India Under British Rule

British zemindar at Calcutta.

The changes in the status of Bengal zemindars may be gathered from what is known of old Calcutta. Before the battle of Plassy the East India Company itself was nothing more than a Bengal zemindar, and held the settlement at Calcutta on a zemindary tenure. The Company was pledged to pay to the Nawab a fixed yearly royalty for their little territory. A British civil servant was appointed to represent the Company as zemindar, to bear the name and fulfil the duties of the post; and he collected the ground-rents within the Company's bounds and paid the yearly royalty to the Nawab. He could not raise the rents, for that was forbidden by Mogul law, but otherwise he was all powerful. He administered justice, criminal and civil, like the Justices of the Choultry at Madras. He also raised an additional income by farming out certain trades as monopolies, levying octroi duties on provisions, and taking fees for the registration of marriages, and sale of houses, boats, and slaves.

Auction sales of Calcutta lands.

After Plassy the British zemindar at Calcutta cared nothing for Mogul law. He raised the rents within the Company's bounds by the simple process of putting the leases up to auction; and the eagerness of the Bengalis to hold lands and sub-let them to under-tenants led to much competition and a large advance of rents. The zemindar who carried out this innovation was no other than Mr. Holwell, the same gentleman who was accepted as Governor of Calcutta on the morning of the day that ended in the Black Hole disaster. During that terrible night Mr. Holwell seems to have imbibed hatred and contempt for Moguls and Nawabs. Whilst Clive was shilly-shallying with Mir Jafir, Holwell was urging the deposition of the Nawab, the annexation of the Bengal provinces, and the radical measure of putting up all the zemindaries to public auction.10 This scheme was ignored at the time as the dream of a madman; but nevertheless, within fifteen years, or half a generation, it was seriously considered by Warren Hastings.

Mogul revenue records.

Mysterious disappearance.

The revenue records of the Moguls had always been singularly complete down to the minutest detail. The holding of every ryot and the area of every zemindary had been measured and remeasured; the average value of the yearly produce of every field had been calculated; and the yearly rents payable by the ryots and the yearly revenue payable by the zemindar had been fixed in each case on the basis of the average harvests. All these details had been entered at length in the Mogul records. But the revenue records which contained all the details respecting the land in the Bengal provinces had mysteriously disappeared when they were most wanted. A Mohammedan contemporary says that they were all destroyed when Mir Kasim fled into Oudh. Possibly they may have been thrown into the Ganges and carried out to sea.

British collectors.

Warren Hastings did perhaps the best he could under the circumstances. By the stroke of a pen he converted the British supervisors into British collectors of revenues; and thus brought the new collectors into direct contact with the zemindars, who collected yearly rents from the ryots or tenant farmers. The next work would have been to re-measure all the lands and to make fresh estimates of the average yearly value of the produce of each field. This work had been carried out within the Company's zemindary at Calcutta, and many frauds and errors had been discovered and corrected. But what was possible in an estate, was impossible in a territory considerably larger than the British isles. Warren Hastings had no means at his disposal for re-measuring the lands and revaluing the yearly produce, and it was utterly impossible to get at the actual facts as regards rents and revenues. Not only were the records lost, but the revenue administration was in utter confusion; the ministers exacted what they could from the zemindars, and the zemindars in their turn oppressed the ryots. Moreover, no reliable information could be obtained from ryots or zemindars, who were alike suspicious of British intentions and mortally terrified by the British invasion. The new British collectors, with the help of native officials, arrived at some approximate estimate of the rents paid by the ryots in each zemindary, and then every zemindar in possession was called upon to pay a certain lump sum as yearly revenue for the whole during a term of five years. If he accepted a lease for the five years, well and good. If he refused, the lease was sold to the highest bidder, with no other reserve than that of requiring him to give the necessary security for the yearly payment to the British collectors.

Disastrous results.

Auction sales of zemindaries.

The experiment proved a failure. The revenue demands had been fixed too high. Such was the passion for local influence, that many zemindars had agreed to pay a larger revenue than could be realised from the rents. Vast amounts were lost as arrears that could not be realised. Many zemindaries were sold by auction, and were bought up by native speculators who were ruined in their turn. When the five years' leases had run out no attempt was made to renew them; but zemindaries were let on yearly leases until some permanent system could be devised, and this arrangement continued in force until the end of Warren Hastings's administration.

