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British policies in India after 1857 - Part 2
3.0 Administrative Policies
The British attitude towards India and, consequently, their policies in India changed for the worse after the Revolt of 1857. While before 1857 they had tried, however half-heartedly and hesitatingly, to modernize India, they now consciously began to follow reactionary policies. As the historian Percival Spear has put it, "the Indian Government's honey-moon with progress was over".
We have seen above how the organs of administrative control in India and in England, the India army and the Civil Service were reorganized to exclude Indians from an effective share in administration. Previously at least lip-service had been paid to the idea that the British were 'training' and 'preparing' the Indians for self-government and would eventually transfer political power to their hands. The view was now openly put forward that because of their inherent social and cultural defects the Indians were unfit to rule themselves and that they must be ruled by Britain for an indefinite period. This reactionary policy was reflected in many fields.
3.1 Divide and Rule
The British had conquered India by taking advantage of the disunity among the Indian powers and by playing them against one another. After 1858 they continued to follow this policy of divide and rule by turning the princes against the people, province against province, caste against caste, group against group and, above all, Hindus against Muslims.
The unity displayed by Hindus and Muslims during the ‘Revolt of 1857’ had disturbed the foreign rulers. They were determined to break this unity so as to weaken the rising nationalist movement. In fact, they missed no opportunity to do so. Immediately after the Revolt they repressed Muslims, confiscated their lands and property on a large scale, and declared Hindus to be their favorites. After 1870 this policy was reversed and an attempt was made to turn upper class and -middle class Muslims against the nationalist movement.
The Government cleverly used the attractions of government service to create a split along religious lines among the educated Indians. Because of industrial and commercial backwardness and the near-absence of social services, the educated Indians depended almost entirely on government service for employment. There were few other openings for them. This led to keen competition among them for the available government posts. The Government utilized this competition to fan provincial and communal rivalry and hatred. It promised official favors on a communal basis in return for loyalty and played the educated Muslims against the educated Hindus.
3.2 Hostility to educated Indians
The Government of India had actively encouraged modern education after 1833. The Universities of Calcutta, Bombay and Madras were started in 1857 and higher education spread rapidly thereafter. Many British officials commended the refusal by educated Indians to participate in the Revolt of 1857. But this favorable official attitude towards the educated Indians soon changed because some of them had begun to use their recently acquired modern knowledge to analyze the imperialistic character of British rule and to put forward demands for Indian participation in administration. The officials became actively hostile to higher education and to the educated Indians when the latter began to organize a nationalist movement among the people and founded the Indian National Congress in 1885. The officials now took active steps to curtail higher education. They sneered at the educated Indians whom they commonly referred to as 'seditious babus'.
Thus the British turned against that group of Indians who had imbibed modern western knowledge and who stood for progress along modern lines. Such progress was, however, opposed to the basic interests and policies of British imperialism in India. The official opposition to the educated Indians and higher education shows that British rule in India had already exhausted whatever potentialities for progress it originally possessed.
3.3 Attitude towards the Zamindars
While being hostile to the forward-looking educated Indians, the British now turned for friendship to the most reactionary group of Indians, the princes, the zamindars, and the landlords. We have already examined above the changed policy towards the princes and the official attempt to use them as a dam against the rise, of popular and nationalist movements. The zamindars and landlords too were placated in the same manner. For example, the lands of most of the talukdars of Awadh were restored to them. The zamindars and Landlords were now hailed as the traditional and 'natural' leaders of the Indian people. Their interests and privileges were protected. They were secured in the possession of their land at the cost of the peasants and were utilised as counterweights against the nationalist-minded intelligentsia. The Viceroy Lord Lytton openly declared in 1876 that "the Crown of England should henceforth be identified with the hopes, the aspirations, the sympathies and interests of a powerful native aristocracy". The zamindars and landlords in return recognised that their position was closely bound up with the maintenance of the British rule and became its firm supporters.
3.4 Attitude towards Social Reforms
As a part of the policy of alliance with the conservative classes, the British abandoned their previous policy of helping the social reformers. They believed that their measures of social reform, such as the abolition of the custom of sati and permission to widows to remarry, had been a major cause of the Revolt of 1857. They, therefore, gradually began to side with orthodox opinion and stopped their support to the reformers.
