on the Administration of Public Affairs in the Bombay Presidency for 1855-6.


## p. 74 (#106) #############################################

74
DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN BOMBAY
General of Prisons in each presidency and the passing of Act VIII of
1856, which relieved the judges of the sadr faujdari adalat from the
charge of jails. These measures led directly to improvements in jail
buildings and in the discipline and health of prisoners. Subsequent
progress in this department belongs to the period succeeding the
appointment of a second Prisons Commission in 1864.
The history of the pre-Mutiny period of the administration involves
a brief reference to the Public Works, and the Ecclesiastical and
Medical Departments. For several years the administration of the
former was carried on under great disadvantages, owing to the want
of experienced civil engineers. The court of directors endeavoured to
relieve the difficulty by occasionally sending to Bombay a batch of
men “with more or less experience in civil engineering”, and at times,
e. g. in 1855, the Bombay Government was able to secure in the
country the services of a few professionally educated civil engineers.
But the whole agency at their disposal was “lamentably small”, and
the department was not organised on a satisfactory basis until after
the assumption of direct authority by the crown. The Ecclesiastical
Department owed its origin to the determination of the directors in
early factory days to provide for the spiritual needs of their servants
in India, and as the number of these and of the European troops
increased, the ecclesiastical establishment likewise expanded, until in
1855–6 the number of clergy appointed for the Bombay diocese
amounted to thirty-two. Subject to the general control of the govern.
ment, the chaplains were directly subordinate to the bishop of the see,
the first bishop of Bombay, Dr Carr, having been installed in 1838. 2
The medical administration was likewise evolved from the system
adopted in early days by the East India Company of sending
chirurgeons” from England for the care of their servants and troops
in the "factories” and on the vessels trading with the East. The
surgeons serving on the Company's Indiamen were often utilised
in emergencies in India, as for example during the Maratha War
of 1780, and to fill vacancies among their professional brethren
attached to the factories and out-stations. The formation of these
scattered medical officers in India into a single body, the Indian
Medical Service, dates roughly from 1764, the service being divided
two years later (1766) into two branches, military and civil. Those
in the latter branch were regarded as primarily army medical officers,
lent temporarily for civil duties—an arrangement which was con-
firmed in 1788 during the governor-generalship of Lord Cornwallis.
The most important administrative change prior to the Mutiny con-
sisted in throwing open the service to Indians in 1853 through the
medium of competitive examinations, of which the first was held in
1855
Report on the Administration of Public Affairs in the Bombay Presidency for 1855-6.
2 Gazetteer of Bombay City and Island, 111, 245.


## p. 75 (#107) #############################################

CHAPTER V
DISTRICT ADMINISTRATION IN THE UNITED
PROVINCES, CENTRAL PROVINCES, AND PANJAB
1818-1857
A VERY brief chronological résumé of the successive territorial
acquisitions which in less than a century extended the political
responsibilities of the East India Company from the boundaries of
Bengal to Peshawar is a necessary introduction to a study of adminis-
trative development in the three areas, each approximately 100,000
square miles, which are now officially known as the United Provinces,
the Central Provinces, and the Panjab; and which will hereafter be
collectively referred to as “the three provinces". (1) The districts
around Benares were ceded in 1775 by the ruler of Oudh, and (2) the
“Ceded territories”, comprising most of the present United Provinces
exclusive of Oudh, by his successor in 1801. 1 (3) In 1803 Sindhia,
the defeated Maratha chief, yielded the “Conquered territories",
lying to the north of the last-mentioned tract and extending west of
the Jumna; and in the same year a portion of Bundelkhand was
obtained from the Peshwa. 2 (4) The successful Gurkha War of 1816
added the northern hill districts of the United Provinces, and (5) in
1818, after the third Maratha War, the Bhonsla raja of Nagpur
surrendered the Sagar and Narbada territories, except a small area
in the north already ceded by the Peshwa in 1817. 3 They are now
included in the Central Provinces. (6) In 1809 the Sikh states to the
east of the Satlej placed themselves under British protection. This
arrangement was in practice coupled with a claim to escheat in
favour of the suzerain on failure of heirs, and it led to gradual minor
annexations up to 1846, the year which saw the conclusion of the
first Sikh War. The remaining states, mostly very petty in status and
area, were subsequently absorbed, except six of importance, which
still survive as feudatories. (7) The same year saw the acquisition of
the Jalandhar Doab, the plain country between the rivers Satlej and
Beas, together with an adjacent hilly tract. (8) The second Sikh War
resulted in 1849 in the annexation of the Panjab up to the present
· Baden Powell, Land Systems of British India, 1, 63; Field, Regulations of the Bengal Code,
1875, pp. 9, 10; Administration Report of North-West Provinces, 1882-3, pp. 29, 30; Adm. Rep.
of United Provinces, 1911-12, p. 14:
• Baden Powell, op. cit. 1, 64, Field, op. cit, p. 15; Adm. Rep. N. -W. Prous. pp: 30, 31.
• Baden Powell, op. cit. 1, 68, 69; Imperial Gazetteer, x, 17; Adm. Rep. Central Provinces,
1882–3, p. 11; Adm. Rep. N. -W. Provs. p. 32; House of Commons Papers, XVIII, 533.
• Baden Powell
, op. cit. 1, 43; Adm. Rep. N. -W. Prous. 1882-3, pp. 31-3; Adm. Rep. Panjab,
1882-3, pp. 16–17; Panjab Settlement Manual, pp. 5, 6; Ibbetson, Settlement Report of Karnal,
p. 35.