Judicial reforms: Mohammedan criminal courts.

§7. The system of judicial administration introduced by Warren Hastings was equally cautious and experimental. Bengal zemindars ceased to act as magistrates or judges. The British collector became magistrate and civil judge.11 As magistrate he made over all prisoners for trial to a Mohammedan court, which was created in each district, but over which he maintained some degree of control. A cazi sat as judge and tried the prisoners, whilst muftis and mulvis expounded or interpreted Mohammedan law; but the British collector was present to see that trials were properly conducted, and perhaps to intercede when the punishment awarded was barbarous or cruel. This was little more than a reform of the existing system—such a reform as might have been carried out by an Akbar or Aurangzeb. For centuries Mohammedan law had been the common law of Northern India, and Hindu criminal law, with its hideous severities as regards caste, had been ignored by Mogul rulers, although, no doubt, caste laws were often enforced by the Hindus themselves.

Mixed civil courts: collectors, cazis, pundits.

Civil justice was administered more directly by the British collectors. In civil disputes, especially as regards inheritance and marriage, the parties concerned were necessarily guided by their own laws. Accordingly the collector sat as judge, but was assisted by Mohammedan lawyers in deciding cases between Mohammedans, and by learned Brahmans, or pundits, in deciding cases between Hindus. Under most circumstances the cazi or pundit must often have been the real judge, whilst the British collector was only the representative of the supreme authority.

Courts of circuit and appeal.

Courts of circuit and appeal were also appointed to travel through different areas, and sit as British judges of assize in both criminal and civil courts. Here was that same mixture of British and Asiatic judges as in the collectors' courts. But many changes were made from time to time in the judicial system, and the whole question will be better considered hereafter when dealing with the reforms of Lord Cornwallis, who eventually succeeded Warren Hastings as Governor-General.

Chief court or Sudder.

Meanwhile the Governor and Council still formed the chief court at Calcutta, and confirmed all capital sentences, or heard appeals in important civil cases, as in the old times when British authority was bounded by the Mahratta ditch. From time to time they passed regulations for the guidance of collectors, and eventually Warren Hastings drew up a clear and concise criminal code with his own hands. This chief court was known as the Sudder. It had a civil and a criminal side, and lasted as an institution down to the latest days of the East India Company.12

Patriarchal justice.

Under such circumstances British ideas of justice gradually superseded Mohammedan usages. Indeed it was impossible to maintain the criminal law of the Mohammedans in courts controlled more or less by British judges. Under Mohammedan law theft was punished by mutilation, adultery was punished by death, or not punished at all unless four eye-witnesses could be produced; whilst the most atrocious murderer might escape from justice by the payment of a blood fine to the kinsmen of his victim. Cazis and muftis might be nominally independent, but practically they yielded to British influences; and British judges administered justice in a patriarchal fashion, which might be condemned by trained lawyers, but was far better suited to the condition of the masses than British courts of law in the last century.

New members of Council and barrister judges.

§8. Whilst carrying out these reforms Warren Hastings was taken somewhat aback by the appointment of three English gentlemen, not in the service of the Company, to seats in the Calcutta Council. At the same time four barrister judges, equally independent of the Company, were sent out from England to form a Supreme Court of Judicature at Calcutta for the administration of English law, civil and criminal. The jurisdiction of the Supreme Court was to extend to all British subjects, and to all Asiatics who were servants of the Company or had dealings with British subjects. The Chief Justice was Sir Elijah Impey, who was known to Hastings, as the two had been schoolfellows together at Westminster. The three other barristers were puisne judges.

Regulating Act of 1773.

