Hostname: page-component-78c5997874-j824f Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-14T16:56:08.978Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Officers, Gentlemen, and Murderers: Lord Curzon's campaign against ‘collisions’ between Indians and Europeans, 1899 –1905

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  21 November 2012

MICHAEL CARRINGTON
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

As viceroy of India (1899–1905), George Curzon believed that unprovoked British assaults on Indians undermined the colonial state's authority to rule. These collisions1 challenged Curzon's conception of moral empire and called into question one of the most important representations of British moral character—that of ‘officer and gentleman’. Aware of the strength of indigenous feeling in India and of liberal discontent at home, the viceroy engaged in what appears to have been a laudable defence of the rights of Indians. By doing so, he certainly risked the hostility of official and unofficial opinion in both Britain and India. The fundamental issue was: should the Raj be based on a ruling moral authority administered by men of character, in which collisions were reprehensible, or did it ultimately rest on force?

Type
Research Article
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 47 , Issue 3 , May 2013 , pp. 780 - 819
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 The term ‘collision’ was used contemporaneously for incidents ranging from simple assault to murder.

2 Much of the material contained in this paper formed a chapter of my doctoral dissertation. See ‘Empire and Authority: Curzon, Collisions, Character and the Raj, 1899–1905’, PhD thesis, Coventry University, 2004. Accordingly, I would like to thank Ian Talbot for his comments and advice regarding that original piece of work. At the time of writing the thesis, white violence against colonial subjects was an under-researched area of colonial history; more recently, though, there have been some interesting and relevant publications. See, for example, Bailkin, Jordanna, ‘The Boot and the Spleen: When Was Murder Possible in India?’, Comparative Studies in Society and History, 48, 2006, pp. 462–93CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Wiener, Martin J., An Empire on Trial: Race, Murder, and Justice Under British Rule, 1870–1935. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009)Google Scholar, and Kolsky, Elizabeth, Colonial Justice in British India: White Violence and the Rule of Law. (Cambridge: Villanova, 2010.)Google Scholar. These works deal with many of the issues raised in ‘Empire and Authority’ and go much further in examining the workings of the legal system in India and white violence against colonial subjects in the British empire; they do, however, leave the issue of ‘motives’ in relation to Curzon's campaign against injustice relatively unexplored.

3 Wilkinson, Rupert, ‘Political Leadership and the Late Victorian Public School’, The British Journal of Sociology, 13, 1962, pp. 320–30, p. 324.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Wilkinson, ‘Political Leadership’, p. 328. There is now a quite considerable and varied literature on public schools, sport, and empire; John MacKenzie and J. A. Mangan have produced good work in this area.

5 Cain, P. J., ‘Character and Imperialism: The British Financial Administration of Egypt, 1878–1914’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 34 (2), June 2006, pp. 177–200, p. 178.CrossRefGoogle Scholar There is not the room to expand this discussion here, though, as Cain points out, Collini, Stefan, Public Moralists: Political Thought and Intellectual Life in Britain, 1850–1930. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991)Google Scholar is an important work on ‘character’.

6 Hyam, Ronald, Britain's Imperial Century. (London: Batsford, 1976), p. 157.Google Scholar

7 Carrington, Michael, ‘Officers, Gentlemen, and Thieves: The Looting of Monasteries during the 1903/4 Younghusband Mission to Tibet’, Modern Asian Studies, 37 (1), 2003, pp. 81–109.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

8 Bryant, G. J., ‘Pacification in the Early British Raj’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 14 (1), October 1985, pp. 3–19CrossRefGoogle Scholar, p. 5. There were some who suggested that ‘natives’ either deserved or even appreciated a certain level of violence. For examples of contemporary attitudes, see Muddock, Joyce Emerson, The Star of Fortune: A Story of the Indian Mutiny. (London: Chapman and Hall, 1894)Google Scholar.

