Part 5 (1/2)

I. Non-annexation and a fixed resolve that even the misrule of a Native Chief must not be used as a weapon for aggrandising our power.

II. But a constant feeling of responsibility attached to the British Government as suzerain, for any serious misrule in Native States; and a firm determination to interfere when British interference became necessary to prevent misgovernment.

Such interference to consist not in annexing the territory, but in displacing the Chief, and administering by British officers or a Native regency in the interest of the lawful heirs.

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III. Non-interference, and the lightest possible form of control, with Chiefs who governed well. Lord Mayo tried to make the Indian Feudatories feel that it rested with themselves to decide the degree of practical independence which they should enjoy, and that that degree would be strictly regulated by the degree of good government which they gave to their subjects.

IV. Above all, and as an indispensable complement to his whole policy, the education of the younger Native Chiefs under British officers, and in a high sense of their responsibilities alike to their subjects and to the Suzerain Power.

I shall endeavour very briefly to show how Lord Mayo gave effect to these principles.

I take first a case in which Lord Mayo recognised the necessity for reform, but abstained from direct intervention. In the great Province of Kathiawar, with its 187 chiefdoms, Lord Mayo had to deal with the relics of five centuries of Native misrule. He found many conflicting claims to the soil and a number of ancient communities, each with a vested right to depredation. The 'ex-ruling cla.s.ses,' representatives of old houses forcibly dispossessed, or of younger brothers of Chiefs unable to live on their slender share of the inheritance; 'predatory tribes,' and 'dangerous communities,' whose hereditary means of livelihood was plunder; 'aboriginal races,' penned into the hills by successive waves of invaders,--all these elements of {106} anarchy still fermented in the population of Kathiawar. Some venerable customs also survived. Litigants still retained their right of _bahirwatia_, literally, 'going out' against their neighbours. This method of adjusting suits for real property consisted in forcing the husbandmen to quit their villages, while the litigant retired with his brethren to 'some asylum, whence he may carry on his depredations with impunity.'

Lord Mayo keenly realised the evils from which Kathiawar was suffering; but he also clearly perceived the futility of attempting to rush reforms upon the loose congeries of 187 chiefdoms that made up the Province. While, therefore, he gradually introduced a better system for the whole, he confined his more direct interference to a leading princ.i.p.ality which might serve as an object lesson to the rest. One of the richest and most important States of the 'first cla.s.s' in Kathiawar pa.s.sed to a minor. Instead of bringing it under a British regent, an experienced Native Minister and a picked Member of the Bombay Civil Service were appointed as its joint-rulers. The experiment succeeded admirably. Reforms which could not have been introduced by an English regent without popular opposition, and which would never have been introduced by a Native ruler at all, were smoothly and harmoniously effected. The State became, with a minimum of interference by the Suzerain Power, a model of prosperity and firm administration.

But during Lord Mayo's Viceroyalty, as during {107} every other General-Governors.h.i.+p, cases of Feudatory misrule--pure, simple, and incorrigible--took place. In such instances he did not hesitate to interfere in a manner that left no doubt as to the interpretation which he gave to the duties of the Suzerain Power. He held that until everything had been done to render the English surveillance in a Native State as efficient as possible, he had no right to complain of the Chief. He realised that the process by which an Indian State casts its old skin of anarchy is necessarily a slow one. He kept his hands clean of any faintest stain of annexation. But he made every Feudatory in India clearly understand that if he persistently misgoverned his subjects, the sceptre would be taken out of his hands.

The State of Alwar afforded an example of this cla.s.s. It was founded in the latter half of the last century, by a Rajput soldier of fortune, and had an area of 3000 square miles, a population of three-quarters of a million, and an army of about 7000 men. In 1863 the young Hindu Chief attained his legal majority. His first act was to take vengeance on the President of the Native Council of Regency who had governed during his minority. In seven years he not only squandered a cash-balance of 172,287 pounds saved during his minority, together with the regular revenue of 200,000 pounds _per annum_, but he had plunged the State into debt to the extent of 160,000 pounds. The current taxes were so forestalled, that the balance due for the whole year would suffice but for two {108} months' expenditure; the Maharaja having hit on the clever financial device of rewarding his creatures by 'orders on the harvest!'

