Peace, Poverty and Betrayal by Roderick Matthews

Author:Roderick Matthews [Matthews, Roderick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2021-06-20T00:00:00+00:00

THE GREAT BETRAYAL

7

1859–1885

RECOVERY, INVESTMENT, DEBT, DEVOLUTION

1859–64: Settlement, Recovery, First Partition

The Uprising swept away the thin veneer that had humanized the Company’s rule. In practice, officials had been able to stand in for representative institutions with a personal touch that mitigated the absolute nature of British rule.This sort of system was not unfamiliar to the Indian population, who had lived under a version of it for centuries. Now, under direct Crown rule, India was to have an elected government, though not elected by Indians. Instead, India was granted a second-hand style of political accountability, rooted far away in distant institutions. Personal connections were replaced by formal political responsibility in Westminster.

The British thought they were improving matters, but over time an amended Company system, with its looser grip, might have had more chance of accommodating Indian aspirations, because individuals could have been admitted to it, and run it in much the same way.This would not have been ‘modern’, but it might have been inclusive.

Instead, the one intermediate body that had effectively protected India from the most naked of British interests, the EIC, was removed, leaving India at the mercy of British national economic forces, with only British politicians to protect her.The seeds of high imperialism were sown, as the flimsy restraints that conscience had once exercised on individuals were now removed, replaced by the massive self-confidence of a venerable Parliament which believed axiomatically that it could do no wrong.

After 1858, British politicians held firm to the narrow belief that Indians wanted jobs, not political responsibility. Indians could be trained as employees, but responsibility would remain solely the business of the British political classes. As Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg address, there were no concerns in London that government of the people, by the people, for the people need ever exist in India. No matter how well meaning it may have been, the introduction of Crown rule was, conceptually at least, disastrously demeaning.

In standard histories, the Uprising is assumed to have derailed the British modernization project in India, but this is not true. The damage that 1857 did was primarily to the Indian project of modernization, by changing the political climate of the country, with consequences well understood by Harish Chunder Mukherjee.

‘The Widows’ Marriage Act [of 1856] is an instance to prove the advanced position which the legislature had taken in respect to social matters. A law to restrain polygamy … merely awaited a few formalities to have effective penal force throughout the country. Other abominations live [on], which it were unpatriotic to expose to the gaze of idle curiosity. All these have gained a long lease of existence. All hopes of their extirpation lie for the time dashed to the ground.’1 Despite an attempt by Raja Deo Narayan Singh of Benares to revive anti-polygamy legislation in 1863, the situation remained unchanged till 1955.

The British project to modernize India was not halted so much as deflected, and 1858 marked the beginning of several new strands—the expansion of public works, the restructuring of Raj

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.