Thus, as Jawaharlal Nehru has put it in the “Discovery of India”, "Because of this natural alliance of the British power with the reactionaries in India, it became the guardian and upholder of many an evil custom and practice, which it otherwise condemned". In fact, the British were in this respect on the horns of a dilemma. If they favoured social reform and passed laws to this effect, the orthodox Indians opposed them and declared that a government of foreigners had no right to interfere in the internal social affairs of the Indians. On the other hand, if they did not pass such laws, they helped perpetuate social evils and were condemned by socially progressive Indians. It may, however, be noted that the British did not always remain neutral on social questions. By supporting the status quo they indirectly gave protection to existing social evils. Moreover, by encouraging casteism and communalism for political purposes, they actively encouraged social reaction.
3.5 Extreme backwardness of social services:
While social services like education, sanitation and public health, water supply, and rural roads made rapid progress in Europe during the 19th century, in India they remained at an extremely backward level. The Government of India spent most of its large income on the army and wars and the administrative services, and starved the social services. For example, in 1886, of its total net revenue of nearly Rs. 47 crore the Government of India spent nearly Rs. 19.41 crore on the army and Rs. 17 crore on civil administration but less than Rs. 2 crore on education, medicine, and public health, and only
Rs. 65 lakh on irrigation. The few halting steps that were taken in the direction of providing services like sanitation, water supply and public health were usually confined to urban areas, and that too to the so-called civil lines or British or modern parts of the cities. They mainly served the Europeans and a handful of upper class Indians who lived in the European part of the cities.
3.6 Labor legislation
The condition of workers in modern factories and plantations in the 19th century was miserable. They had to work between 12 and 16 hours a day and there was no weekly day of rest. Women and children worked the same long hours as men. The wages were extremely low, ranging from Rs. 4 to 20 per month. The factories were overcrowded, badly lighted and aired, and completely unhygienic. Work on machines was hazardous, and accidents very common.
The Government of India, which was generally pro-capitalist, took some half-hearted and totally inadequate steps to mitigate the sorry state of affairs in the modern factories, many of which were owned by Indians. In this it was only in part moved by humanitarian considerations. The manufacturers of Britain put constant pressure on it to pass factory laws. They were afraid that cheap labor would enable Indian manufacturers to outsell them in the Indian market. The first Indian Factory Act was passed in 1881.
The Act dealt primarily with the problem of child labor. It lay down that children between 7 and 12 would not work for more than 9 hours a day. Children would also get four holidays in month. The Act also provided for the proper fencing off of dangerous machinery. The second Indian Factories Act was passed in 1891. It provided for a weekly holiday for all workers. Working hours for women were fixed at 11 per day; whereas daily hours of work for children were reduced Hours of work for men were still left unregulated.
Neither of the two Acts applied to British-owned tea and coffee plantations. On the contrary, the Government gave every help to the foreign planters to exploit their workers in a most ruthless manner. Most of the tea plantations were situated in Assam which was very thinly populated and had an unhealthy climate. Labour to work in the plantations had therefore to be brought from outside. The planters would not attract workers from outside by paying high wages. Instead they used coercion and fraud to recruit them and then keep them as virtual slaves on the plantations. The government of India gave planters full help and passed penal laws in 1863, 1865, 1870, 1873 and 1882 to enable them to do so. Once a labourer had signed a contract to go and work in a plantation, he could not refuse to do so. Any breach of contract by a laborer was a criminal offence, the planter also having the power to arrest him.
Better labour laws were, however, passed in the 20th century under the pressure of the rising trade union movement. Still, the condition of the Indian working class remained extremely depressed and deplorable. The average worker lived below the margin of subsistence. Summing up the condition of the Indian workers under British rule, Prof. Jurgen Kuczynski, the well-known German economic historian, wrote in 1938: "Underfed, housed like animals, without light and air and water, the Indian industrial worker is one of the most exploited of all in the world of industrial capitalism".
3.7 Restrictions on the press
The British had introduced the printing press in India and thus initiated the development of the modern press. The educated Indians had immediately recognized that the Press could play a great role in educating public opinion and in influencing government policies through criticism and censure. Rammohan Roy, Vidyasagar, Dadabhai Naoraji, Justice Ranade, Surendranath Banerjea, Lokamanya Tilak, G. Subramaniya Iyer, C. Karunakara Menon, Madan Mohan Malaviya, Lala Lajpat Rai, Bipin Chandra Pal, and other Indian leaders played an important part in starting newspapers and making them a powerful political force. The Press gradually became a major weapon of the nationalist movement.