Some of the items of his expenditure will repay notice. Over 4000 pounds a year were a.s.signed to 'men whose sole duty it is to make _salams_ to the Chief'; over 5000 pounds to singers and dancing girls; and 1900 pounds to wrestlers. 'The Maharaja manifests the utmost contempt of decency, drinking publicly with low Muhammadans, and getting drunk nearly every day.' The revenues formerly spent on the administration of justice and police had 'been devoted to the Chief's private pleasures.' 'Indeed, the Chief himself is on terms of intimacy with two _dakait_ leaders,' i.e. heads of robber gangs. He had confiscated the public lands a.s.signed for the support of his troops, and for the maintenance of religion, or for the relief of the poor--one of the latter grants being 270 years old.

The result was to completely alienate the Raja of Alwar from his Rajput n.o.bility and subjects. The n.o.bility consisted of a powerful body of Hindu Thakurs, or barons. In vain they pleaded with him to observe some measure in his excesses. His practical answer to them was the disbandment of fifteen out of the eighteen Rajput troops of cavalry, whose fathers had won the State for his ancestor, and the enrollment of Muhammadan mercenaries in their stead. In March, 1870, the news reached the Government of India that the people of Alwar had risen, and that 2000 men were in the field against the Hindu Prince.

{109} Lord Mayo first laboured to do what was possible by arbitration between the unworthy Prince and his revolted subjects. But the n.o.bility would have been contented with nothing short of the deposition of the Chief. Lord Mayo interfered to prevent so extreme a measure. He gave the Prince a last chance, by summoning him to name a Board of Management which would command the confidence of his people; and the Chief having neglected to do so, Lord Mayo issued orders for the creation of a Native Council at Alwar. The Council consisted of the leading n.o.bility in the State, with the British Political Agent as President--the Maharaja having a seat next to the President.

Under the efficient management of this board, Alwar speedily emerged from its troubles. The Chief received an allowance of 18,000 pounds a year for his personal expenditure, exclusive of the permanent establishments required for his dignity as t.i.tular head of the State.

These establishments included, among other things, 100 riding-horses, 26 carriage-horses, and 40 camels, at the disposal of His Highness.

The remainder of the revenue was devoted to paying off the debt and to replacing the administration on an efficient basis. Peace was firmly established; the courts were reopened; schools were founded; and crime was firmly put down by an improved police.

The Chief still clung to his lowest favourites, and, so far as his debauched habits allowed him to interfere at all, he interfered for evil. At a State darbar on {110} the Queen's birthday, he publicly insulted his n.o.bility. Lord Mayo, however, still adhered to his resolve to govern Alwar by means of its own Native Council, rather than by any expedient which might bear the faintest resemblance to annexation. 'I fear this young Chief is incorrigible,' he wrote early in 1871, 'but we must pursue the course of treatment we have laid down, firmly and consistently. The whole action of this Chief is that of a mischievous and wily creature, who finds himself over-matched, tightly bound, and unable to do further harm.' Lord Mayo plainly told him that the only chance of 'his being ever freed from the Council'

would depend on his showing 'symptoms of repentance, and a determination to reconcile himself with his subjects.'

But this amendment was not to be. The Native Council of Management went on with its work of improvement and reform. The Chief held himself sullenly aloof, and sank deeper and deeper into the slough of evil habits, until he died, a worn-out old man of twenty-nine, in 1874.

This was the most serious case of Native misrule during Lord Mayo's Viceroyalty, and the only one in which he had to push interference to the point of superseding the hereditary Prince. Another instance of mal-administration was visited with a severe rebuke, which the Chief resented, and refused to take his proper place at a Viceregal darbar in the seat below the head of the ancient Udaipur house. The offender was promptly ordered to quit British territory in {111} disgrace, and was further punished by having his salute reduced from seventeen to fifteen guns.

