CHAPTER XIV

The Consolidation of British India

Marquess Cornwallis again, 1805

The financial strain caused by these great operations of Lord Wellesley had meanwhile exhausted the patience of the Court of Directors at home. In 1805, Lord Cornwallis was sent out as Governor-General a second time, with instructions to bring about peace at any price, while Holkar was still unsubdued, and with Sindhia threatening a fresh war. But Cornwallis was now an old man, and broken in health. Travelling up to the north-west during the rainy season, he sank and died at Gházipur, before he had been ten weeks in the country.

Sir George Barlow, 1806

His immediate successor was Sir George Barlow, a civil servant of the Company, who as a locum tenens had no alternative but to carry out the commands of his employers. Under these orders he curtailed the area of British territory, and, in violation of engagements, abandoned the Rájput Chiefs to the cruel mercies of Holkar and Sindhia. During his administration, also, occurred the mutiny of the Madras sepoys at Vellore (1806), which, although promptly suppressed, sent a shock of insecurity through the empire. The feebly economical policy of this interregnum proved most disastrous. But fortunately the rule soon passed into firmer hands.

Earl of Minto, 1807-1813

Lord Minto, Governor General from 1807 to 1813, consolidated the conquests which Wellesley had acquired. His only military exploits were the occupation of the island of Mauritius, and the conquest of Java by an expedition which he accompanied in person. The condition of Central India continued to be disturbed, but Lord Minto succeeded in preventing any violent outbreaks without himself having recourse to the sword. The Company had ordered him to follow a policy of non-intervention, and he managed to obey this instruction without injuring the prestige of the British name. Under his auspices, the Indian Government opened relations with a new set of foreign powers, by sending embassies to the Punjab, to Afghanistan, and to Persia. The ambassadors had been trained in the school of Wellesley, and formed perhaps the most illustrious trio of ‘politicals’ whom the Indian services have produced. Metcalfe went as envoy to the Sikh Court of Ranjit Singh at Lahore; Elphinstone met the Shah of Afghanistan at Peshawar; and Malcolm was despatched to Persia. It cannot be said that these missions were fruitful of permanent results; but they introduced the English to a new set of diplomatic relations, and widened the sphere of their influence. In 1813 the East India Company’s Charter was renewed for twenty years, but its monopoly as a trading Company with India was abolished.

Lord Moira, 1814-1823

The successor of Lord Minto was the Earl of Moira, better known by his later title as the Marquess of Hastings. The Marquess of Hastings completed Lord Wellesley’s conquests in Central India, and left the Bombay Presidency almost as it stands at present. His long rule of nine years, from 1814 to 1823, was marked by two wars of the first magnitude, namely the campaigns against the Gurkhas of Nepal, and the last Maratha struggle.

Nepal War, 1814-1816

The Gurkhas, the present ruling race in Nepal, are Hindu immigrants, who claim a Rajput origin. The indigenous inhabitants, called Newars, belong to the Indo-Tibetan stock, and profess Buddhism. The sovereignty of the Gurkhas over Nepal dates only from 1767, in which year they overran the valley of Khatmandu, and gradually extended their power over the hills and valleys of Nepal. Organized upon a feudal basis, they soon became a terror to their neighbours, marching east into Sikkim, west into Kumaun, and south into the Gangetic plains. In the last quarter their victims were British subjects, and it became necessary to check their advance. Sir George Barlow and Lord Minto had remonstrated in vain, and nothing was left to Lord Moira but to take up arms. The campaign of 1814 was at first unsuccessful. After overcoming the natural difficulties of a malarious climate and precipitous hills, our troops were on several occasions fairly worsted by the impetuous bravery of the little Gurkhas, whose heavy knives or kukris dealt terrible execution. But, in the cold weather of 1814, General Ochterlony, who advanced by way of the Sutlej, stormed one by one the hill forts which still stud the Himalayan States, now under the Punjab Government, and compelled the Nepal darbár to sue for peace. In the following year, 1815, the same general made his brilliant march from Patna into the lofty valley of Khatmandu, and finally dictated the terms which had before been rejected, within a few miles of the capital. By the treaty of Segauli, which defines the English relations with Nepal to the present day, the Gurkhas withdrew on the south-east from Sikkim; and on the south-west, from their advanced posts in the outer ranges of the Himalayas, which have supplied to the English the health-giving stations of Náini Tal, Mussooree, and Simla.

The Pindaris, 1804-1817

Meanwhile the condition of Central India was every year becoming more unsatisfactory. The great Maratha Chiefs had learned to live as princes rather than as predatory leaders. But their old example of lawlessness was being followed by a new set of freebooters, known as the Pindaris. As opposed to the Marathas, who were at least a Hindu nationality bound by traditions of confederate government, the Pindaris were merely plundering bands, corresponding to the free companies of mediaeval Europe. Of no common race, and without any common religion, they welcomed to their ranks the outlaws and broken tribes of all India—Afghans, Marathas, or Játs. They represented the débris of the Mughal Empire, the broken men who had not been incorporated by the Muhammadan or the Hindu powers which sprang out of its ruins. For a time, indeed, it seemed as if the inheritance of the Mughal might pass to these armies of banditti. In Bengal, similar hordes had formed themselves out of the disbanded Muhammadan troops and the Hindu predatory castes. But they had been dispersed under the vigorous rule of Warren Hastings. In Central India, the evil lasted longer, attained a greater scale, and was only stamped out by a regular war.