The Indian Press was freed of restrictions by Charles Metcalfe in 1835. This step was welcomed enthusiastically by the educated Indians. It was one of the reasons why they had for sometime supported British rule in India. But the nationalists gradually began to use the press to arouse national consciousness among the people and to sharply criticize the reactionary policies of the Government. This turned the officials against the Indian Press and they decided to curb its freedom. This was attempted by passing the “Vernacular Press Act” in 1878. This Act put serious restrictions on the freedom of the Indian language newspapers. Indian public opinion was now fully aroused and it protested loudly against the passage of this Act. This protest had immediate effect and the Act was repealed in 1882. For nearly 25 years thereafter the Indian Press enjoyed considerable freedom. But the rise of the militant Swadeshi and Boycott Movement after 1905 once again led to the enactment of repressive Press laws in 1908 and 1910.
3.8 Racial antagonism
The British in India had always held aloof from the Indians believing that social distance from Indians had to be maintained to preserve their authority over them. They also felt themselves to be racially superior. The Revolt of 1857 (first struggle for independence) and the atrocities committed by both sides had further widened the gulf between the Indians and the British who now began to openly assert the doctrine of racial supremacy and practice racial arrogance. Railway compartments, waiting rooms at railway stations, parks, hotels, swimming pools, clubs, etc., reserved for 'Europeans only' were visible manifestations of this racialism. The Indians felt humiliated. In the words of Jawaharlal Nehru:
"We in India have known racialism in all its forms ever since the commencement of British rule. The whole ideology of this rule was that of Herrenvolk and the Master Race, and the structure of government was based upon it; indeed the idea of a master race is inherent in imperialism. There was no subterfuge about it; it was proclaimed in unambiguous language by those in authority. More powerful than words was the practice that accompanied them and generation after generation and year after year, India as a nation and Indians as individuals, were subjected to insult, humiliation and contemptuous treatment. The English were an imperial Race, we were told, with God-given right to govern us and keep us in subjection; if we protested we were reminded of the 'tiger qualities of an imperial race'."
Under the British rule, India developed relations with its neighbors on a new basis. This was the result of two factors. The development of modern means of communication and the political and administrative consolidation of the country impelled the Government of India to reach out to the natural, geographical frontiers of India. This was essential both for defense and for internal cohesion. Inevitably this tended to lead to some border clashes. Unfortunately, sometimes the Government of India went beyond the natural and traditional frontiers. The other new factor was the alien character of the Government of India. The foreign policy of a free country is basically different from the foreign policy of a country ruled by a foreign power. In the former case it is based on the needs and interests of the people of the country; in the latter, it serves primarily the interests of the ruling country. In India's case, the foreign policy that the Government of India followed was dictated by the British Government. The British Government had two major aims in Asia and Africa: protection of its invaluable Indian Empire and the expansion of British commerce and other economic interests in Africa and Asia. Both these aims led to British expansion and territorial conquests outside India's natural frontiers. Moreover, these aims brought the British Government into conflict with other imperialist nations of Europe who also wanted extension of their territorial possessions and commerce in Afro-Asian lands.
The desire to defend their Indian Empire, to promote British economic interests, and to keep the other European powers at arm's length from India often led the British Indian Government to commit aggression on India's neighbors. In other words, during the period of British domination, India's relations with its neighbors were ultimately determined by the needs of British imperialism.
But, while Indian foreign policy served British imperialism, the cost of its implementation was borne by India. In pursuance of British interests, India had to wage many wars against its neighbours; the Indian soldiers had to shed their blood and the Indian taxpayers had to meet the heavy cost.
War with Nepal, 1814: The British desire to extend their Indian Empire to its natural geographical frontier brought them into conflict, first of all, with the northern Kingdom of Nepal. In October 1814 a border clash between the border police of the two countries led to an open war. The British were far superior in men, money and materials. In the end, the Nepal Government had to make peace on British terms. It accepted a British Resident. It ceded the districts of Garhwal and Kumaon and abandoned claims to the Tarai areas. It also withdrew from Sikkim. The agreement held many advantages for the British. Their Indian Empire now reached the Himalayas. They gained greater facilities for trade with Central Asia. They also obtained sites for important hill-stations such as Shimla, Mussoorie and Nainital. Moreover the Gurkhas gave added strength to the British-Indian army by joining it in large numbers.