It is only fair to the Indian Feudatories to state, that against these examples of misrule many instances could be cited of wise government and a high sense of duty. Lord Mayo gathered round him a circle of Chiefs whose character he personally admired, and in whose administration he took a well-founded pride. Of such territories, Bhopal may serve as an ill.u.s.tration. It is one of the Feudatory States of Central India which exercise sovereign powers over their own subjects: has an area of 6764 square miles, a population of 663,656 souls, and yields a revenue to its Chief of 240,000 pounds a year. Its army, besides a British Contingent which the Chief was bound to maintain by the treaty of 1818, amounted to 4000 men.

The State of Bhopal was founded in 1723 by an Afghan adventurer, who expelled the Hindu Chiefs, built a fortress, and a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Nawab. In 1778, when a British army under General G.o.ddard marched through Central India, Bhopal stood forward as the one State friendly to our power. The Maratha aggressions of the early part of the present century compelled it, like many other Indian States, to seek English aid. In 1819 it acknowledged the supremacy of our Government, was received under the British protection, and was rewarded by some valuable districts which we had won from the Marathas. The Mutiny of 1857 found Bhopal under the government of a {112} lady, the celebrated Sikandar Begam, whose wise administration had raised her State to a high rank among the Indian Feudatories. For her loyal services at that juncture she was created a Grand Commander of the Star of India, and dying in 1868, left her territory to a daughter worthy of her blood.

This Princess, at the time of her accession in 1868, was a widow of thirty-one years of age. She inherited her mother's firmness and good sense, with a rare apt.i.tude for the duties of administration. During Lord Mayo's Viceroyalty she devoted herself to the measures of progress which the Viceroy pressed on every Feudatory Chief who came under his influence. She opened out roads, organised a system of public instruction, executed a survey of her State, reformed the police, suppressed the abominable but deep-rooted trade of kidnapping minors for immoral purposes, and improved the jails. Lord Mayo received her in his capital with marks of distinction, and, on the occasion of the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh, presented her with honour to His Royal Highness. The Princess carried back to her State the liveliest recollections of his hospitality and kindness, and the next few years of her rule became conspicuous for good government and prudent administrative reforms.

Her Highness was created a Grand Commander of the Star of India, as the ruler of a model State.

Lord Mayo entertained very stringent views as to the duties of the Government of India towards the {113} wilder frontier tribes. He held that, while his Government was bound to preserve the peace of the border, it was bound to do so not by vindictive chastis.e.m.e.nts for raids committed, but by a more perfect organisation of preventive measures.

In one case on the North-Western Frontier of India, after persistent provocations, it had been locally proposed to deal with the mountaineers by means of a force to be kept ready to make reprisals at a moment's notice, in the event of future raids. Lord Mayo, after reviewing the recent events, thus declared his policy:--'The whole recommendation comes to this--that in the early part of spring a large force should be a.s.sembled at different points within the hills; and that this force, being placed absolutely at the disposal of the officers who believe that the burning of crops and the destruction of villages by British troops are indispensable to the maintenance of the peace of the frontier, should, at the least appearance of robbery or raid, advance into the hills and commence the old system of devastation.' Lord Mayo then points out that such a force, acting on the moment, would be beyond the guidance of the Government of India, and that that Government 'might find itself involved in serious military operations, upon the character, justice, or necessity of which the Governor-General in Council never had an opportunity of expressing an opinion.' 'I object to authorise action which may cause such serious results.'

'No one can read ----'s letter without coming to {114} the conclusion that there still exists in the minds of the local authorities an ardent though partly concealed desire for that avenging policy which the Government of India is so anxious to avoid.' Lord Mayo proposed 'to subst.i.tute, as far as possible, for surprise, aggression, and reprisal, a policy of vigilant, constant, and never-ceasing defence of those parts of our frontier which are by their position liable to be attacked by foreign tribes.'