The three new members of Council and the four new Supreme Court judges had been appointed, not by the East India Company, but by Parliament and the Crown. The public mind in England had been greatly stirred by reports of maladministration, and in 1773 a "Regulating Act" had been passed to bring the administration of merchant rulers under some control independent of that of the East India Company. No offence was intended to Warren Hastings; on the contrary, he was raised by the same "Regulating Act" to the post of Governor-General, with a controlling power over Madras and Bombay on all questions of war and peace. He filled the chair as President of the Council, but besides him there was only Mr. Barwell, who belonged to the Company's service. The three remaining members were the three strangers and outsiders—General Clavering, Colonel Monson, and Mr. Philip Francis, the reputed author of the Letters of Junius.

Warren Hastings and Philip Francis.

§9. From the very first there were jealous suspicions in the Council between the two gentlemen in the service of the Company and the three gentlemen appointed by the Crown. In one direction Warren Hastings had laid himself open to an attack. In an evil hour he had lent the services of a British brigade to the Nawab Vizier of Oudh, and the Nawab Vizier had employed the brigade against the Rohilla Afghans on the north-west in a quarrel with which the British had no concern. The Rohilla Afghans were defeated by the British brigade, and then plundered and brutally ill-treated by the cowardly troops of the Nawab Vizier. Warren Hastings could only defend himself by saying that money was urgently required by the East India Company, and that the Nawab Vizier had paid heavily for the brigade.

Charges against Hastings.

Whilst Philip Francis and his two independent colleagues were denouncing this transaction, the idea spread amongst the Bengalis that the three new members of Council had been sent by the King of Great Britain to redress the wrongs of natives. Petitions against Warren Hastings were poured into the Calcutta Council, and seriously investigated by Philip Francis and his two colleagues, whilst Hastings and Barwell formed a minority and could not override their proceedings. Hastings was charged with having taken a bribe of 100,000l. from the Nawab Vizier of Oudh. Then it was said that the public auctions of zemindaries were shams; that the native servants of Hastings and others had succeeded in getting large estates at low leases, and that Hastings had shared in the gains. Finally, a Brahman, named Nundcomar, a man of notoriously bad character, charged Hastings with having taken bribes for certain lucrative appointments in the household of the Nawab at Murshedabad.

Nundcomar executed.

Warren Hastings might have rebutted the charges by producing his accounts, and allowing his steward and other servants to be examined before the Council. But he preferred standing on his dignity and refusing to answer the charges brought forward by Nundcomar, who was notorious for perjury, for forging other people's seals, and for carrying on secret correspondence with the enemies of the British. Suddenly Nundcomar was arrested on a charge of forgery, and tried in the Supreme Court by a full bench, comprising Chief Justice Impey and the three puisne judges, and, after a fair summing up, was found guilty by a British jury, and hanged accordingly.

Inaction of Hastings: extenuating circumstances.

Nundcomar was a Brahman, and in those early days no Brahman, under Hindu law, could be put to death; whilst killing a Brahman, even by accident or unavoidable circumstances, was regarded by Hindus as the most horrible crime that could be committed by man. Forgery was a capital offence under English law, but not under Hindu or Mohammedan law. Hastings might have reprieved Nundcomar, but would not interfere. Philip Francis and his two allies, Clavering and Monson, were insolent and aggressive in the extreme. They had pushed Hastings into a corner from which he could not escape without damaging his position as Governor in the eyes of the Bengali population. They were equally insolent towards Sir Elijah Impey and the Supreme Court. They demanded, in arrogant language, that every respect should be paid to the caste feelings of Nundcomar during his imprisonment; and whilst the trial was proceeding they addressed the Chief Justice in the language of reprimand, as though they had been his superiors. Sir Elijah Impey went so far as to consult Hindu pundits on the proper treatment of a Brahman under confinement, and to act in accordance with their suggestions. Indeed he seems to have regarded the pretensions of a Brahman to be above English law, to be as deserving of respect as the old "Benefit of Clergy," which was still in existence in England, although taken away by statute from several offences. The execution was delayed for more than a month after conviction, and Nundcomar would probably have been reprieved altogether, but for the arrogance of Philip Francis and his two allies, and the additional perjuries and forgeries which were committed in the course of the trial. Had Sir Elijah Impey submitted further to the dictation of Francis, the Supreme Court would have lost all authority in the eyes of the people of Bengal. The abstract justice in executing Nundcomar for the crime of forgery may be open to question, but Sir Elijah Impey, as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, was bound to follow English law, without making any exception in favour of a Brahman.