Conquest of Burma: Through three successive wars the independent kingdom of Burma was conquered by the British during the 19th century. The conflict between Burma and British India was initiated by border clashes. It was fanned by expansionist urges. The British merchants cast covetous glances on the forest resources of Burma and were keen to promote export of their manufactures among its people. The British authorities also wanted to check the spread of French commercial and political influence in Burma and the rest of South-East Asia.
Burma and British India developed a common frontier at the close of the 18th century when both were expanding powers. After centuries of internal strife, Burma was united by King Alaungpaya between 1752-60. His successor, Bodawpaya, ruling from Ava on the river Irrawaddi, repeatedly invaded Siam, repelled many Chinese invasions, and conquered the border states of Arakan(1785) and Manipur (1813) bringing Burma's border up to that of British India. Continuing his westward expansion, he threatened Assam and the Brahmaputra Valley. Finally, in 1822, the Burmese conquered Assam. The Burmese occupation of Arakan and Assam led to continuous friction along the ill defined border between Bengal and Burma.
In 1824, the British Indian authorities declared war on Burma. After an initial setback, the British forces drove the Burmese out of Assam, Cachar, Manipur and Arakan. The British expeditionary forces by sea occupied Rangoon in May 1824 and reached within 72 km of the capital at Ava. Peace came in February 1826 with the Treaty of Yandabo. The Govemment of Burma agreed: (1) to pay one crore of rupees as war compensation; (2) to cede its coastal provinces of Arakan and Tenasserim; (3) to abandon all claims to Assam, Cachar, and Jamtia; (4) to recognise Manipur as an independent state; (5) to negotiate a commercial treaty with Britain; and (6) to accept a British Resident at Ava while posting a Burmese envoy at Calcutta. By this treaty the British deprived Burma of most of its coastline, and acquired a firm base in Burma for future expansion.
The Second Burmese War: which broke out in 1852 was almost wholly the result of British commercial greed. British timber firms had begun to take interest in the timber resources of Upper Burma. Moreover, the large population of Burma appeared to the British to be a vast market for the sale of British cotton goods and other manufactures. The British, already in occupation of Burma's two coastal provinces, now wanted to dominate commercial relations with the rest of the country. They also wanted to strengthen their hold over Burma by peace or by war before their trade competitors, the French or the Americans, could establish themselves there. A full British expedition was dispatched to Burma in April 1852. This time the war was much shorter than in 1824-26 and the British victory was more decisive. The British annexed Pegu, the only remaining coastal province of Burma. There was, however, a great deal of popular guerrilla resistance for three years before Lower Burma was brought under effective control. The British now controlled the whole of Burma's coastline and its entire sea-trade. The brunt of fighting the war was borne by Indian soldiers and its expense was wholly met from Indian revenues.
Relations between Burma and the British remained peaceful for several years after the annexation of Pegu. The British, of course, continued their efforts to open up Upper Burma. In particular, the British merchants and industrialists were attracted by the possibility of trade with China through Burma. In 1885, King Thibaw signed a purely commercial treaty with France providing for trade. The British were intensely jealous of the growing French influence in Burma. The British merchants feared that the rich Burmese market would be captured by their French and American rivals. The chambers of commerce in Britain and the British merchants in Rangoon now pressed the willing British Government for the immediate annexation of Upper Burma. The British invaded Burma on 13 November 1885. King Thibaw surrendered on 28 November 1885 and his dominions were annexed to the Indian Empire soon after.
The ease with which Burma had been conquered proved to be deceptive. The patriotic soldiers and officers of the Burmese army refused to surrender and vanished into the thick jungles. From there they carried on widespread guerrilla warfare. The people of Lower Burma also rose up in rebellion. The British had to employ a 40,000 strong army for nearly five years to suppress the popular revolt. The expenses of the war as well as of the campaign of suppression were once again thrown on the Indian exchequer.
After the First World War, a vigorous modern nationalist movement arose in Burma. A wide campaign of boycotting British goods and administration was organised and the demand for Home Rule was put forward. The Burmese nationalists soon joined hands with the Indian National Congress. In 1935 the British separated Burma from India in the hope of weakening the Burmese struggle for freedom. The Burmese nationalists opposed this step. The Burmese nationalist movement reached new heights under the leadership of U Aung San during the Second World War. And, finally, Burma won its independence on 4 January 1948.
