The Ruling Caste: Imperial Lives in the Victorian Raj by Gilmour David

Author:Gilmour, David [Gilmour, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Published: 2007-06-11T23:00:00+00:00

On Deposing a Ruler

After the Mutiny the Government of India reassured the rulers of native states that annexation was a policy of the past. As the paramount power it was now effectively guaranteeing that they would not be overthrown by hostile neighbours or by rebellious subjects. Yet it had to retain an ultimate prerogative, a latent force of intimidation, if this kind of insurance were not to be taken as a licence for misrule. If it prevented people from rebelling against their rulers, the Government had to accept the obligation to remove grievances that might justify rebellion. It had to retain the right to interfere with administrations and to depose bad rulers.53

The decision to interfere was an easy one to take in cases of civil war, insurrection or the collapse of state government. In the state of Alwar in Rajputana the British had to intervene more than once in disputes between the Maharaja and his noblemen.54 It was more difficult to calculate when ‘gross misrule’ was gross enough to justify intervention. An official manual identified the moment when it reached ‘a pitch which violates the elementary laws of civilization’.55 But this was not very precise counsel for Politicals who, while frequently reminded that their chief duty was to ‘advise’, were often hell-bent on reforming abuses. One difficulty was that even corrupt and inefficient rulers were often popular with their subjects. Richard Temple admitted that the British virtues, justice and impartiality, and the British demeanour, frigid and inflexible, were not greatly appreciated by people who did not really care whether the police were corrupt or the courts inefficient. Indians, he believed, got more upset about matters such as ‘the non-recognition of caste or class privileges in matters of law and justice’.56

Mortimer Durand, the Foreign Secretary, disapproved of zealous Politicals who were ‘very impatient of evils and annoyances which are by no means uncommon in our native states’. For this reason he transferred Evan Maconochie from Rajpipla and Trevor Plowden from Kashmir. He was particularly critical of Plowden, an ‘autocratic little beggar’ who had been ‘forcing the pace’ and ‘trying to set the Maharaja aside’. Durand wanted to give the incompetent ruler a chance to atone for his misrule, to let him form ‘an administration after his own heart’ and to do so with the help of a Resident ‘not already convinced of his hopelessness’.57 The Maharaja did not rise to the challenge and a year later, in 1889, he found it expedient to abdicate for a few years in favour of a Council of State. But the effort was a typical example of Durand’s benign outlook.

I have always felt that what we should regard as our primary object in dealing with the native states is the gain of their goodwill and confidence, not the establishment of a high standard of administration. We must of course put down gross and systematic oppression, because we do not allow rebellion, which is the natural check upon repression, but I do not think it is

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.