India Through the Ages Part 43

And below this again?

Below this, again, the dreaming heart of India, unchanged, unchangeable.

THE BOARD OF CONTROL

A.D. 1786 TO A.D. 1811

The heroic age of the history of British India is now past. Forced by Fate and by the strong right hand of two strong men, England, with one eye still fixed on gold, had had to turn the other on the duties of empire. So the Company was, as it were, split in twain. The old commercial interests were dealt with, as heretofore, by the Board of Directors, but the control "of all acts, operations, or concerns, which in any wise relate to the civil or military government or revenues of the British possessions of the East Indies," was vested in a Board of six members, all appointed by the Crown.

The word "British" is noteworthy in conjunction with possessions, and shows the ease with which the English nation, while still loudly condemning the action of the East India Company, availed itself of the result of such actions. The chief point of interest in the New Act was the power given to Parliament to pay the salaries, charges, and expenses of the Board of Control out of the revenues of India, provided this charge did not exceed 16,000. This was the nucleus of the present payment of 144,000 in the India Office alone.

As regards the Const.i.tution in India few changes were made, and, after a brief tenure of office on the part of Mr Macpherson, Lord Cornwallis went out to India as Governor-General. He had served successfully in Ireland, but with disaster in America. Considering his entire ignorance of even the first conditions of Eastern life, his Governor-Generalship was much less disastrous than it might have been, though it was marred by the crystallisation of the Great Mistake which Mr Francis had first presented in nebulous form; that is to say, the engrafting on India of the Western idea that the land cannot possibly belong to the State, but that some proprietor most be found for it.

But ere this was embodied in the Permanent Settlement of Bengal, Lord Cornwallis found his hands full of minor diplomacies. Tippoo-Sultan was at war with the Mahrattas, and the latter had foolishly been given promise of a.s.sistance by the British.

"An awkward, foolish sc.r.a.pe," writes the Governor-General. "How we shall get out of it with honour, G.o.d knows; but out of it we must get somehow, and give no troops."

That, practically, was the first charge on his administration. How to get out of minor squabbles, and leave the prime movers to fight it out amongst themselves. Hitherto the British troops had been mercenaries.

As such they had made their influence felt in every corner of India.

Now all was changed. England was a power in the East, hostile or friendly as she chose, not to be bribed to the support of any one. His next task was to interview the Nawab of Oude on the subject of the protection of _his_ state, and in so doing rather to sidewalk round this firm non-mercenary position adopted by the Board of Control. For 500,000 was taken yearly as payment for two brigades which were to bring "the blessings of peace" under the aegis "of the most formidable power in Hindustan." Asaf-daula, however, was hardly worth protecting.

He extorted every penny he could get from everybody in order to spend it on debauchery, and allowed his ministers to cheat and plunder both him and his country.

Another and a more worthy visitor pleaded for an interview, and was refused the favour. This was Jiwan Bakht, the heir-apparent to the Emperor Shah-alam. He had been received by Warren Hastings, who, possibly because he saw in him a promise not often to be found in the Indian potentates of those days, allowed him 40,000 a year as maintenance. "Gentle, lively, possessed of a high sense of honour, of a sound judgment, an uncommon quick penetration, a well-cultivated understanding, with a spirit of resignation and an equanimity almost exceeding any within reach of knowledge or recollection."

Such was the character given by the great Proconsul after six months of daily intercourse; but caution was now the order of the day.

"The whole political use that may be derived" (from an interview) "is at present uncertain, but there may arise _some future advantage_ if we can gain his affection and attachment ... but I have already prepared his mind not to expect many of the outward ceremonials usually paid in this country to the princes of the House of Timur, as they would not only be extremely irksome to me personally, but also, in my opinion, improper to be submitted to by the Governor-General at the seat of your Government."