## p. 76 (#108) #############################################

76 ADMINISTRATION IN U. P. , C. P. , AND PANJAB
2
8
north-western frontier. (9) In 1853 the Nagpur and Jhansi states
lapsed to the British Government, while (10) Berar was assigned to
it by the Nizam of Hyderabad and has been in its possession ever
since. 3 () The process of expansion was completed in 1856 by the
11)
annexation of Oudh. 4
In 1836 the tracts (1) to (4) in the above résumé were formed into
the North-Western Provinces with an administration under a lieu-
tenant-governor separate from that of Bengal, and to it tract (5) was
attached until 1861, when it was included in the present Central
Provinces, then newly formed under a chief commissioner. The
cis-Satlej states and the Jalandhar Doab, nos. (6) and (7), were after
1846 each placed under a commissioner directly subordinate to the
Government of India, and subsequently to the Resident at Lahore;
but in 1849 they were absorbed in the new province of the Panjab.
The lapsed state of Nagpur was included in the Central Provinces in
1861, while Jhansi passed to the North-Western Provinces. Berar was
administered by a commissioner until 1903, when it was attached to
the Central Provinces. ? In 1858 the districts west of the Jumna,
ceded in 1803 and known as the Delhi territory, were transferred
from the North-Western Provinces to the Panjab, 8 and from the latter
in 1901 the present North-West-Frontier Province was separated.
Oudh on annexation was placed under a chief commissioner, the
charge being amalgamated with the lieutenant-governorship of the
North-Western Provinces in 1877. 9. The combined areas are now
officially known as the United Provinces (of Agra and Oudh).
The distinction between regulation and non-regulation areas, once
of importance, has long since been practically obsolete. In 179310
Lord Cornwallis, in pursuance of statutory legislative powers then
existing, issued a revised code of forty-eight regulations for the presi-
dency of Bengal, and it is this body of legislation which, with sub-
sequent additions, was specifically known as the Bengal Regulations.
In 1795 they were extended, together with the permanent settlement,
to the Benares districts. 11 To subsequent acquisitions, if formally
included in the Bengal Presidency, the regulations applied auto-
1 Baden Powell, op. cit. 1, 70, 71; Adm. Rep. Panjab, 1882-3, pp. 28, 31.
* Baden Powell, op. cit. 1, 65-9; Adm. Rep. Cent. Provs. 1882-3, p. 11.
• Baden Powell, op. cit. 1, 49 and 111, 345; Adm. Rep. Cent. Prous. 1911-12, p. 17; Lord
Dalhousie's Minute of 28 February, 1856, para. 18.
• H. of C. Papers, 1856, vol. xlv; Field, op. cit. p. 10; Adm. Rep. N. -W. Provs. p. 34.
I
6 Field, op. cit. p. 15; Baden Powell, op. cit. 1, 36; Government of India Resolution of
2 November, 1861; Adm. Rep. Cent. Provs. 1911-12, p. II.
6 Adm. Rep. Panjab, 1911-12, pp. 17-18.
7 Baden Powell, op. cil. III, 346; Adm. Rep. Cent. Provs. 1911-12, p. 18.
& Baden Powell, op. cit. I, 45; Adm. Rep. N. -W. Provs. p. 34; Adm. Rep. Panjab, 1911-12,
• Baden Powell, op. cit. 1, 42; Adm. Rep. N. -W. Provs. p. 34.
10 Baden Powell, op. cit. 1, 81; Field, op. cit. pp. vi, 42; Fifth Report of Select Committee
of House of Commons, 1812; Moral and Material Progress Report, 1882-3, p. 34; Campbell,
Modern India, 1852, p. 34.
11 Adm. Rep. Unit. Prous. 1911-12, p. 15; Baden Powell, op. cit. 11, 63; Fifth Report, 1812.
p. 20.