Pindari War, 1817

The Pindari headquarters were in Málwa, but their depredations were not confined to Central India. In bands, sometimes of a few hundreds, sometimes of many thousands, they rode out on their forays as far as the opposite coasts of Madras and of Bombay. The most powerful of the Pindari captains, Amír Khan, had an organized army of many regiments, and several batteries of cannon. Two other leaders, known as Chitu and Karim, at one time paid a ransom to Sindhia of £100,000. To suppress the Pindari hordes, who were supported by the sympathy, more or less open, of all the Maratha Chiefs, Lord Hastings (1817) collected the strongest British army which had been seen in India, numbering 120,000 men. One-half operated from the north, the other half from the south. Sindhia was overawed, and remained quiet. Amír Khan disbanded his army, on condition of being guaranteed the possession of what is now the Principality of Tonk. The remaining bodies of Pindaris were attacked in their homes, surrounded, and cut to pieces. Karim threw himself upon the mercy of the conquerors. Chitu fled to the jungles, and was killed by a tiger.

Last Maratha War, 1817-1818

In the same year (1817), and almost in the same month (November), as that in which the Pindaris were crushed, the three great Maratha powers at Poona, Nagpur, and Indore rose separately against the British. The Peshwa Baji Rao had long been chafing under the terms imposed by the treaty of Bassein (1802). A new treaty of Poona, in June 1817, now freed the Gaekwar from his control, ceded fresh districts to the British for the pay of the subsidiary force, and submitted all future disputes to the decision of our Government. The Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, then our Resident at his court, foresaw a storm, and withdrew to Kirki, whither he had ordered up a European regiment. The Residency was burnt down by the Marathas, and the Peshwa attacked Kirki with his whole army. The attack was bravely repulsed, and the Peshwa immediately fled from his capital. Almost the same plot was enacted at Nagpur, where the honour of the British name was saved by the sepoys, who defended the hill of Sitabaldi against enormous odds. The Maratha army of Holkar was defeated in the following month at the pitched battle of Mehidpur.

Results of last Maratha War

All open resistance was now at an end. Nothing remained but to follow up the fugitives, and to impose conditions for a general pacification. In both these duties Sir John Malcolm played a prominent part. The dominions of the Peshwa were annexed to the Bombay Presidency, and the nucleus of the present Central Provinces was formed out of the territory rescued from the Pindaris. The Peshwa himself surrendered, and was permitted to reside at Bithur, near Cawnpur, on a pension of £80,000 a year. His adopted son was the infamous Nana Sahib of the Mutiny of 1857. To fill the Peshwa’s place as the traditional head of the Maratha Confederacy, the lineal descendant of Sivaji was brought forth from obscurity, and placed upon the throne of Satara. An infant was recognized as the heir of Holkar; and a second infant was proclaimed Rája of Nagpur under British guardianship. At the same time, the States of Rajputana accepted the position of feudatories to the paramount British power. The map of India, as thus drawn by Lord Hastings, remained substantially unchanged until the time of Lord Dalhousie. But the proudest boast of Lord Hastings and Sir John Malcolm was, not that they had advanced the British frontier, but that they had conferred the blessings of peace and good government upon millions who had groaned under the extortions of the Marathas and Pindaris.

Earl Amherst, 1823-1828

The Marquess of Hastings was succeeded by Lord Amherst, after the interval of a few months, during which Mr. Adam, a civil servant, acted as Governor-General. The Maratha war in the peninsula of India was hardly completed, when our armies had to face new enemies beyond the sea. Lord Amherst’s administration lasted for five years, from 1823 to 1828. It is known in history by two prominent events—the first Burmese war, and the capture of Bhartpur.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE INDIAN PEOPLES

THE CONSOLIDATION OF BRITISH INDIA

impetuous bravery of the little Gurkhas, whose heavy knives or kukris dealt terrible execution. But, in the cold weather of 1814, General Ochterlony, who advanced by way of the Sutlej, stormed one by one the hill forts which still stud the Himalayan States, now under the Punjab Government, and compelled the Nepal darbár to sue for peace. In the following year, 1815, the same general made his brilliant march from Patna into the lofty valley of Khátmándu, and finally dictated the terms which had before been rejected, within a few miles of the capital. By the treaty of Segauli, which defines the English relations with Nepal to the present day, the Gurkhas withdrew on the south-east from Sikkim; and on the south-west, from their advanced posts in the outer ranges of the Himalayas, which have supplied to the English the health-giving stations of Náini Tál, Mussooree, and Simla.

The Pindaris, 1804-1817

Meanwhile the condition of Central India was every year becoming more unsatisfactory. The great Maratha Chiefs had learned to live as princes rather than as predatory leaders. But their old example of lawlessness was being followed by a new set of freebooters, known as the Pindaris. As opposed to the Marathas, who were at least a Hindu nationality bound by traditions of confederate government, the Pindaris were merely plundering bands, corresponding to the free companies of mediaeval Europe. Of no common race, and without any common religion, they welcomed to their ranks the outlaws and broken tribes of all India—Afghans, Marathás, or Játs. They represented the débris of the Mughal Empire, the broken men who had not been incorporated by the Muhammadan or the Hindu powers which sprang out of its ruins. For a time, indeed, it seemed as if the inheritance of the Mughal might pass to these armies of banditti. In Bengal, similar hordes had formed themselves out of the disbanded Muhammadan troops and the Hindu predatory castes. But they had been dispersed under the vigorous rule of Warren Hastings. In Central India, the evil lasted longer, attained a greater scale, and was only stamped out by a regular war.