So wrote Lord Cornwallis, and Jiwan Bakht, with spirit _and_ resignation, contented himself finally with a request that he might be allowed at least asylum under British protection. He died of fever shortly after at Benares. Poor, proud prince of the blood royal! Was he really next-of-kin, as it were, to the Great Moghuls? If we had given him a chance, as we gave it to the monster Tippoo, to half-a-hundred scoundrels all over India, would he have regained the empire of Akbar? Who knows? He vanishes into the "might-have-been"

with his high sense of honour, his spirit, and his resignation.

After this, Lord Cornwallis with a light heart took in hand the abuses of both the civil and the military services, and managed, by "making it a complete opposition question" which "brought forth all the secret foes and lukewarm friends of Government," to obtain higher salaries and better positions for both soldiers and civilians.

So far well. Then once more Tippoo-Sultan intervened, and in a trice India was back in the old days of intrigue, secret treaties, allies, and war. Even Lord Cornwallis, the Liberal pillar of upright, straightforward policy, fell before the peculiar temptations of Oriental diplomacy. There is much to be said for him. Tippoo was an unwarrantable survival. He ought long before to have been hanged, drawn, and quartered. As it was, he burst in upon the coming civilisation and culture, as Mr Burke's 'meteor' burst upon the 'peaceful fields.'

It would take too long to tell the tale of the four years' war during which the Mahrattas, the Dekkanites, and the English, hunted Tippoo ineffectively from pillar to post, and he retaliated in kind. Finally, in 1792, he was cornered at Seringapatam, and once more peace was concluded with a man who deserved nothing but the death of a mad dog.

Then ensued a part.i.tion of spoil after the old style; each ally receiving so many lakhs of money, so much territory. After which Lord Cornwallis, covered with glory, found leisure to address himself towards crystallising into our rule for ever--unless some Government arises strong enough to put the wheel back and start afresh--the Fundamental Error, the Great Mistake of the British Empire in India.

In 1793 Mr Dundas and Mr Pitt, neither of them possessing a sc.r.a.p of first-hand knowledge of their subject, "shut themselves up for ten days at Wimbledon" (Heaven save the mark!) and evolved out of their inner consciousness the Permanent Settlement; thus once and for ever--unless for the forlorn hope of a strong Government--alienating from the Sovereign power of India a possession which had been the Crown's by right beyond the memory of man--in all probability for over five thousand years.

As usual with all overwhelming errors, it was done from the purest motives of truth and honour, mercy and judgment; that is to say, from the Western definitions of these virtues. As Lord Cornwallis writes, he was restoring the rightful landowners

"to such circ.u.mstances as to enable them to support their families with decency and give a liberal education to their children according to the customs of their respective castes and religions," thus securing "a regular gradation of ranks ... nowhere more necessary than in this country for preserving order in civil society."

It sounds quite una.s.sailable to Western ears; but the results opened Western eyes. The measure was pa.s.sed in 1794; in 1796 one-tenth of the land in Bengal, Behar, and Orissa was on sale. The ancient order of _zemindars_, so far from giving a liberal education to its children, was fast disappearing, glad to accept the small amount of hard cash, if any, which remained over after settling up ancestral debts. A new race of proprietors was as rapidly taking the place of the old, to the disadvantage of the peasant. For as Sir Henry Strachey writes:--

"The _zemindar_ used formerly, like his ancestors, to reside on his estate. He was regarded as the chief and father of his tenants. At present the estates are often possessed by Calcutta purchasers who never see them."

Nor were the judicial reforms of Lord Cornwallis much more happy.

"Since the year 1793," says Sir Henry Strachey, "crimes of all kinds have increased, and I think most crimes are still increasing."