9 Townsend, Julian, ‘J. A. Hobson: Anti-Imperialist?’, International Review of History and Political Science, 19, 1982, pp. 28–41, p. 36.Google Scholar

10 Boyce, D. George, ‘From Assay to Assay: Reflections on British Government, Force, and Moral Authority in India’, The Journal of Military History, 63, July 1999, pp. 643–48, p. 649.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

11 Boyce, ‘From Assay to Assay’, pp. 651–52.

12 Quoted in Kaplan, Martha, ‘Panopticon in Poona: An Essay on Foucault and Colonialism’, Cultural Anthropology, 10, Part 1, 1995, pp. 85–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

13 Hibbert, Christopher, The Great Mutiny: India 1857. (London: Penguin Books, 1980), p. 31.Google Scholar

14 Hibbert, The Great Mutiny.

15 Quoted in Thornton, A. P., The Imperial Idea and its Enemies. (London: Macxmillan, 1966), p. 208.Google Scholar

16 Bhattacharya, Bhababani, Socio-Political Currents in Bengal. (Delhi: Vikas, 1980), pp. 48–49.Google Scholar

17 Havelock to Hamilton, 26 March 1896, Mss. Eur. D699. Oriental and India Office Collections (hereafter OIOC).

18 Thompson, Edward, The Other Side of the Medal. (London: Hogarth Press, 1925), pp. 87–88.Google Scholar

19 Thompson, The Other Side, p. 89.

20 Boyce, ‘From Assay to Assay’, p. 654.

21 Lytton to Victoria, 6 August 1876, in Chopra, P. N.et al. (eds), Secret Papers from British Royal Archives. (Delhi: Konark Publishers, 1998), p. 36Google Scholar. See also Bailkin, ‘The Boot and the Spleen’.

22 Killingray, David, ‘The Rod of Empire: The Debate Over Corporal Punishment in the British African Colonial Forces, 1888–1946’, Journal of African History, 35, 1994, pp. 201–16.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

23 Taylor, Miles, ‘Imperium et Libertas? Rethinking the Radical Critique of Imperialism During the Nineteenth Century’, The Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History, 19 (1), January 1991, pp. 1–23.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

24 Taylor, ‘Imperium et Libertas?’, p. 15.

25 Naoroji, Dadabhai, ‘The Moral Poverty and Native Thoughts on the Present British-Indian Policy’, in Kedourie, Ellie (ed.), Nationalism in Asia and Africa. (New York: Meridian, 1970), p. 365Google Scholar.

26 Greenberger, Allen J., The British Image of India. (London: Oxford University Press, 1969), pp. 30–31.Google Scholar

27 Stephens, Sir J. F., ‘Foundations of the Government of India’, Nineteenth Century, 80, October 1883, pp. 541–68Google Scholar; also quoted in Boyce, ‘From Assay to Assay’, p. 652.

28 Motilal Ghose to William Digby, 2 May 1901, Mss. Eur. D767/9. OIOC.

29 Miller to Curzon, 19 September 1904, Mss. Eur. F112/413. OIOC.

30 Cited in Kanta Ray, Rajat, Social Conflict and Political Unrest in Bengal 1875–1927. (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1984), p. 23.Google Scholar

31 See Mss. Eur. F111/637, p. 117, and communication from Consul at Seistan, 11 August 1904, L/PS/169. OIOC.

32 Bhattacharya, Socio-Political Currents, p. 130. For more on the Ilbert Bill, see Sadhan Bose, Nemai, Racism, Struggle for Equality and Indian Nationalism. (Calcutta: Firma, 1981)Google Scholar, Chapters 6 and 7.

33 The press used cases such as these as examples of how ‘hot headed Englishmen are encouraged to lay violent hands on natives without demur’: in Bharat Jiwan (Banares), 9 March 1903, L/R/5/80 Native Newspaper Reports United Provinces of Agra and Oudh no. 11, 1903, p. 119. OIOC.

34 For a complete list of reported assaults for the period 1901–1905, see ‘Transmission to the India Office of Statements Showing Cases of Assault Committed by Europeans on Natives and by Natives on Europeans During the Years 1901–1905 Inclusive’, Home (Police) A, September 1906, Proceedings nos. 137–138 A. National Archives of India (hereafter NAI).