Pindári War, 1817

The Pindári headquarters were in Málwa, but their depredations were not confined to Central India. In bands, sometimes of a few hundreds, sometimes of many thousands, they rode out on their forays as far as the opposite coasts of Madras and of Bombay. The most powerful of the Pindári captains, Amír Khan, had an organized army of many regiments, and several batteries of cannon. Two other leaders, known as Chítu and Karím, at one time paid a ransom to Sindhia of £100,000. To suppress the Pindári hordes, who were supported by the sympathy, more or less open, of all the Maratha Chiefs, Lord Hastings (1817) collected the strongest British army which had been seen in India, numbering 120,000 men. One-half operated from the north, the other half from the south. Sindhia was overawed, and remained quiet. Amír Khán disbanded his army, on condition of being guaranteed the possession of what is now the Principality of Tonk. The remaining bodies of Pindárís were attacked in their homes, surrounded, and cut to pieces. Karím threw himself upon the mercy of the conquerors. Chítu fled to the jungles, and was killed by a tiger.

Last Maratha War, 1817-1818

In the same year (1817), and almost in the same month (November), as that in which the Pindárís were crushed, the three great Maratha powers at Poona, Nagpur, and Indore rose separately against the British. The Peshwá Bají Rao had long been chafing under the terms imposed by the treaty of Bassein (1802). A new treaty of Poona, in June 1817, now freed the Gaekwar from his control, ceded fresh districts to the British for the pay of the subsidiary force, and submitted all future disputes to the decision of our Government. The Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, then our Resident at his court, foresaw a storm, and withdrew to Kirki, whither he had ordered up a European regiment. The Residency was burnt down by the Marathás, and the Peshwa attacked Kirki with his whole army. The attack was bravely repulsed, and the Peshwá immediately fled from his capital. Almost the same plot was enacted at Nagpur, where the honour of the British name was saved by the sepoys, who defended the hill of Sítábaldi against enormous odds. The Maratha army of Holkar was defeated in the following month at the pitched battle of Mehidpur.

Results of last Maratha War

All open resistance was now at an end. Nothing remained but to follow up the fugitives, and to impose conditions for a general pacification. In both these duties Sir John Malcolm played a prominent part. The dominions of the Peshwá were annexed to the Bombay Presidency, and the nucleus of the present Central Provinces was formed out of the territory rescued from the Pindárís. The Peshwá himself surrendered, and was permitted to reside at Bithúr, near Cawnpur, on a pension of £80,000 a year. His adopted son was the infamous Náná Sáhib of the Mutiny of 1857. To fill the Peshwá’s place as the traditional head of the Maratha Confederacy, the lineal descendant of Sivají was brought forth from obscurity, and placed upon the throne of Sátára. An infant was recognized as the heir of Holkar; and a second infant was proclaimed Rájá of Nágpur under British guardianship. At the same time, the States of Rájputána accepted the position of feudatories to the paramount British power. The map of India, as thus drawn by Lord Hastings, remained substantially unchanged until the time of Lord Dalhousie. But the proudest boast of Lord Hastings and Sir John Malcolm was, not that they had advanced the British frontier, but that they had conferred the blessings of peace and good government upon millions who had groaned under the extortions of the Marathas and Pindárís.

Earl Amherst, 1823-1828

Burma in Ancient Times

For years our eastern frontier of Bengal had been disturbed by Burmese raids. The peninsula was known to the Greeks in ancient times as the ‘Golden Chersonese.’ Burmese traditions pretend that a pious Indian Prince, from Benares founded a kingdom on the coast of Arakan, centuries before the birth of Christ. They also assert that the southern parts of Burma were peopled by settlers from the coast of Coromandel on the Madras side of the Bay of Bengal. However this may be, it is certain that the Buddhist religion, which is professed by the Burmese at the present day, came from India at a very early date. Indeed, the State establishment of Buddhism in Burma is said to have taken place in 164 A.D. While a stream of civilisation reached Burma from India on the north-west, the wild Shan tribes and other races of Tibeto-Chinese origin poured into the Irawadi valley from the north-east. Waves of invaders thus passed over Burma during many centuries, some coming from Siam on the south-east, others from the wild mountains of the Chinese frontier on the north-east. These gradually established themselves into three separate kingdoms, namely, Arakan on the Burmese coast; Ava in the upper valleys of the Irawadi; and Pegu in the delta of that river. They became the ruling races of Burma, races of Tibeto-Chinese descent, who professed or adopted the Buddhist religion which had originally come from India. The three Burmese kingdoms fought against each other with all the cruelties and massacres which characterize the Tibeto-Chinese tribes; but the learning and civilization of Buddhism survived every shock and flourished around its ancient pagodas. European travellers in the sixteenth century visited Pegu and Tenasserim, which they describe as flourishing marts of maritime trade. During the period of Portuguese predominance in the East, Arakan became the asylum for desperate European adventurers. With their help, the Arakanese extended their power inland, occupied Chittagong, and (under the name of the Maghs) became the terror of the Gangetic delta. About 1750, a new dynasty arose in Burma, founded by Alaungpaya or Alompra, with its capital at Ava. His descendants ruled over Independent Burma until 1885.

First Burmese War, 1824-1826

The successors of Alompra, after having subjugated all Burma, and overrun Assam, which was then an independent kingdom, began a series of encroachments upon the British Districts of Bengal. As they rejected all peaceful proposals with scorn, Lord Amherst was at last compelled to declare war in 1824. One expedition with gunboats proceeded up the Brahmaputra into Assam. Another marched by land through Chittagong into Arakan, for the Bengal sepoys refused to go by sea. A third, and the strongest, sailed from Madras direct to the mouth of the Irawadi. The war was protracted over two years. After a loss to us of about 20,000 lives, chiefly from the pestilential climate, and an expenditure of £14,000,000, the King of Ava signed, in 1826, the treaty of Yandabu. By this he abandoned all claim to Assam, and ceded to us the Provinces of Arakan and Tenasserim, already in the military occupation of the British. He retained the whole valley of the Irawadi, down to the sea at Rangoon.