This was a natural result, first of the attempt to graft English law with all its legalities on Eastern equity, but mostly of the cra.s.s ignorance of native life everywhere displayed. Mr Sh.o.r.e, afterwards Lord Teignmouth, expresses this well when he says:--

"What judge can distinguish the exact truth among the numerous inconsistencies of the natives he examines? How often do those inconsistencies proceed from causes very different from those suspected by us? How often from simplicity, fear, embarra.s.sment in the witness? How often from our own ignorance and impatience? We cannot study the genius of the people in its own sphere of action. We know little of their domestic life; their knowledge, conversations, amus.e.m.e.nts; their trades and castes, or any of those national and individual characteristics which are essential to a complete knowledge. Every day affords us examples of something new and surprising, and we have no principle to guide us in the investigation of facts except an extreme diffidence of our opinion, a consciousness of inability to judge of what is probable or improbable.... The evil I complain of is extensive, and, I fear, irreparable. The difficulty we experience in discerning truth and falsehood among the natives may be ascribed, I think ... to their excessive ignorance of our characters and our almost equal ignorance of theirs."

The last sentence is perhaps scarcely strong enough, for Lord Cornwallis failed to find one civil servant of the Company in Madras who was "tolerably acquainted with the language and manners of the people."

Meanwhile, war had once more broken out between France and England, and though it had not yet disturbed India, Tippoo-Sultan, with his usual hardihood, bragged of the marvels of the French Revolution to the English officer charged, now that the ransom had been paid, with the duty of restoring the Sultan's sons, who had been kept as hostages. A trifle, which yet showed the way the wind was blowing. The Nizam of the Dekkan, also, irritated by the tepid neutrality of Lord Cornwallis, had fled for help to French arms. Nor was Scindiah better pleased. Though of low caste, being sprung from the slipper-bearer of Bala-ji, the first Peishwa, no Mahratta house claimed higher honours.

Practically, it was master of half Hindustan, and it had been greatly offended by the refusal of Lord Cornwallis to accept its offer of help against Tippoo in consideration of a like number of troops to those promised to the Nizam. So on all sides there was hostility--a hostility increased by Sir John Sh.o.r.e's policy (he succeeded Lord Cornwallis as Governor-General) "to adhere as literally as possible to the strictest possible interpretation of the restrictive clause in the Act of Parliament against entering into war."

Naturally, the fat was soon in the fire. The Mahrattas, always eager for a fray, fell upon the wretched Nizam, who, fortunately for him, failing British aid, had that of France; but so had Scindiah.

Therefore Monsieur Raymond and Monsieur de Boigne crossed swords; until the death of Ragoba the Peishwa turned all Mahratta thought to the choice of a new ruler.

English thought, also, was at this time (1798) engaged in a question of succession. Asaf-daula, the Nawab of Oude, had died, acknowledging a certain Wazeer-Ali as his son and successor. So the dissolute, disreputable lad of seventeen was promptly placed by the British Government on the throne with all honour: it did not do to divert the weather eye, which was always open for "future advantage," to such trivialities as kingly qualities. But alas and alack for the British Government, its choice was instantly challenged by Sa'adut-Ali, the late Nawab's brother, who brought proof that not only Wazeer-Ali, but all Asaf-daula's reputed children, were spurious.

At first England hesitated at deposing her Nawab. Then? Then it is extremely difficult to know what the real motive underlying the action was, but in 1798 we find Sa'adut-Ali on the throne of Oude, no longer an independent ruler, but a mere va.s.sal of the British Crown. The plea of adoption raised by Wazeer-Ali had been dismissed, and in honest truth, not absolutely without cause. For the Mahomedan law does not specifically recognise it, especially when near blood-relations exist.

These events, together with the death of old Mahomed Ali, Nawab of Arcot, aspirant to the Nawabship of the Carnatic--whose debts had been a veritable millstone round the neck of his consistent backer, the East India Company--saw Lord Cornwallis and Sir John Sh.o.r.e through their term of office, and Earl Mornington, afterwards Marquis Wellesley, reigned in their stead. He landed in April 1798 and found himself instantly confronted with the results of the non-interference policy; that is to say, with renewed war with Tippoo-Sultan, who--the remark has been made before--ought long ago to have been hanged.