35 Kaplan, ‘Panopticon in Poona’, p. 88.

36 Quoted in Bhattacharya, Socio-Political Currents, p. 88.

37 The government reasoned that ‘an Assistant Collectors lot often seems a dog's life, but if you think so, compare it with a Bhil's or Mahar's’. See ‘The Official Collectors Manual 1905’, Maxwell-Gumbleton Papers. Centre of South Asian Studies, University of Cambridge (hereafter CSAS).

38 Ray, Social Conflict, p. 177. The Amrita Bazar Patrika also ‘placed great importance’ (though, as I have argued, at a later date) on the Swadeshi movement, as they thought it was calculated to secure Indian ‘salvation’. Amrita Bazar Patrika (Calcutta), 16 September 1905. CSAS.

39 Curzon to Hamilton, 14 June 1899, Mss. Eur. F111/158. OIOC.

40 Curzon to Brodrick, 18 June 1900, Add. Mss. 50074. British Library (hereafter BL). Also quoted in Dilkes, David, Curzon in India. (London: Hart Davis, 1969), Vol. 1, p. 238.Google Scholar

41 Grover, B. L., Curzon and Congress: Curzonian Policies and the Great Debate [Jan 1899–March 1902]. (New Delhi: Indian Council of Historical Research, 1995), p. 43.Google Scholar

42 This comment was in response to a case where an Indian had received four months’ imprisonment for ‘wrongfully detaining’ a British officer who had shot a fellow villager. Godley to Curzon, 10 July 1900, Mss. Eur. F111/159. OIOC.

43 Curzon to Lyttleton, 28 June 1899, Chandos Collection, I 2/4. Churchill Archive, University of Cambridge (hereafter CA).

44 Peter Gowan, ‘The Origins of the Administrative Elite’, New Left Review, 162, March/April 1987.

45 Cannadine, David, Ornamentalism. (London: Allen Lane, 2001), p. 10.Google Scholar

46 See, for example, the question from Lord Stanley and the reply from the Earl of Onslow (Lords, 14 February 1899); also see the Secretary of State to Herbert Roberts (Commons, 16 June 1889), in L/Mil/5/710. OIOC.

47 Curzon to Lyttleton, 28 June 1899, Chandos Collection, I 2/4. CA. Also quoted in Robin Moore, J., ‘Curzon and Indian Reform’, Modern Asian Studies, 27 (4), 1993, pp. 719–40, p. 723.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

48 Curzon to Brodrick, 17 February 1904, Add. Mss. 50075. BL.

49 Curzon to Brodrick, 17 February 1904.

50 Member of Parliament Lord Stanley believed that the effect of the conduct of officers in relation to an assault on a Mr Asghar Aly in the Punjab ‘encouraged’, rather than ‘discouraged’ this particular outrage. Stanley also thought these incidents were on the increase. Curzon maintained he would ‘not wink (his) eye at the abominations of the failure of justice’, though he also believed that his attempts to redress the situation would lead to a ‘bitter resentment’ from the those in India who were ‘bonded together in a conspiracy to glaze over whatever an Englishman does’. Curzon to Stanley, 3 March 1899, and Stanley to Curzon, 20 March 1899, Mss. Eur. F111/181. OIOC

51 Gurakhi (Bombay), 23 January 1900, quoted in Grover, Curzon and Congress.

52 Grover, Curzon and Congress, p. 83.

53 Allen, Charles (ed.), Plain Tales from the Raj. (London: Futura, 1987), p. 212.Google Scholar

54 For an appraisal of the role of European women in India, see Procida, Mary, Married to the Empire: Gender Politics and Imperialism in India 1883–1947. (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002.)Google Scholar.

55 Officially totalling 84 dead and 106 injured for the two-year period ending March 1900; 27 Europeans were also shot during this period, of whom five were fatalities, Mss. Eur. F111/402. OIOC. See also L/Mil/7/12333 for a list of shooting cases.