Bhartpur taken, 1827

A disputed succession led to the British intervention in Bhartpur, the great Jat State of Central India. The capture of the city by Lord Combermere, in January 1827, wiped out the repulse which Lord Lake had received in January 1805. Artillery could make little impression upon the massive walls of mud. But at last a breach was effected by mining, and Bhartpur was taken by storm, thus removing the popular notion throughout India, that it was impregnable—a notion which had threatened to become a political danger.

Lord William Bentinck, 1828-1835

The next Governor-General was Lord William Bentinck, who had been Governor of Madras twenty years earlier, at the time of the mutiny of Vellore (1806). His seven years’ rule is not signalized by any of those victories or extensions of territory by which chroniclers measure the growth of an empire. But it forms an epoch in administrative reform, and in the slow process by which a subject population is won over to venerate as well as to obey its foreign rulers. The modern history of the British in India, as benevolent administrators, ruling the country with a single eye to the good of the natives, may almost be said to begin with Lord William Bentinck. According to the inscription upon his statue at Calcutta, from the pen of Macaulay: ‘He abolished cruel rites; he effaced humiliating distinctions; he gave liberty to the expression of public opinion; his constant study was to elevate the intellectual and moral character of the nations committed to his charge.’

Bentinck’s Financial Reforms

Lord William Bentinck’s first care on arrival in India was to restore equilibrium to the finances, which were tottering under the burden imposed upon them by the Burmese war. This he effected by three series of measures—first, by reductions in permanent expenditure, amounting to 1½ millions sterling a year; second, by augmenting the revenue from land which had unfairly escaped assessment; third, by duties on the opium of Málwa. He also widened the gates by which educated Natives could enter the service of the Company. Some of these reforms were distasteful to the covenanted service and to the officers of the army. But Lord William was staunchly supported by the Court of Directors and by the Ministry at home.

Abolition of Sati, and Suppression of Thagi

His two most memorable acts are the abolition of sati (suttee), or widow-burning, and the suppression of the thags (thugs). At this distance of time, it is difficult to realize the degree to which these two barbarous practices had corrupted the social system of the Hindus. European research has proved that the text in the Vedas adduced to authorize the immolation of Hindu widows was a wilful mistranslation. But the practice had been enshrined in Hindu opinion by the authority of centuries, and had acquired the sanctity of a religious rite. The Emperor Akbar tried to prohibit it, but failed to put it down. The early English rulers did not dare to violate the religious traditions of the people. In the year 1817, no fewer than 700 widows are said to have been burned alive in the Bengal Presidency alone. To this day, the holy spots of Hindu pilgrimage are thickly dotted with little white pillars, each commemorating a sati. In spite of strenuous opposition, both from Europeans and Natives, Lord William Bentinck carried a regulation in Council, on the 4th December 1829, by which all who abetted sati were declared guilty of ‘culpable homicide.’ The honour of suppressing thagi must be shared between Lord William Bentinck and Captain Sleeman. Thags were hereditary assassins, who made strangling their profession. They travelled in gangs, disguised as merchants or pilgrims, and were banded together by an oath based on the rites of the bloody goddess Kálí. Between 1826 and 1835, as many as 1562 thags were apprehended in different parts of British India; and, by the evidence of approvers, this moral plague-spot was gradually stamped out.

Renewal of Charter, 1833

Two other historical events are connected with the administration of Lord William Bentinck. In 1833, the charter of the East India Company was again renewed for twenty years, but on condition that the Company should abandon its trade entirely, alike with India and China, and permit Europeans to freely settle in India. At the same time, a fourth or Law Member was added to the Governor-General’s Council, who need not necessarily be a servant of the Company; and a Commission was appointed to revise and codify the law. Macaulay was the first legal member of Council, and the first President of the Law Commission.

Mysore protected and Coorg annexed

In 1830, it was found necessary to take Mysore under British administration. This arrangement continued until March 1881, when Mysore was restored to Native government. In 1834, the frantic misrule of the Rájá of Coorg brought on a short and sharp war. The Rájá was permitted to retire to Benares; and the brave and proud inhabitants of his mountainous little territory decided to place themselves under the sway of the Company. This was the only annexation effected by Lord William Bentinck, and it was done ‘in consideration of the unanimous wish of the people.’ He retired in 1835.

Lord Metcalfe, 1835-1836

Sir Charles (afterwards Lord) Metcalfe succeeded Lord William Bentinck, being senior member of Council. His short term of office is memorable for the measure which his predecessor had initiated, but which he carried into execution, for giving entire liberty to the press. Public opinion in India, as well as the express wish of the Court of Directors at home pointed to Metcalfe as the fittest person to carry out the policy of Bentinck, not provisionally, but as Governor-General for a full term.

Lord Auckland, 1836-1842

Party exigencies, however, led to the appointment of Lord Auckland. From this date commences a new era of war and conquest, which may be said to have lasted for twenty years. All looked peaceful, until Lord Auckland, prompted by his evil genius, attempted to place Sháh Shujá upon the throne of Kábul—an attempt conducted with gross mismanagement, and ending in the annihilation of the British garrison placed in that city.

Afghanistan under the Duránis, 1747-1826

Almost for the first time since the days of the Sultáns of Ghazní and Ghor, Afghanistan had obtained a national king, in 1747, in Ahmad Shah Duráni. This resolute soldier found his opportunity in the confusion which followed the death of the Persian conqueror, Nádir Shah. Before his own decease in 1773, Ahmad Shah had conquered a wide empire, from Herát to Pesháwar, and from Kashmir to Sind. His intervention on the field of Pánípat (1761) turned back the tide of Maratha conquest, and replaced a Muhammadan emperor on the throne of Delhi. But Ahmad Shah never cared to settle down in India, and kept state alternately at his two Afghan capitals of Kábul and Kandahár. The Duráni kings were prolific in children, who fought to the death with one another on each succession. At last, in 1826, Dost Muhammad, head of the powerful Bárakzái family, succeeded in establishing himself as ruler of Kábul, with the title of Amír, while two fugitive brothers of the Duráni line were living under British protection at Ludhiana, on the Punjab frontier.

