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II. The Influence of the Mutiny of 1857 on Land Policy in India

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 February 2009

Thomas R. Metcalf
Thomas R. Metcalf
Affiliation:
University of California
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Extract

The events of 1857 etched themselves deeply into the consciousness of the British in India. Throughout the remaining years of British rule the lessons of the Mutiny were never forgotten; indeed they provided the constant backdrop against which British policy was enacted. To a large extent this experience played a decisive role in recasting the whole direction of British policy. Its impact on policy toward the native Indian states was sharp, and lasting in its effects. Canning realized that the native states were ‘break-waters to the storm which would otherwise have swept over us in one great wave’, and he henceforward, by his grant of the right of adoption, committed Britain to their maintenance.1 This post-Mutiny solicitude for the native states stands in obvious contrast with the deprecatory, if not avowedly annexationist, policy of Canning's predecessors.

Type
Articles
Information
The Historical Journal , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , June 1961 , pp. 152 - 163
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1961

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References

1 See Foreign Dispatch from Governor General to Secretary of State, no. 43 A of 30 April 1860.

2 To some extent, of course, the British had to take account of established patterns of landholding. Yet in their self-confidence they felt free to ignore forms of land tenure they disliked; and moreover, Indian land tenures had been largely disorganized by the anarchy of the eighteenth century. As Sir George Campbell noted ‘We found all the interests in land throughout most of India in a sort of fluid state, to be moulded much as we thought expedient and just’ (Memoirs of my Indian Career, 11, 44).

3 Eric Stokes, , The English Utilitarians and India (Oxford, 1959);Google ScholarKenneth Ballhatchet, , Social Policy and Social Change in Western India 1817–30 (1957);Google ScholarMisra, B. B., The Central Administration of the East India Company (1959).Google Scholar

4 See the Fifth Report of the House of Commons Select Committee on East India Company, 1812, for decision of conflict between Munro and the adherents of Cornwallis' Bengal system. There were of course dissenters throughout this period to peasant settlement, most notably Elphinstone, Malcolm and Henry Lawrence, who valued aristocracy for both sentimental and political reasons. But their influence was overriden and left little permanent mark; vid., victory of John Lawrence backed by Dalhousie over Henry Lawrence in Punjab 1852.

5 See Stokes, op. cit. 87–92, for the Utilitarian application of Ricardian rent theory to India.

6 Evidence to House of Commons Committee, 4 August 1831, in Parliamentary Papers [P.P.] (1831), V, 309. See also James Mill, , History of British India (1820), v, 416.Google Scholar

7 On his support for present proprietorship and his schemes for converting the Irish and Indian peasants into proprietors, see Mill, J. S., Principles of Political Economy (Boston, 1848), I, 380–93.Google Scholar

8 Instructions of 4 February 1856 to Chief Commissioner of Oudh, P.P. (1856), XLV, 264. He specifically stated that ‘the intention of the Government is to deal with actual occupants of the Soil...and not to suffer the interposition of middle men, as talookdars, farmers of the revenue, and such like’ (ibid. 260).

9 Canning noted that ‘The rising against our authority in Oudh has been general, almost universal’ (Letter to Secret Committee, 17 June 1858, P.P. (1859), 290). See also Sen, S. N., Eighteen Fifty-Seven (Delhi, 1957), 411–12.Google Scholar

10 Even as late as June 1858, Robert Montgomery reported to the Government of India that ‘We hold Lucknow District and the line of road to Cawnpore. Most of our other posts have been abandoned....Throughout the country of Oudh the rebels are complete masters’ (Secret Consultations [S.C.] (25 June 1858), no. 63, National Archives of India).

11 Captain L. Barrow to Edmonstone, Secretary to Government of India (S.C. (25 September 1857), no. 509).

12 Letter to Secret Committee, 17 June 1858, P.P. (1859), xvIII, 287.

13 Undated Memorandum (1858), Ellenborough Papers, Box 22.

14 This disillusionment was clearly expressed by Canning in a letter of 6 October 1858 to C. C. Oudh: ‘Our endeavour to better, as we thought, the village occupants in Oudh has not been appreciated by them....It can hardly be doubted that if they had valued their restored rights, they would have shown some signs of a willingness to support a Government which had revived those rights. But they have nothing done of the kind. The Governor General is therefore of opinion that these village occupants deserve Jittle consideration from us’ (Foreign Consultations (F.C.) (5 November 1858), no. 193).

15 Stokes, op. cit. 39–40. See also the optimistic hopes for total and rapid reformation of the Indian character expressed in C. E. Trevelyan, The Education of People of India (1838); and in Macaulay's Minute on Education. This belief in complete and efficacious transformation brought together the utilitarian reformers, evangelicals, and free-trade merchants.

16 Speech of 13 August 1860; Hansard, CLX, 1195. See also letter of Wood to Canning 10 October 1859 in Wood Papers, India Office Library. The Court of Directors in a dispatch of S May 1858 dealing with the pacification of Oudh pointed out that ‘it is necessary to deal tenderly with existing usages’ and that ‘it is often wiser even to tolerate evil, for a time, than to alarm and to irritate the minds of the people by the sudden introduction of changes...’ (Political Dispatch no. 17 of 1858).

17 ‘General Report on the Administration of Oudh 1858–9’ (P.P. Lords (1859), Sess. II, vIII, 42).

18 Government of India to Outram, 27 September 1857, in S. C. (18 December 1857), no. 614.

19 See British offers to Rajas Kunwant Singh and Man Singh, who after conspicuous loyalty in the summer of 1857, had later sided with rebels. Both were allowed to put forward claims to land lost at annexation, provided they lent ‘hearty support’ to Government in re-establishing order (S.C. (28 May 1858), nos. 392–4).