56 Quoted in Grover, Curzon and Congress, p. 122.

57 Curzon to Lawrence, 24 January 1901, Mss. Eur. F143. OIOC.

58 See Curzon's ‘Minute on the Revision of the Shooting Pass Rules’, 6 September 1900, L/Mil/7/13233. OIOC.

59 Curzon's ‘Minute on the Revision of the Shooting Pass Rules’.

60 Curzon's ‘Minute on the Revision of the Shooting Pass Rules’.

61 Hamilton to Curzon, 16 June 1899, Mss. Eur. F111/158. OIOC.

62 Hamilton had seen Fryer a couple of years previous to this case and thought that even then he was ‘played out, had a stomach and was indolent in his ideas, [but at that time] he was the only man available for the post’. Hamilton to Curzon, 21 June 1901, Mss. Eur. F111/160. OIOC.

63 Fryer to Curzon, 23 June 1899, Mss. Eur. E355/66. OIOC.

64 Lockhart to Lawrence, 1 July 1899, Mss. Eur. F111/200. OIOC.

65 The Times, 26 September 1899, also quoted in Douglas Peers, M., ‘Privates off Parade: Regimenting Sexuality in the Nineteenth-Century Indian Empire’, The International History Review, 20 (4), 1998, pp. 791–1072, p. 824.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

66 Fryer to Curzon, 7 September 1899, Mss. Eur. E355/66. OIOC.

67 One of the accused soldiers (Private Horlicks) was involved in an affray in the bazaar before the regiment left Rangoon, L/Mil/7/13233. OIOC.

68 Fryer to Curzon, 29 September 1899, Mss. Eur. F111/200. OIOC.

69 Hamilton to Curzon, 1 July 1901, quoted in Narain, Prem, Press and Politics in India 1885–1905. (Delhi: Munshiram Memorial Publishers, 1970), p. 166.Google Scholar

70 L/PJ/6/527 no. 2354. OIOC.

71 See, for example, the Santimani (Calcutta), 27 December 1901; the Sri-Sri Vishnu Priya-o-Ananda-Bayer-Patrika (Calcutta), 17 April 1901, L/R/5/27; and the Citizen (Allahabad), 9 March 1903, L/R/5/80. OIOC. One newspaper reported that a soldier had been given four months’ rigorous imprisonment for ‘outraging the modesty of a Hindu lady under the excuse of examining her for plague’: Hitavadi (Calcutta), 24 June 1898, L/R/5/24. OIOC.

72 Prayag Samachar (Allahabad), 1901, L/R/5/78. OIOC.

73 Quoted in L/Mil/7/13233. OIOC. Also in Narain, Press and Politics, p. 171. To be fair, the government of India did on occasion pursue those accused of certain offences. See, for example, the case of the Presbyterian Reverend Dr John Sandilands who was extradited from Scotland to stand trial in India on a number of counts of rape. L/PJ/6/707. OIOC.

74 Though exact figures are not available up to 1899, only cases involving fatalities were recorded.

75 Abraham, F., ‘Was Lord Curzon's Indian Policy a Success?’, Asiatic Quarterly Review, 27, 1909, pp. 290–310, p. 306.Google Scholar

76 Mss. Eur. F111/402, p. 40. OIOC.

77 Early fans were driven by either oil or steam. The first electric fans installed on a large scale were at Bareilly and were initially very troublesome, although they became more reliable over time. Mss. Eur. F111/402, p. 42. OIOC. Curzon claimed that there was ‘no subject in which [he] had taken greater interest. . . than in that of improved ventilation and lighting of barracks’. Quoted in Lawrence, James, Raj: The Making and Unmaking of British India. (London: Little, Brown and Company, 1997), p. 74Google Scholar.

78 See Curzon, G. N., Lord Curzon in India: ‘Being a Selection from his Speeches as Viceroy and Governor-General of India 1898–1905’. (London: Macmillan and Co., 1906)Google Scholar, also quoted in Lawrence, Raj, p. 74.