## p. 77 (#109) #############################################

THE REGULATIONS
77
3
matically in the absence of any special prescription to the contrary, .
For others there was, up to 1833, no legislative machinery, and all
rules and ordinances needed for purposes of administration were
issued by the governor-general purely in his executive capacity. 1
Moreover, he was unfettered in the selection and recruitment of
necessary staff, whereas in the presidency territories all offices had
under statute to be filled by covenanted civil servants of the Com-
pany. The distinction favoured elasticity, rendering it possible to
adapt the form of administration in new territories to diverse local
conditions and to avoid undue complexity in backward tracts. Of
the successive acquisitions enumerated above, (1), (2), (3) and (4)
only were attached to the Bengal Presidency, and to these, except (4)
and the Delhi territory,' the regulations as a whole were applied,
though with needful local modifications. The legislative changes made
in 1833 have been noticed elsewhere. It was not until 1861 that
regular legislation was possible for territories acquired after 1833. 4
For such, up to the later year, rules and ordinances were issued by
the governor-general and by provincial authorities in their executive
capacity.
The type of administrative machinery which Lord Cornwallis's
apprehension of the abuse of executive power led him to create in
Bengal has already been described. The chief official in a district
was the judge and magistrate.
He disposed of civil litigation and of
minor criminal cases, committing the more serious to the provincial
courts of appeal and circuit, which were in turn subject to the control
of the chief civil and criminal courts at Calcutta. The collector of the
district was an almost purely fiscal officer, his sole function being the
collection of revenue with prompt enforcement of penalties in case of
default; while most of his proceedings were open to challenge in the
courts of his own district. 6
This system, together with the regulations, was extended to the
“Ceded territories” in 1803, and in 1805 to the “Conquered terri-
tories” and to the Bundelkhand districts of Banda and Hamirpur;?
the whole of these areas being placed under the direct control of the
governor-general and subjected to the jurisdiction of the Calcutta
courts. They were known as the Upper Provinces. This organisation
was retained with little alteration until the period 1829-35, when
drastic changes, similar in Bengal and in the Upper Provinces, were
made by Lord William Bentinck. A new class of officers, designated
1 Baden Powell, op. cit. 1, 82.
* Imperial Gazette, IV, 42; 33 Gco. III, c. 52; Moral and Mai. Prog. Rep. 1882-3, P. 36.
3 Ibbetson, op. cit. p. 38.
• Baden Powell, op. cit. 1, 89.
5 Cf. vol. v, pp. 453 399. , supra.
• Bengal Reg. 11 of 1793; Adm. Rep. Bengal, 1911-12, p. 41; Field, op. cil. p. 172;
Kaye, History of the Administration of the East India Company, 1853, pp. 387 399. ; Campbell,
op. cit. p. 180; Fifth Report, 1812.
* Field, op. cit. pp. 147-8.