20 P.P. (1859), xvIII, 304, and F.C. (5 November 1858), no. 192.

21 Government of India to C. C. Oudh, 6 October 1858 (F.C. (5 November 1858), no. 193). In point of fact it is extremely unlikely that the peasantry, by subordinating themselves to the taluqdars in 1857, thereby expressed any preference for the taluqdar system. Far more likely they joined their chiefs in a common loyalty to their deposed king and looked to them to provide leadership in a quasi-national struggle. See S. N. Sen, 1857, 412. No doubt also many were overawed by the military might of the rebellious taluqdars and forced to go along. The point of importance here, however, is that the British thought the peasants, by joining the taluqdars in revolt, had thereby expressed a preference for the taluqdari system of settlement, and they revised their policy accordingly.

22 Government of India to Outram, 31 March 1858 (S.C. (30 April 1858), no. 120).

23 C. C. Oudh to Government of India, 8 March 1858 (S.C. (30 April 1858), no. 116).

24 Canning stated in a minute of 22 April 1859 that only fourteen taluqdars forfeited all title to land. Indeed Canning justified the Proclamation on the grounds that ‘by it alone and by no other means was a return to the talookdar system possible’, for confiscation cleared the ground of all previous titles and allowed the taluqdars to obtain clear and unquestioned titles from the Government. See F.C. (27 May 1859), no. 367, and letter from Canning to Granville, 31 January 1860, in Granville Papers.

25 Memorandum of 31 October 1859 (F.C. (18 November 1859), no. 130).

26 Political Dispatch of 24 April 1860, from Wood to Canning (P.P. (1861), XLVI, 441).

27 Charles Wingfield stated that ‘they are in an analogous position to that of a Government Tehseeldar, who is also a magistrate. They enjoy the same confidence and act under the same checks...Within these limits there is no authority but their own.’ ‘Oudh Administration Report for 1859–60’, F.C. (August 1860), part A, no. 371.

28 Ibid. Sir Charles Wood alone, although approving the scheme, noted that ‘talookdars view their revenue powers as a boon conferred upon them’ instead of acting as agents of the Government; and he urged the Government not to extend their jurisdiction to cases in which they were personally interested. Wood to Canning, 17 August 1861 (P.P. (1861), XLVI, 542).

29 Government of India to Wood, 8 May 1861 (P.P. (1861), XLVI, 452).

30 Circular no. 31 from C. C. Oudh to all District Officers, 16 November 1858 (F.C. (20 May 1859), no. 284).

31 Circular no. 46 of 30 December 1858 (F.C. (21 January 1859), no. 279).

32 For Canning's policy in Punjab see his letters to Wood of 6 December 1859 and 27 February 1860, in Wood Papers; and his letter to Granville of 4 July 1860, in Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice, , Life of the Second Earl Granville (1905), 1, 384. For Wood's approval of policy see Political Dispatch no. 75 of 20 September 1860.Google Scholar

33 On Bagehot as the central exponent of mid-Victorian liberalism, see Asa Briggs, Victorian People (1954), 100–7. Among the most distinctive features of Bagehot's liberalism were his stress on the role of deference and dignity in society, and his preference for a system of removable inequalities, which allowed men to rise but kept a class structure.

34 Wood to Bartle Frere, 1 August 1862; in John Martineau, , Life of Sir Bartle Frere (1895), 1. 449.Google Scholar

35 Quoted in Goldsmid, F. J., Life of Sir James Outram (1881), II, 339.Google Scholar

36 Minute of 26 March 1864 in P.P. (1865), XL, 207. He asserted that ‘any limitation’ of the landlord's power over his land ‘must tend to deter the application of capital to land and check the development of its productive powers, and consequently of the wealth of the country’.

37 With regard to Lawrence's attitude to the new Punjab policy, Sir Charles Wood commented that, ‘Lawrence does not like it at all, thinks there are very few [sirdars] fit to be trusted, and that there is danger in uniting their lands....He thinks it very objectionable giving up any village from our mild superintendence to the grasp of a sirdar’ (Wood to Canning, 10 August 1860, in Wood Papers).

38 Wood to Canning, 18 January 1860, in Wood Papers.

39 See letter from Wood to Canning of 9 January 1861, describing his difficulties with the India Council. The Political Committee was composed of Lawrence, F. Currie, Willoughby, Prinsep, and Captain Eastwick.

40 On support of Montgomery and Punjab Officers, see Canning to Wood, 22 July 1861; on Wingfield, see Canning to Wood, 12 November 1859, in Wood Papers.

41 Canning to Wood, 3 December 1861, in Wood Papers.

42 Sir John Lawrence's arrival in India as Viceroy marked the opening of the great tenant-right controversies in Oudh and Punjab; these raged throughout Lawrence's viceroyalty, from 1864 to 1868, and were only terminated by Oudh Rent Act and Punjab Tenancy Acts of 1868. The nature and significance of these controversies I plan to discuss in a subsequent article.

43 Canning to Granville, 4 July 1860, in Fitzmaurice, op. cit. I, 384.

44 Wood to Canning, 3 January 1860 and 18 April 1860, in Wood Papers.

45 On the success of Canning's policy in Oudh see the reports of the Durbar of 1861, where Canning was lionized by the taluqdars and from which he came away reporting that ‘the certain proof and knowledge that they are trusted...has made men of them. The acuteness and impartiality with which they do their work is quite remarkable.’ Canning to Granville, 3 May 1861, in Fitzmaurice, op. cit. I, 394.