79 L/Mil/7/13234. OIOC.

80 ‘9th Bengal Lancers case’, Mss. Eur. F111/402. OIOC.

81 This was claimed by Colonel Legge, the member for St George's, Hanover Square. The case of the 9th Lancers is found in the Commons debate of 25 November 1902. See ‘Debates and Questions on Indian Affairs’, V/3/1605. OIOC.

82 Lord Charles Beresford (Woolwich) thought that the viceroy possibly had some reason not made public for inflicting such a punishment on the regiment, which, incidentally, was ‘entirely wrong’. V/3/1605. OIOC.

83 Goradia, Nayana, Lord Curzon: The Last of the British Moghuls. (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1993), p. 168.Google Scholar

84 A third assault also occurred for which a member of the regiment was responsible, although there was no loss of life. The soldier was fined 50 Rupees.

85 Curzon to Hamilton, 27 November 1902, Mss. Eur. F123/76. OIOC.

86 Thompson diary entry for 1 January 1903, Mss. Eur. F137/3. OIOC.

87 Marker Papers. National Army Museum (hereafter NAM).

88 Narain, Press and Politics, p. 177.

89 Curzon to Bourdillon, 20 September 1903, Mss. Eur. F111/208. OIOC.

90 Government reports alluded to the treatment indentured ‘coolies’ might receive, when they admitted that, ‘undoubtedly, with free labour there is greater necessity for the exercise of tact and restraint on the part of the employer’. See ‘Conditions of Tea Garden Labour in Duars of Bengal, Madras, Ceylon, 1904’, in L/PJ/6/713. OIOC.

91 See Hamilton to Curzon, 2 September 1903, Mss. Eur. F111/208. OIOC.

92 Behal, Rana P. and Monhapatra, Prabhu P., ‘Tea and Money Versus Human Life: The Rise and Fall of the Indenture System in the Assam Tea Plantations 1840–1908’, The Journal of Peasant Studies, 19 (3–4), April–July 1992, pp. 142–72.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

93 Curzon to Fuller, 8 October 1903, Mss. Eur. F111/208. OIOC.

94 Curzon to Hamilton, 11 September 1901, Mss. Eur. F111/160. OIOC.

95 In a 1907 report, Sir Bampfylde Fuller reported how he believed that this circular had resulted in marked improvements in relations between plantation managers and workers. See L/PJ/6767 no. 1982. OIOC.

96 The Englishman (Calcutta), for example, was often accused of being ‘in’ with the planters.

97 Quoted in Renford, Raymond K., The Non-Official British in India to 1920. (Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1987), p. 294.Google Scholar

98 Curzon to Hamilton, 5 August 1903, Mss. Eur. D510/14. OIOC.

99 Curzon to Hamilton, 5 August 1903.

100 Sir O'Connor, Frederick, Things Mortal. (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1940), p. 49Google Scholar.

101 The maximum penalty Curzon knew of at this time for a European found guilty of culpable homicide had been a fine of 150 Rupees. Curzon to Lansdowne, 24 January 1901, Mss. Eur. F143. OIOC.

102 See Curzon to Hamilton, 17 October 1900 (also in Grover), and Curzon to Northbrook, 15 May 1901, Mss. Eur. F111/181. OIOC. Hamilton thought the viceroy's actions were ‘laudable and noble’, although he was slightly concerned that in the case of military prosecutions Curzon believed ‘not even courts-martial composed of British officers [could] be depended upon to do justice’. Hamilton to Curzon, 6 June 1900, Mss. Eur. F111/159. OIOC.

103 Curzon to Northbrook, 15 May 1901, Mss. Eur. F111/181. OIOC.

104 Godley to Curzon, 13 September 1900, Mss. Eur. F111/159. OIOC.

105 Curzon to Hamilton, 25 September 1901, Mss. Eur. F111/160. OIOC.

106 See Curzon to Sir A. P. Macdonell (Lt-Governor of Northwest Provinces and Oudh), 29 July 1901, Mss. Eur. F111/204. OIOC.