Collision between the Supreme Court and the Sudder.

§10. Meanwhile there was a collision between the Supreme Court and the Sudder. The Supreme Court began to exercise jurisdiction over zemindars and other Asiatics throughout the Bengal provinces, and to override the decisions of the Company's Courts. Its powers had not been clearly defined, and on one occasion it had been called upon to arbitrate in a quarrel between Warren Hastings and General Clavering, thus assuming a superior authority by deciding differences between the Governor-General and a member of his Council. Again, the judges of the Supreme Court were qualified lawyers appointed by the Crown, and they ignored the decisions of the Company's servants, who were not lawyers.

Points in dispute.

The collision, however, was entirely due to the false position which the East India Company had taken up. The servants of the Company had as yet received no authority from Parliament or the Crown to act as judges, or to make laws. They affected to treat the Nawab as a sovereign, and to act in his name; but the Nawab was a fiction set up to hide the territorial power of the East India Company from the British nation. Warren Hastings pleaded that the Bengal zemindars were servants of the Nawab, over whom the Supreme Court had no jurisdiction. The judges replied that the Nawab was a puppet, a phantom, as unsubstantial as a king of the fairies. Unfortunately, the maintenance of this phantom Nawab for the benefit of the East India Company has been for more than a century a dead weight on the revenues of Bengal.

Parliamentary settlement, 1781.

In 1781 another Act of Parliament was passed which put everything to rights. It authorised the Governor-General and Council of Bengal to make regulations which should have the force of laws, and it restricted the jurisdiction of the Supreme Court to the old bounds of the settlement between the Mahratta ditch and the river Hughly. But the state of Englishmen—that is, of British born subjects of the Crown—was exceptional. They could not be tried by any of the Company's Courts, or under any of the Bengal regulations. A British born subject who committed a criminal offence in any part of the Company's territories in Bengal could only be tried by the judges in the Supreme Court, in accordance with English law, and could only be convicted by a jury of his own countrymen.

Alleged corruption of Impey.

Whilst the struggle was going on between the Supreme Court and the Sudder, Warren Hastings appointed Sir Elijah Impey to be chief judge in the Sudder, on a salary of 7,000l. per annum, in addition to his post as chief justice in the Supreme Court. Philip Francis denounced this arrangement as a bribe to Impey; possibly it may have been so, but in itself the appointment was admirably suited to the exigencies of the time. As an experienced lawyer, Sir Elijah Impey was far better fitted than Warren Hastings to act as chief judge in the Sudder, to hear appeals from the Company's Courts up-country, and to control the judicial administration of the Company's judges, who could not pretend to any legal training. But the malice of Philip Francis was as obvious in the case of Impey as in the case of Hastings. Francis had been cast in heavy damages by the Supreme Court as a co-respondent; and he was bent on the ruin of Impey. The result was that Impey was recalled to England and impeached.13

Origin of the Mahratta power.

§11. Meanwhile the British had been drawn into a war with the Mahrattas. For a hundred years the Mahrattas had been the terror of India. Between 1660 and 1680, Sivaji, the hero of the Mahrattas, founded the Mahratta kingdom in the Western Deccan, between Surat and Goa. The head-quarters of the family of Sivaji had been at Poona, about seventy miles to the south-east of Bombay, and Sivaji's early life and exploits were associated with Poona. Subsequently, in consequence of Mogul aggressions, the Mahratta capital was removed to Satara, about seventy miles to the south of Poona.

Rise of the Peishwas, 1748.

In 1748 there was a revolution. The last descendant of Sivaji was shut up in a fortress at Satara, whilst the Brahman minister, known as the Peishwa, removed to Poona, the ancient seat of Sivaji's family, and cradle of his dynasty. The imprisonment of the sovereign at Satara, and the reign of a Brahman minister at Poona, hardened into an institution; and whenever a Peishwa died, his successor went to Satara to be invested with the office of minister by his imprisoned sovereign.14

Peishwa and his feudatories: Sindia, Holkar, &c.