Our Early Dealings with Kábul

The attention of the English Government had been directed to Afghan affairs ever since the time of Lord Wellesley, who feared that Zeman Shah, then holding his court at Lahore (1800), might follow in the path of Ahmad Shah, and overrun Hindustán. The growth of the powerful Sikh kingdom of Ranjít Singh, however, gradually dispelled such alarms for the future. Subsequently, in 1809, while a French invasion of India was still a possibility to be guarded against, Mountstuart Elphinstone was sent by Lord Minto on a mission to Shah Shuja, brother of Zeman Shah, to form a defensive alliance. Before the year expired, Shah Shuja had been driven into exile, and a third brother, Mahmúd Shah, was on the throne.

Restoration of Shah Shuja by the British, 1839

In 1837, when the curtain rises upon the drama of English interference in Afghanistan, the usurper Dost Muhammad Bárakzái was firmly established at Kábul. His great ambition was to recover Pesháwar from the Sikhs. When, therefore, Captain Alexander Burnes arrived on a mission from Lord Auckland, with the ostensible object of opening trade, the Dost was willing to promise everything, if only he could get Pesháwar. But Lord Auckland had another and more important object in view. At this time the Russians were advancing rapidly in Central Asia; and a Persian army, not without Russian support, was besieging Herát, the traditional bulwark of Afghanistan on the east. A Russian envoy was at Kábul at the same time as Burnes. The latter was unable to satisfy the demands of Dost Muhammad in the matter of Pesháwar, and returned to India unsuccessful. Lord Auckland forthwith resolved upon the hazardous plan of placing a more subservient ruler upon the throne of Kábul. Shah Shujá, one of the two royal Afghan exiles at Ludhiana, was selected for the purpose. At this time both the Punjab and Sind were independent kingdoms, and both lay between British India and Afghanistan. Sind was the less powerful of the two, and accordingly a British army escorting Sháh Shujá made its way through Sind into Southern Afghanistan by way of the Bolan Pass. Kandahár surrendered, Ghaznî was taken by storm, Dost Muhammad fled across the Hindu Kush, and Sháh Shujá was triumphantly led into the Bala Hissár at Kábul in August 1839. After one more brave struggle, Dost Muhammad surrendered, and was sent to Calcutta as a State prisoner. The Governor-General, Baron Auckland, was created Earl of Auckland in 1839.

British Retreat from Afghanistan, 1841-1842

But although we could enthrone Sháh Shujá, we could not win for him the hearts of the Afghans. To that nation he seemed a degenerate exile thrust back upon them by foreign arms. During two years Afghanistan remained in the military occupation of the British. The catastrophe occurred in November 1841, when our Political Agent, Sir Alexander Burnes, was assassinated in the city of Kábul. The troops in the cantonments were under the command of General Elphinstone (not to be confounded with the able civilian and historian, the Hon. Mountstuart Elphinstone, formerly Governor of Bombay). Sir William Macnaghten was the Political Officer. General Elphinstone, an old man, proved unequal to the responsibilities of the position. Macnaghten was treacherously murdered at an interview with the Afghan chief Akbar Khan, eldest son of Dost Muhammad. After lingering in its cantonments for two months, the British army set off in the depth of winter, under a fallacious guarantee from the Afghan leaders, to find its way back to India through the passes. When it started, it numbered 4000 fighting men, with 12,000 camp-followers. A single survivor, Dr. Brydon, reached the friendly walls of Jalálábád, where General Sale was gallantly holding out. The rest perished in the snowy defiles of Khurd-Kábul and Jagdalak, from the knives and matchlocks of the Afghans, or from the effects of cold. A few prisoners, chiefly women, children, and officers, were considerately treated by the orders of Akbar Khan.

Lord Ellenborough, 1842-1844: The Army of Retribution, 1842

The first Afghan enterprise, begun in a spirit of aggression, and conducted amid dissensions and mismanagement, had ended in the disgrace of the British arms. The real loss, which amounted only to a single garrison, was magnified by the horrors of the winter march, and by the completeness of the annihilation. Within a month after the news reached Calcutta, Lord Auckland had been superseded by Lord Ellenborough, whose first impulse was to be satisfied with drawing off in safety the garrisons from Kandahár and Jalálábád. But bolder counsels were forced upon him. General Pollock, who was marching straight through the Punjab to relieve General Sale, was allowed to penetrate to Kábul. General Nott, although ordered to withdraw from Kandahár, resolved to go round by way of Kábul. Lord Ellenborough gave his commands in well-chosen words, which would leave his generals responsible for any disaster. General Nott accepted that responsibility, and, instead of retreating south-east to the Indus, boldly marched north to Kabul. After hard fighting, the two British armies, under Pollock and Nott, met at their common destination in Kabul, in September 1842. The great bázár of Kábul was blown up with gunpowder, to fix a stigma upon the city; the British prisoners were recovered; and our armies marched back to India, leaving Dost Muhammad to take undisputed possession of his throne. The drama closed with a bombastic proclamation from Lord Ellenborough, who had caused the gates from the tomb of Mahmúd of Ghazní to be carried back as a memorial of ‘Somnáth revenged.’ The gates were a modern forgery; and their theatrical procession through the Punjab formed a vainglorious sequel to Lord Ellenborough’s timidity while the fate of our armies hung in the balance.