107 See L/PJ/6/634 no. 877 and L/PJ/6/601 no. 915. OIOC.

108 Ray, Social Conflict, p. 138.

109 Ray, Social Conflict, p. 139.

110 L/PJ/6/731 no. 2392. OIOC.

111 See L/PJ/6/630 no. 603. OIOC. Lord Ampthill, in reply to accusations of excessive leniency in the Travancore case, thought that the sentences were appropriate for Europeans, who would have to serve their sentences in Indian prisons, which were ‘like ovens with their high walls and hot bare stones’. Ampthill to Curzon, 6 November 1901, Mss. Eur. F111/204. OIOC.

112 Curzon to Bourdillon, 20 September 1903, Mss. Eur. F111/160. OIOC.

113 See Curzon to Sir A. P. Macdonell (Lt-Governor Northwest Provinces and Oudh), 6 July 1901, Mss. Eur. F111/204. OIOC.

114 For the 1905 report on the case, see L/PJ/6/731 no. 2392. OIOC.

115 Many other similar cases can be found by perusing relevant years in the series L/R/5/1–208 Indian Newspaper Reports 1868–1939. OIOC.

116 This case was discussed in the House of Commons (6 May 1902) where the secretary of state was asked if he realized that ‘beating a Hindu with his own slippers is regarded as the greatest insult’. See L/PJ/6/599 no. 874. OIOC.

117 Examples include Rabindranath Tagore's Aparichita and Sarat Chandra Chatterjee's Bipradas. Ray, Social Conflict, p. 23.

118 See Ninety Looks Back, Pullan Papers. CSAS.

119 Curzon to Lawrence, 24 January 1901, Mss. Eur. F143. OIOC.

120 See L/PJ/6/636 no. 1060, and Curzon to Hamilton, 29 July 1903, D/510/14. OIOC.

121 See L/PJ/6/636 no. 1060, and Curzon to Hamilton, 29 July 1903, D/510/14. OIOC.

122 The press used the case as a good example of how ‘Englishmen who kill natives escape scot free’. See Bharat Jiwan (Banares), 9 March 1903, L/R/5/80, Native Newspaper Reports United Provinces of Agra and Oudh no. 11, 1903, p. 119. OIOC.

123 For comment on this case, see Curzon to Hamilton, 21 August 1901, Mss. Eur. F111/160. OIOC, and the Indian Mail (Lucknow), 25 July 1901, L/R/5/78. OIOC.

124 See Curzon to Sir A. P. Macdonell, 18 August 1901, Mss. Eur. F111/204. OIOC.

125 Curzon to Hamilton, 4 June 1903, Mss. Eur. D510/14. OIOC.

126 Curzon to Hamilton, 10 June 1903, Mss. Eur. D510/14. OIOC.

127 Hindustan Review (Allahabad), June 1903, quoted in Curzon to Hamilton, 10 June 1903, Mss. Eur. D510/14. OIOC.

128 Hindustan Review (Allahabad), June 1903, quoted in Curzon to Hamilton, 10 June 1903, Mss. Eur. D510/14. OIOC.

129 Godley to Curzon, 1 January 1904, and Curzon to Godley, 27 January 1904, Mss. Eur. F111/167 nos. 1 and 4. OIOC.

130 ‘Report by the Assistant to the Inspector-General of Police Punjab—on the Vernacular Press of the Punjab for 1903’, L/PS/7/169. OIOC.