## p. 78 (#110) #############################################

78 ADMINISTRATION IN U. P. , C. P. , AND PANJAB
1
1
commissioners of divisions, was created, a division being an area of
four or five districts and thus not too large for efficient supervision.
The commissioners exercised full powers of control in all branches of
fiscal, executive, and police work, being subject as regards the first to
a board of revenue at Calcutta; while in order to relieve the pro-
vincial courts of appeal and circuit, which were congested with arrears,
their criminal jurisdiction as courts of circuit was transferred to the
new officers. In the next place, the unworkable extension which the
limits of the jurisdiction of the principal courts at Calcutta had under-
gone, as a result of the expansion of territory, necessitated the creation
in 1831 of similar separate courts at Agra for the Upper Provinces.
To these new courts was transferred the remaining civil jurisdiction
of the provincial courts, which thus came to an end in 1833. Finally,
owing to the excessive burden which criminal jurisdiction on circuit
was soon found to be imposing on the commissioners, it was trans-
ferred to the district judges, who thus became in addition circuit, or
sessions judges, while their magisterial powers, being incompatible
with their new functions, were passed on to the collectors. The
collector was thus invested with combined judicial and executive
powers under the designation of magistrate and collector. 3 The union
has been retained up to the present day, except for a temporary return
to separation in Bengal during the period 1837–59. 4 A subordinate
Indian judiciary, with a more or less defined jurisdiction, had been
growing up since the early period of British rule from among persons
who were regularly employed as a semi-official paid agency for arbi-
tration in civil suits. 5 In 1831 Lord William Bentinck increased its
strength, raised its status, and enhanced its powers, so that it was soon
dealing in courts of first instance with the greater part of the whole
volume of civil litigation. It was in fact the forerunner of the modern
provincial services. The criminal branch of the judiciary was also
strengthened by the appointment, under an act of 1843, of persons,
both European and Indian, other than covenanted civil servants of
the Company to the post of deputy-magistrate.
Lawlessness prevailed in the Upper Provinces for a long period after
their annexation, and several years passed before insurgents ceased to
disturb the Doab, the tract lying between the rivers Ganges and
Jumna. The Pindaris were troublesome; the crime of thagi, described
elsewhere, was rife; and pirates preyed on the river trade-routes. As
late as 1817 the fortress of Hathras in the Doab had to be reduced
1 Reg. 1 of 1829; Baden Powell, op. cit. 1, 666; Field, op. cit. pp. 132, 154; H. of C. Papers,
1831-2, vol. xu; Kaye, op. cit. p. 347; Campbell, op. cit. p. 257.
2 Bengal Reg. vi of 1831; Field, op. cit. p. 149; Kaye, op. cit. p. 349.
• Field, op. cit. p. 154; Kaye, op. cit. p. 348; Adm. Rep. Bengal, 1901-12, p. 45.
• Field, op. cit. p. 155; Campbell, op. cit. pp. 239 sqq. ; Adm. Rep. Bengal, 1911-12, p. 46.
• Bengal Reg. XL of 1793; Field, op. cit. pp. 144, 156–9; Kaye, op. cit. p. 350; Adm. Rep.
Bengal, 1911-12, pp. 42, 45.
& Field, op. cit. p. 159; Kaye, op. cit. p. 351; Adm. Rep. Bengal, 1911-12, p. 46.