Conquest of Sind, 1843

Lord Ellenborough, who loved military pomp, had his tastes gratified by two more wars. In 1843, the Muhammadan rulers of Sind, known as the Mírs or Amírs, whose chief fault was that they would not surrender their independence, were crushed by Sir Charles Napier. The victory of Miani, in which 3000 British troops defeated 12,000 Baluchis, is one of the brilliant feats of arms in Anglo-Indian history. But valid reasons can scarcely be found for the annexation of the country. In the same year a disputed succession at Gwalior, fomented by feminine intrigue, resulted in an outbreak of the overgrown army which the Sindhia family kept up. Peace was restored by the battles of Maharajpur and Panniár, at the former of which Lord Ellenborough was present in person.

Lord Hardinge, 1844-1848

In 1844, Lord Ellenborough was recalled by the Court of Directors, who differed from him on points of administration, and distrusted his erratic genius. He was succeeded by a veteran soldier, Sir Henry (afterwards Lord) Hardinge, who had served through the Peninsular war, and lost a hand at Ligny. It was felt on all sides that a trial of strength between the British and the one remaining Hindu power in India, the great Sikh nation, was near.

The Sikhs

The Sikhs were not a nationality like the Marathas, but originally a religious sect, bound together by the additional tie of military discipline. They trace their origin to Nanak Shah, a pious Hindu reformer, born near Lahore in 1469, before the ascendency of either Mughals or Portuguese in India. Nanak, like other zealous preachers of his time, preached the abolition of caste, the unity of the Godhead, and the duty of leading a pure life. From Nanak, ten gurus or apostles are traced down to Govind Singh in 1708, with whom the succession stopped. Cruelly persecuted by the ruling Muhammadans, almost exterminated under the miserable successors of Aurangzeb, the Sikh martyrs clung to their faith with unflinching zeal. At last the downfall of the Mughal Empire transformed the sect into a territorial power. It was the only political organization remaining in the Punjab. The Sikhs in the north, and the Marathas in Southern and Central India, grew into the two great Hindu powers who partitioned the Mughal Empire.

Ranjit Singh, 1780-1839

Even before the rise of Ranjít Singh, offshoots from the Sikh misls or confederacies, each led by its elected sardár or chief, had carved out for themselves feudal principalities along the banks of the Sutlej, some of which endure to the present day. Ranjit Singh, the founder of the Sikh kingdom of the Punjab, was born in 1780. In his twentieth year he obtained the appointment of Governor of Lahore from the Afghan king, and formed the project of building up his personal rule on the religious fanaticism of his countrymen. He organized the Sikhs, or ’the liberated,’ into an army under European officers, which for steadiness and religious fervour has had no parallel since the ‘Ironsides’ of Cromwell. From Lahore, as his capital, he extended his conquests south to Múltán, west to Pesháwar, and north to Kashmir. On the east side alone, he was hemmed in by the Sutlej, up to which river the authority of the British Government had advanced in 1804. Till his death in 1839, Ranjit Singh was ever loyal to the engagements which he entered into with Metcalfe in 1809. But he left no son capable of wielding his sceptre. Lahore was torn by dissensions between rival generals, ministers, and queens. The only strong power in the Punjab was the army of the Khálsá, or Central Council of the Sikhs, which, since our disaster in Afghanistan, burned to measure its strength with the British sepoys. Ranjit Singh’s skilful European Generals, Avitabile and Court, were foolishly ousted from their commands in the Sikh army, and the supreme military power was vested in a series of pancháyats, or elective committees of five.

First Sikh War, 1845

In 1845, the Sikh army, numbering 60,000 men, with 150 guns, crossed the Sutlej and invaded British territory. Sir Hugh Gough, the Commander-in-Chief, accompanied by the Governor-General, hurried up to the frontier. Within three weeks, four pitched battles were fought, at Múdkí, Firozsháh, Aliwál, and Sobraon. The British loss on each occasion was heavy; but by the last victory the Sikhs were fairly driven back across the Sutlej, and Lahore surrendered to the British. By the terms of peace which we granted, Dhulíp Singh, a supposed infant son of Ranjit and a dancing-girl, was recognized as Raja; the Jalandhar Doab, or tract between the Sutlej and the Beas, was annexed; the Sikh army was limited to a specified number; Major Henry Lawrence was appointed to be Resident at Lahore; and a British force sent to garrison the Punjab for a period of eight years. Sir H. Hardinge received a peerage, and returned to England in 1848.

Earl (afterwards Marquess) of Dalhousie, 1848-1856

Lord Dalhousie succeeded. The eight years’ rule of this greatest of Indian proconsuls left more conspicuous results than that of any Governor-General since Lord Wellesley, perhaps even since Clive. A high-minded statesman, of a most sensitive conscience, and earnestly desiring peace, Lord Dalhousie found himself forced against his will to fight two wars, and to embark on a policy of annexation. His campaigns in the Punjab and in Burma ended in large acquisitions of territory; while Nágpur, Oudh, and several minor States also came under British rule, through failure of direct heirs. But Dalhousie’s deepest interest lay in the improvement of the moral and material condition of the country. The system of administration carried out in the conquered Punjab, by the two Lawrences and their assistants, is probably the most successful piece of governing ever accomplished by Englishmen. British Burma has prospered under our rule not less than the Punjab. In both cases, Lord Dalhousie himself laid the foundations of our administrative success, and deserves a large share of the credit. No branch of the administration escaped his reforming hand. He founded the Public Works Department, with a view to creating the network of roads and canals which now cover India. He opened the Ganges Canal, still the largest work of the kind in the country; he turned the sod of the first Indian railway. He promoted steam communication with England via the Red Sea; he introduced cheap postage and the electric telegraph. It is Lord Dalhousie’s misfortune that these benefits are too often forgotten in the recollections of the Mutiny, which followed his policy of annexation, after the firm hand which had remodelled British India was withdrawn.