131 ‘Report by the Assistant to the Inspector-General of Police Punjab—on the Vernacular Press of the Punjab for 1903’, L/PS/7/169. OIOC. It described the Tribune as ‘the most influential Anglo-Indian publication in the Punjab; its influence [was] decidedly bad’. See also Ananda, Prakash, A History of the Tribune. (New Delhi: The Tribune Trust, 1986).Google Scholar

132 Oudh Times (Lucknow), 8 March 1901, L/R/5/78. OIOC.

133 Quoted in L/PJ/3/960 no. 81. OIOC.

134 Hitavadi (Calcutta), 24 June 1898, L/R/5/24. OIOC.

135 Hamilton to Curzon, 27 February 1903, Mss. Eur. F111/162. OIOC.

136 In one of these cases the accused was to plead insanity, and in the other, a military court had already decided that there was not enough evidence to proceed. Curzon to Hamilton, 17 June 1903, Mss. Eur. F111/162. OIOC.

137 Of this number, 29 represented cases of robbery and rape, out of which 15 convictions were obtained. Statistics on assaults are not particularly useful as only ‘fatal’ punkah assaults were recorded up to 1899. See Mss. Eur. F111/414, p. 39, and L/Mil/7/13233. OIOC. For a list of ‘reported’ assaults covering the period 1901–1905, see ‘Transmission to the India Office of Statements Showing Cases of Assault Committed by Europeans on Natives and by Natives on Europeans During the Years 1901–1905 Inclusive’, Home (Police) A, September 1906, Proceedings no. 137–138 A. NAI.

138 Quoted in Ahulwalia, M. M., ‘The Press and India's Struggle for Freedom, 1858–1909’, Journal of Indian History, 3 (38), 1960, pp. 599–604, p. 601.Google Scholar

139 The Prabhat (Calcutta), 27 June 1900, quoted in Grover, Curzon and Congress, p. 65.

140 Narain, Press and Politics, p. 180.

141 Also see, for example, the case of Babu Govinda Chandra Basu who had given evidence against European soldiers in a murder case and was later assaulted (supposedly in relation to this) by a British officer at Barrrackpore station, in Hitavadi (Calcutta), 18 January 1901, L/R/S/27. OIOC. Or, more seriously, the case of a reprisal on associates of 14 natives locked up for assaulting British soldiers which left a man bayoneted to death and a boy seriously injured, in Sanjivani (Calcutta), 7 June 1900, quoted in ‘Thagi and Dakaiti Department, Selections from the Newspapers Published in India Part 1 of 1900’, no. 25, p. 642, L/PS/7/124. OIOC. However, British military personnel were certainly attacked by natives and a number of alleged cases are contained in L/Mil/7/13233. OIOC.

142 As discussed in the House of Commons debate of 30 July 1903; see L/PJ/6/642 no. 1557. OIOC.

143 Mss. Eur. F137/3. OIOC.

144 Hitavadi (Calcutta), 29 June 1900, quoted in L/PS/7/124. OIOC.

145 Zaidi, A. M. and Zaidi, S. (eds), The Encyclopaedia of the Indian National Congress. (New Delhi: Indian National Congress, 1978), Vols 3 and 4, pp. 517–18.Google Scholar

146 Quoted in Dilkes, Vol. 1, p. 210. The Indian Daily Mail (Lucknow) thought that only one European had ever been hanged for murdering an Indian: a seaman named George Nairns, sentenced for the stabbing of a native policeman. L/R/5/78. OIOC.

147 Curzon to Hamilton, 17 June 1903, Mss. Eur. F111/162. OIOC. On occasion a soldier might receive a ‘relatively’ severe period of imprisonment. For example, three soldiers received seven years for killing a native who asked for payment for the drinks the men had taken. See Brownlee to Curzon, 20 September 1900, Mss. Eur. F111/181. OIOC.

148 Curzon to Hamilton, 15 July 1903, Mss. Eur. D510/14. OIOC.

149 Curzon to Hamilton, 15 July 1903. A number of examples of cases where defendants claimed insanity are contained in ‘Administration of Criminal Justice in Bengal 1886–1907’, V/24/2202. OIOC.