The Mahratta kingdom covered the greater part of the area of the Mahratta-speaking people. But the Peishwa sent his lieutenants to collect chout, or black-mail, in Northern India; and one of these lieutenants, Mahadaji Sindia, became a greater man than his master. Sindia always professed to be the loyal servant of the Peishwa, and yet he managed to exercise a commanding influence at Poona. It was Mahadaji Sindia who carried off the Great Mogul to Delhi in 1771 and established a dominion in Hindustan, extending from the Gwalior territory northward over the valleys of the Jumna and Ganges. The other lieutenants were only beginning to play their parts in history; they included Holkar of Indore, the Gaekwar of Baroda, and the Bhonsla Raja of Berar in the Deccan, immediately to the northward of the Nizam.

British relations with Berar.

Very soon after the battle of Plassy, the British at Calcutta came into contact with the Bhonsla Raja of Berar. It was the Bhonsla Raja who compelled the later Nawabs of Bengal to pay chout, and to cede Cuttack; and when Lord Clive had concluded his settlement with the Great Mogul and the Nawab Vizier of Oudh, he advised the Court of Directors to pay chout on condition of getting back Cuttack. But the Directors did not want Cuttack and would not pay black-mail; and the Bhonsla Raja pressed his demand at convenient intervals, but wisely abstained from invading the Bengal provinces.

Bombay and the Peishwas.

Meanwhile, the British at Bombay had come into contact with the Mahrattas at Poona. For years the East India Company had been anxious to hold two important positions close to Bombay harbour, namely, the little island of Salsette and the little peninsula of Bassein. But the Mahrattas had wrested Salsette and Bassein from the Portuguese, and would not part with them on any terms. A civil war, however, had broken out in the Mahratta country. A Peishwa had been murdered. An uncle ascended the throne, but was banished on suspicion of being the murderer. He applied for help to the British at Bombay, and offered to cede the coveted positions if the British at Bombay would restore him to the Mahratta capital. The Governor and Council at Bombay closed with the offer, and the war began.

Disastrous retreat.

After some successes, the British at Bombay met with disaster. Mahadaji Sindia appeared at Poona with a large army to act against the banished Peishwa. A British force advanced from Bombay towards Poona, but took alarm at the report of Sindia's army, and suddenly halted, and beat a retreat. During the return march, the British force was environed by the Mahrattas, and finally surrendered to Sindia under what is known as the "Convention of Wurgaum."

Success of Warren Hastings.

Warren Hastings condemned the war from the outset; as, however, the Company was committed to a war, he exerted himself, in the teeth of Francis, to maintain British prestige in India. He sent an expedition, under Colonel Goddard, from Bengal to the Mahratta country, and detached another force under Captain Popham to capture Sindia's fortress at Gwalior. The success of these exploits electrified half India. The war was brought to a triumphant close, but all conquered territories, excepting Salsette and Bassein, were restored to the Mahrattas. Indeed, Warren Hastings was not a conqueror like Clive; he acquired no territory during his régime, excepting that of Benares, which was ceded to the Company by the Nawab Vizier of Oudh.

Three Asiatic powers in India.

§12. During the Mahratta war secret negotiations were carried on between the Indian powers for a confederation against the British. The two great powers of the Deccan—the Mahrattas on the west representing the Hindus, and the Nizam on the east representing the Mohammedans—had hated one another for the greater part of a century. A third power, that of a Mohammedan adventurer named Hyder Ali, was becoming formidable further south on the western tableland of the peninsula. Hyder Ali is said to have once served as a sepoy in the French army. Later on, he entered the service of the Hindu Raja of Mysore, and eventually ousted the Raja, usurped the sovereign authority, and conquered the countries round about.

Hyder Ali of Mysore.

For many years Hyder Ali was the Ishmael of the Deccan and peninsula. His hand was against every man, and every man's hand was against him. He invaded alike the territories of the Mahrattas and the Nizam in the Deccan, and those of the Nawab of the Carnatic up to the suburbs of Madras and Fort St. George. At the same time, he more than once exasperated the British by his secret dealings with the French at Pondicherry.