Second Sikh War, 1848-1849

Lord Dalhousie had not been six months in India before the second Sikh or Punjab war broke out. Two British officers were treacherously assassinated at Múltán. Unfortunately, Henry Lawrence, our Resident at Lahore, was at home on sick leave. The British army was not ready to act in the hot weather; and, despite the single-handed exertions of Lieutenant (afterwards Sir Herbert) Edwardes, this outbreak of fanaticism led to a general rising in the Punjab. The Khálsá army of the Sikhs again came together, and once more fought on even terms with the British. On the fatal field of Chilianwála, which English patriotism prefers to call a drawn battle, the British lost 2400 officers and men, four guns, and the colours of three regiments (13th January 1849). Before reinforcements could come out from England, with Sir Charles Napier as Commander-in-Chief, Lord Gough had restored his reputation by the crowning victory of Gujrát, which absolutely destroyed the Sikh army. Múltán had previously fallen, and the allied Muhammadan cavalry from Afghanistan, who had forgotten their religious antipathy to the Sikhs, and joined with them in a common hatred of the British name, were chased back with ignominy to their native hills. The Punjab, annexed by proclamation on the 29th March 1849, became a British Province—a virgin field for the administrative talents of Dalhousie and the two Lawrences. Maharaja Dhulíp Singh received an allowance of £58,000 a year, on which he lived for many years as an English country gentleman in Norfolk. In 1849 the Earl of Dalhousie was advanced to a Marquessate.

Pacification of the Punjab

The first step in the pacification of the Punjab was a general disarmament, which resulted in the delivery of no fewer than 120,000 weapons of various kinds. Then followed a settlement of the land tax, village by village, at an assessment much below the rates to which it had been raised by Sikh exactions; and the introduction of a loose but equitable code of civil and criminal procedure. Roads and canals were laid out by Colonel Robert Napier (afterwards Lord Napier of Magdala). The security of British peace, and the personal influence of British officers, inaugurated a new era of prosperity, which was felt to the farthest corners of the Province. It thus happened that, when the Mutiny broke out in 1857, the Punjab remained not only quiet, but loyal.

Second Burmese War, 1852

The second Burmese war, in 1852, arose out of the ill-treatment of some European merchants at Rangoon, and the insults offered to the captain of a British frigate who had been sent to remonstrate. The whole valley of the Irawadi, from Rangoon up to Prome, was occupied in a few months. As the King of Ava refused to treat, the conquered tracts of Lower Burma were annexed by proclamation, on the 20th December 1852, under the name of Pegu, to the Provinces of Arakan and Tenasserim, which we had acquired in 1826, after the first Burmese war.

Prosperity of British Burma

Since annexation, the inhabitants of Rangoon had multiplied fourteenfold by 1891. The trade of the port, which four years after its annexation (1857-58) amounted to £2,131,055, had increased in 1881-82 to £11,723,781. The towns and the rural tracts have alike prospered. Before 1826, Amherst District was the scene of perpetual warfare between the Kings of Siam and Pegu, and was stripped of inhabitants. In February 1827, a Palaing Chief with 10,000 followers settled in the neighbourhood of Maulmain; and, after a few years, a further influx of 20,000 immigrants took place. In 1855, the population of Amherst District amounted to 83,146 souls; in 1860, to 130,953; and in 1881, to 301,086. Or, to take the case of a seaport. In 1826, when we annexed the Province of Arakan, Akyab was a poor fishing village; its trade multiplied nearly four hundredfold in fifty years. The population of Burma (including some other districts), which was incompletely enumerated in 1891, has increased from 7½ millions in that year, to 10½ millions in 1901.

Lord Dalhousie and the Native States

Lord Dalhousie’s dealings with the Feudatory States of India revealed the whole nature of the man. That rulers only exist for the good of the ruled, was his supreme axiom of government, of which he gave a conspicuous example in his own daily life. That British administration was better for the people than Native rule, seemed to him to follow from this axiom. The truth is that the system of British protectorates, as developed by Lord Wellesley and his successors, had proved by no means a complete success. It practically secured to the Native Chiefs their principalities and revenues, however they might abuse their position and oppress their subjects. A remedy for this state of things has since been worked out in the India of the Queen by enforcing a higher standard of personal responsibility on the Feudatory princes of India. But in Lord Dalhousie’s time the old unreformed system was bearing its last and worst fruits. Dalhousie was thus led to regard Native Chiefs as mischievous anomalies, to be abolished by every fair means. Good faith must be kept with princes on the throne, and with their legitimate heirs. But no false sentiment should preserve dynasties which had forfeited our sympathies by generations of misrule, or prolong those that had no natural successor. The ‘doctrine of lapse’ was the practical application of these principles, complicated by the Indian practice of adoption. It has never been doubted that, according to Hindu private law, an adopted son entirely fills the place of a natural son, whether to perform the religious obsequies of his father or to inherit his property. In all respects he continues the rights of the deceased. But it was argued, both as a matter of historical fact and on grounds of political expediency, that the succession to a throne stood upon a different footing. The paramount power could not recognize such a right, which might be used as a fraud to hand over the happiness of millions to a base-born impostor. Here came in Lord Dalhousie’s maxim of ’the good of the governed.’ In his mind, the benefits to be conferred through British administration weighed heavier than a superstitious and often fraudulent fiction of inheritance.