It is somewhat refreshing to find that immediate negotiations were carried on both with the Nizam and the Mahrattas in absolute defiance of Mr Pitt's famous minute against diplomacy! But nothing restrained Tippoo, not even considerations of personal safety. He was well backed by the French, with whom the English were still at war. So he tried conclusions with splendid audacity. And failed. Seringapatam was once more taken, and this time Tippoo was found dead under a heaped ma.s.s of suffocated, trodden-down corpses in the north gate. But he, apparently, had died a soldier's death, for the flickering light of the torches by which the search was made showed that a musket ball had crashed into his skull above the right ear.

It was a better death than he deserved, for though his territories were well administered, and though Seringapatam was found to be fortified, garrisoned, provisioned, better than many a modern fort, and though in every way his vitality was superhuman, it was the vitality of a devil, and not of a man. Hyder-Ali, his father, had been wild, untamable, given to long solitudes in the jungles, remote from all save savage beasts. Let the only excuse, therefore, which can be made from Tippoo-Sultan be given him--he was born with insanity in his blood.

Relieved from the Tiger-cub--the golden Tiger-head footstool of the throne found in the royal audience chamber at Seringapatam is now at Windsor--who had kept Madras in a constant state of alarm for close on half a century, the Board of Control settled down to various pieces of policy, for it must not be forgotten that all political work had been taken out of the hands of the East India Company. This is a point frequently overlooked, so it must be borne in mind that for all actions after 1784, the Board of Control, that is, a body of unbia.s.sed English politicians appointed by the Crown, are entirely responsible.

They settled a disputed succession in Tanjore, they ousted the Nawab of Arcot, and by putting a nominee of their own on the throne with a pension of one-fifth of the revenue only, became vested with the whole of the rest of the Carnatic. They then turned their attention to Oude, where the Government of Sa'adut-Ali was in a shocking state of disorder. Reformation being urged upon him, he wilily announced his intention of abdicating, and thus gained some delay. Rather to his disadvantage than otherwise, since Lord Mornington was not long in producing a cut-and-dried scheme by which the Company should "acquire the exclusive authority, civil and military, over the dominions of Oude"; and also that by "secret treaty, not by formal abdication," the Nawab, in consideration of receiving a liberal pension, the family treasure and jewels, should agree to his sons' names being "no further mentioned than may be necessary for the purpose of securing to them a suitable provision."

It was a big order, and to it the Nawab naturally objected. But the screw was too tight. He had yielded himself va.s.sal in order to gain the throne. His government was atrocious. It was practically impossible for the New Code of Western Ethics, which was everywhere raising its head in menace to the iniquities of the East, to look on such things and live. So in the end the treaty was signed; and whatever else the result might be, one thing is certain, the inhabitants of Oude were none the worse for the change of rulers.

A trivial detail in the confused complication of this transaction deserves unstinted blame, and that was Lord Mornington's acceptance of the offer made by one of the Begums of Oude to const.i.tute the Company her heir. This was openly avowed to be a means of escaping from the extortions of her grandson the Nawab, but though it seems equitable enough to Western ears, it must not be forgotten that the India law of inheritance of those days allowed no right of will, neither did it sanction the possession by any widow of wealth beyond a certain small proportion of her husband's real and personal property, which in this case could not have included anything but personal effects, the rest belonging to the Crown.

Volumes might be written on this question of the English action in regard to Oude, but practically there are but one or two facts, one or two admissions, to be made on both sides.

First, it is at best doubtful if we had any right to depose Wazeer-Ali in favour of his uncle. True, the right of adoption does not hold good in Mahomedan Common Law, but Indian history gives countless examples of Mahomedan sovereigns nominating their own successor, though it must be admitted that this nearly always only held good where there was no collateral heir. Second, this deposition was undoubtedly in our favour. By elevating Sa'adut-Ali, a small pensioner to the throne, we gained a hold on him which enabled us to dictate our own terms at the time, and, by the mere fact of the va.s.salage to which we reduced him, to enhance these terms at our convenience.

On the other hand, none can deny that the state of affairs in Oude strained patience to the uttermost; nor that in essence, the throne of Oude was of our own creation. It had only a history of a hundred years, and owned its very existence to the protection of England.