Relations with Afghanistan: The British Indian Government fought two wars with Afghanistan before its relations with the government of Afghanistan were stabilized. Afghanistan was placed in a crucial position geographically from the British point of view. It could serve as an advanced post outside India's frontiers for checking Russia's potential military threat as well as for promoting British commercial interests in Central Asia. If nothing else it could become a convenient buffer between the two hostile powers. The British wanted to weaken and end Russian influence in Afghanistan but they did not want a strong Afghanistan. They wanted to keep her a weak and divided country which they could easily control.
The British decided to replace the independent ruler of Afghanistan, Dost Muhammed, with a 'friendly', i.e., subordinate, ruler. Their gaze fell on Shah Shuja, who had been deposed from the Afghan throne in 1809 and who had been living since then at Ludhiana as a British pensioner, and they decided to put him back on the Afghan throne. Thus without any reason or excuse the British Government decided to interfere in the internal affairs of Afghanistan and to commit aggression on this small neighbour. The British launched an attack on Afghanistan in February 1839. Most of the Afghan tribes had already been won over with bribes. Kabul fell to the English on 7 August 1839, and Shah Shuja was immediately placed on the throne. But Shah Shuja was detested and despised by the people of Afghanistan, especially as he had come back with the help of foreign bayonets. Many Afghan tribes rose in revolt. Then suddenly, on 2 November 1841, an uprising broke out at Kabul and the sturdy Afghans fell upon the British forces.
On 11 December 1841, the British were compelled to sign a treaty with the Afghan chiefs by which they agreed to evacuate Afghanistan and to restore Dost Muhammed. But the story did not end there. As the British forces withdrew they were attacked all along the way. Out of 16,000 men only one reached the frontier alive, while a few others survived as prisoners. Thus the entire Afghan adventure ended in total failure. The British Indian Government now organised a new expedition. Kabul was reoccupied on 16 September 1842. But it had learnt its lesson well. Having avenged its recent defeat and humiliation, it arrived at a settlement with Dost Muhammed by which the British evacuated Kabul and recognized him as the independent ruler of Afghanistan.
The First Afghan War cost India over one and a half crores of rupees and its army nearly 20,000 men.
The British now followed a policy of non-interference in Afghanistan's internal affairs. During the 1868, as Russia again turned its attention to Central Asia after its defeat in the Crimean War, the British followed the policy of strengthening Afghanistan as a powerful buffer. They gave the Amir of Kabul aid and assistance to help him discipline his rivals internally and maintain his independence from foreign enemies. Thus, by a policy of non-interference and occasional help, the Amir was prevented from aligning himself with Russia.
From 1870 onwards, there was a resurgence of imperialism all over the world. The Anglo-Russian rivalry was also intensified. The British statesmen once again thought of bringing Afghanistan under direct political control so that it could serve as a base for British expansion in Central Asia. To force British terms on Sher Ali, the Afghan ruler, a new attack on Afghanistan was launched in 1878. This is known as the Second Afghan War. Peace came in May 1879 when Sher-Ali's son, Yakub Khan, signed the Treaty of Gandamak by which the British secured all they had desired. They secured certain border districts, the right to keep a Resident at Kabul, and control over Afghanistan's foreign policy.
The British success was short-lived. The national pride of the Afghans had been hurt and once again they rose to defend their independence. On 3 September 1879, the British Resident, Major Cavagnari, and his military escort were attacked and killed by rebellious Afghan troops, Afghanistan was again invaded and occupied. But the Afghans had made their point. The British reversed their policy and went back to the policy of noninterference in the internal affairs of a strong and friendly Afghanistan. Abdur Rahman, a grandson of Dost Muhammed, was recognised as the new ruler of Afghanistan. Abdur Rahman agreed not to maintain political relations with any power except the British. Thus the Amir of Afghanistan lost control of his foreign policy and, to that extent, became a dependent ruler. At the same time, he retained complete control over his country's internal affairs.
The First World War and the Russian Revolution of 1917 created a new situation in Anglo-Afghan relations. The Afghans now demanded full independence from British control. Habibullah, who had succeeded Abdur Rahman in 1901 as Amir, was assassinated on 20 February 1919 and his son, Amanullah, the new Amir, declared open war on British India. Peace came in 1921 when, by a treaty, Afghanistan recovered its independence in foreign affairs.
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