## p. 79 (#111) #############################################

EARLY POLICE SYSTEM
79
by siege, and gang robbery was very prevalent about Saharanpur,
while marauders from Central India infested the south-western
frontier. By 1830, however, some degree of permanent peace was
established. During this period, and indeed for many years later,
the district police system was merely a modified survival from the
days of indigenous rule, when the maintenance of order in rural tracts
was the duty of influential local land-holders and village communities;
while in large towns the responsibility lay on the kotwal, a government
official who was in receipt of a substantial salary with many per-
quisites, and who also provided his own staff. In 1793 Lord Corn-
wallis abolished the police duties of the zamindars of Bengal and
appointed Indian police officers, termed darogas, each of whom, with
a small force of armed men under the control of the district magis-
trate, was placed in charge of an area some twenty miles square. 3
This system was extended in due course to the Upper Provinces,
though there the local responsibility of land-holders was maintained.
For the preservation of law and order the district magistrate thus had
under him a loosely organised body of purely local police and an
agency of village watchmen, who were the dependents of land-holders
and of village communities. The darogas were paid partly by fixed
salaries and partly by fees for each dacoit (gang-robber) arrested,
with a percentage on the value of stolen property recovered, provided
that the thief was convicted. The system, though some improvement
on its predecessor, was inefficient, while the magistrate, amid his
judicial duties, was unable to supervise it properly. An attempt to
improve it was made in 1829 by giving the new commissioners powers
of control and superintendence. The wide prevalence of thagi and
dacoity, for the suppression of which special agency had to be
employed, clearly indicated the inadequacy of the existing system of
district police. Such as it was, it continued without much change
until 1861.
The general criminal law enforced in the Upper Provinces until
the enactment of the present Indian Penal Code in 1860 was, as in
Bengal, Muhammadan law, very extensively altered as time went on
by British regulations and judicial decisions. Some punishments had
to be modified so as to render them deterrent rather than vindictive;
others, too lenient for serious offences, had to be made more severe.
For many crimes, with which the Islamic system did not deal, addi-
tional provision had to be made; while fantastic rules of procedure
1 Adm. Rep. Unit. Prous. 1911-12, p. 11.
: Imp. Gaz. 11, 382-6; Moral and Mat. Prog. Rep. 1882-3, p. 78; Campbell, op. cit. p. 79;
Report of Indian Police Commission, 1903, chap. i, pp. 4 599:
Bengal Reg. 1 of 1793, VIII (4), and xxvii of 1795, v (4); Imp. Gaz, and Moral and Mat.
Prog. Rep. loc. cit.
Bengal Reg, xx of 1817; Campbell, op. cit
. pp. 442 sqq. ; H. of C. Papers, 1857-8, XLII, 75.
• Report of Indian Police Commission, 1903, p. 6.
• Field, op. cit. p. 175; H. of C. Papers, 1856, vol. xxV; Whitley Stokes, The Anglo-Indian
Codes, 1, 2.


## p. 80 (#112) #############################################

80 ADMINISTRATION IN U. P. , C. P. , AND PANJAB
and evidence were abolished. Under such conditions the criminal
law gradually became unmanageable in its bulk and complexity. In
civil litigation questions of inheritance, marriage, caste, and other
semi-religious matters were decided by Quranic law for Muham-
madans and by the prescriptions of the sastras for Hindus. In cases of
succession to landed estates, established custom, if such there were,
was followed; while in matters other than the above the courts were
enjoined to act in accordance with equity. 1
Fiscal necessity quickly and naturally focussed the attention of a
new government on the
assessment and collection of revenue, especially
revenue from land. The requirements of this earliest branch of
administrative activity went far to mould the framework of the whole
administrative organisation and to determine its shape and character.
The origin and nature of Indian land-revenue, and the Permanent
Settlement of Bengal, have been described in another part of this
work. Up to a time shortly before 1818 the views of British adminis-
trators on land-revenue questions were dominated by the principles
of that settlement. Its extension to the “Ceded” and “Conquered
. “
territories” was contemplated after their annexation, and indeed
promised in 18072 subject to the sanction of the home authorities.
But the directors, now grown doubtful about the propriety of the
Bengal system and to some extent conscious of the prevailing ig-
norance of the real nature of Indian conditions, hesitated to give their
approval; and in 1811, after local investigation by a Board of Com-
missioners appointed in 1807, they defmitely prohibited a permanent
settlement, while directing the continuance of the system of provisional
short-term settlements which had been made periodically since the
annexations. These, based on no very definite principles, except that
the state was entitled to the entire net assets of land, less a small
allowance for the cost of collection, were far from being satisfactory,
since the revenue to be paid was determined without actual enquiry
into resources and income and mainly with reference to the excessive
exactions of the displaced Indian rulers. 4
Assessment was often no more than the mere acceptance of the
highest bid of a revenue farmer without regard to the rights of actual
cultivators or of other persons, about which indeed little, if any, satis-
factory enquiry was made.