Lord Dalhousie’s Doctrine

When a Native Chief left direct male heirs of his body, Lord Dalhousie recognized their right to succeed alike to the private fortune and the public government of their father. But when there was only an adopted son, Lord Dalhousie, while scrupulously respecting the claims of the heirs to the private fortune of the late chief, denied the right of the adopted son to succeed to the public government of the State. He held the government of a Native State to be a public trust; he also held that, in the absence of direct male issue with a lawful claim to succeed, the succession must be decided by the British Government, not in the interests of the family of the late chief, but in the interests of the people. Those interests he believed to be most effectually protected by bringing them under direct British rule.

Lapsed Native States

The first State to escheat to the British Government, in accordance with these principles, was Sátára, which had been reconstituted by Lord Hastings on the downfall of the Peshwá in 1818. The Rájá of Sátára, the last direct representative of Sivají, died without a son in 1848, and his deathbed adoption of a son was set aside (1849). In the same year, the Rajput State of Karauli was saved by the Court of Directors, who drew a fine distinction between a dependent principality and a protected ally. In 1853, Jhánsi suffered the same fate as Sátára. But the most conspicuous application of the doctrine of lapse was the case of Nagpur. The last of the Maratha Bhonslas, a dynasty older than the British Government in India, died without a son, natural or adopted, in 1853. His territories were annexed, and became the Central Provinces. That year also saw British administration extended to the Berars, or the Assigned Districts, which the Nizam of Haidarábád was induced to hand over to us as a territorial guarantee for the subsidies which he perpetually left in arrear. The relics of three other dynasties also passed away in 1853, although without any attendant accretion to British territory. In the extreme south, the titular Nawab of the Karnátik and the titular Rájá of Tanjore both died without heirs. Their rank and their pensions died with them, but compassionate allowances were continued to their families. In the north of India, Bají Rao, the ex-Peshwá, who had been dethroned in 1818, lived on till 1853 in the enjoyment of his annual pension of £80,000. His adopted son, Náná Sáhib, inherited his accumulated savings, but could obtain no further recognition.

Annexation of Oudh, 1856

Lord Dalhousie annexed the Kingdom of Oudh on different grounds. Ever since the Nawáb Wazír, Shujá-ud-daulá, received back his forfeited territories of Oudh from Lord Clive in 1765, the existence of his dynasty had depended on the protection of British bayonets. Guarded alike from foreign invasion and from domestic rebellion, the line of Oudh Nawábs had sunk into private debauchees and public oppressors. Their one virtue was steady loyalty to the British Government. The fertile districts between the Ganges and the Gogra, which now support a denser agricultural population than almost any rural area of the size on this globe, had been groaning for generations under an anarchy for which each British Governor-General felt himself in part responsible. Warning after warning had been given to the Nawábs (who had assumed the title of Sháh or King since 1819) that they must put their house in order. What the benevolent Bentinck and the soldierly Hardinge had only threatened, was now performed by Lord Dalhousie, who united an equal honesty of purpose with sterner decision of character. He laid the whole case before the Court of Directors. After long and painful hesitation, the Court of Directors resolved on annexation. Lord Dalhousie, then on the eve of retiring, felt that it would be unfair to bequeath this perilous task to his successor in the first moments of his rule. The tardy decision of the Court of Directors left him, however, only a few weeks to carry out the work. But he solemnly believed that work to be his duty to the people of Oudh. ‘With this feeling on my mind,’ he wrote privately, ‘and in humble reliance on the blessing of the Almighty (for millions of His creatures will draw freedom and happiness from the change), I approach the execution of this duty gravely and not without solicitude, but calmly and altogether without doubt.’

Grounds of Annexation

Accordingly, at the commencement of 1856, the last year of his rule, Dalhousie gave orders to General (afterwards Sir James) Outram, then Resident at the Court of Lucknow, to assume the administration of Oudh, on the ground that ’the British Government would be guilty in the sight of God and man if it were any longer to aid in sustaining by its countenance an administration fraught with suffering to millions.’ The proclamation was issued on the 13th February 1856. The King of Oudh, Wájid Alí, bowed to irresistible force, although he refused to recognize the justice of his deposition. After a mission to England by way of protest and appeal, he settled down in the pleasant suburb of Garden Reach, near Calcutta, in the enjoyment of a pension of £120,000 a year. Oudh was thus annexed without a blow. But this measure, on which Lord Dalhousie looked back with the proudest sense of rectitude, was perhaps the act of his rule that most alarmed Native public opinion.

Lord Dalhousie’s Work in India

The Marquess of Dalhousie resigned office in March 1856, being then only forty-four years of age; but he carried home with him the seeds of a lingering illness, which resulted in his death in 1860. Excepting Cornwallis, he was the first, though by no means the last, of English statesmen who have fallen victims to their devotion to India’s needs. Lord Dalhousie completed the fabric of British rule in India. The Indian Empire, as mapped out by Lord Wellesley and Lord Hastings during the first quarter of the century, had received the addition of Sind in 1843. The Marquess of Dalhousie finally filled in the wide spaces covered by Oudh, the Central Provinces, and smaller States within India, together with the great outlying territories of the Punjab on the north-western frontier, and the richest part of British Burma beyond the sea.

Lord Canning, 1856-1862

The great Governor-General was succeeded by his friend Lord Canning, who, at the farewell banquet in England given to him by the Court of Directors, uttered these prophetic words: ‘I wish for a peaceful term of office. But I cannot forget that in the sky of India, serene as it is, a small cloud may arise, no larger than a man’s hand, but which, growing larger and larger, may at last threaten to burst and overwhelm us with ruin.’ In the following year, the sepoys of the Bengal army mutinied, and all the valley of the Ganges from Patna to Delhi was enveloped in the flame.