150 Curzon to Hamilton, 23 September 1903, Mss. Eur. D510/14. OIOC.

151 Lord Landsdowne, for example, had told Hamilton how the ‘highest credit’ was due to him for his stance on collisions. Free from official control, some newspaper editors were also ‘strong supporter[s]’ of Curzon's views (the Capitol, for example). See Hamilton to Curzon, 27 February 1903, Mss. Eur. F111/162, and Miller to Curzon, 19 September 1904, Mss. Eur. F112/413. OIOC.

152 Brodrick later wrote to Curzon and asked him to ‘forget [the] sad interlude in [their] unbroken friendship’. Brodrick to Curzon, 15 March 1903, Add. Mss. 50074. BL. Curzon's mother-in-law maintained that Brodrick always felt an ‘unstinting malevolence’ towards Curzon, and that Brodrick's jealousy was a deeply buried glowing coal, always ‘ready to flare up again’. Quoted in Goradia, Lord Curzon, p. 244. Brodrick waited until after Curzon's death to publish his version of events, in which he claimed the viceroy was ‘intolerant of opposition’, treated the secretary of state as his ‘diplomatic representative at the Court of St. James’, and was suffering from nervous exhaustion after only two years in office. Quoted in Goradia, Lord Curzon, pp. 244–45.

153 Curzon to Brodrick, 17 February 1904, Mss. Eur. F111/167. OIOC.

154 Curzon to Brodrick, 3 March 1904, Mss. Eur. F111/163. OIOC.

155 Curzon to Brodrick, 14 March 1904, Mss. Eur. F111/163. OIOC.

156 Curzon to Godley, 24 March 1904, Mss. Eur. F111/163. OIOC.

157 Ampthill to Godley, 27 July 1904, Mss. Eur. E233/37. OIOC.

158 Ampthill to Godley, 27 July 1904.

159 Ampthill to Godley, 27 July 1904.

160 Ampthill to Godley, 27 July 1904.

161 Curzon to Brodrick, 17 February 1904, Add. Mss. 50075. BL.

162 Brodrick regretted that Curzon felt sidelined but maintained he did not wish to trouble him while his wife was ill, and also ‘it was difficult to carry on a three cornered conversation’ between himself, Curzon, and Ampthill. Curzon to Brodrick, 30 October 1904, and Brodrick to Curzon, 31 October 1904, Add. Mss. 50076. BL.

163 Curzon to Ampthill, 7 September 1904, Mss. Eur. F112/413. OIOC.

164 Curzon to Ampthill, 10 November 1904, Mss. Eur. F112/413. OIOC.

165 Curzon to Ampthill, 7 September 1904.

166 Curzon to Godley, 3 May 1905, Mss. Eur. F111/168. OIOC.

167 Younghusband to Dunlop-Smith, 16 June 1905, Mss. Eur. F166/12. OIOC.

168 Narain, Press and Politics, p. 167.

169 See Home (Public), August 1906, Proceedings no. 35. NAI.

170 Narain, Press and Politics, p. 166.

171 The government of India were fortunate that this affair was completely passed over by the nationalist newspapers. Curzon to Lord George Hamilton, 5 November 1902, Mss Eur. F111/161. OIOC.

172 Hamilton to Curzon, 27 November 1902, Mss Eur. F111/161. OIOC.

173 Blood did his best to absolve the Lancers of any blame over the death of Atu, both at the time and 30 years later. See Bindon-Blood, Sir, Four Score Years and Ten. (London: Bell and Sons, 1933).Google Scholar

174 Curzon to Sir H. S. Barnes (Lt-Governor of Burma), 6 September 1903, Mss. Eur. F111/208. OIOC.

175 During the latter half of the nineteenth century, any soldier who assaulted or disobeyed a superior officer could receive a very severe sentence. See, for example, the cases of Private Turner, sentenced to 20 years’ penal servitude for ‘refusing the order of an NCO’, and Private Johnson, who was executed for ‘refusing to obey a command of his superior officer’, in Mss. Eur. C548. OIOC.

176 L/PJ/6/732 no. 2533. OIOC.

177 Butler to Richards, 11 February 1902, Mss. Eur. F122/1. OIOC.