Consolidating Empire: 1805-57
Governors-General
Wellesley’s activities were extremely costly, leading to his replacement by Lord Cornwallis, who returned to the post in 1805. Within ten weeks of arriving in the subcontinent, however, he was dead, his task of bringing peace at any price unfulfilled. He was succeeded by Sir George Barlow (1763-1846) as acting Governor-General. He had been a close adviser to Sir John Shore (1751-1834) who had been Governor-General from 1793-97 and to Wellesley. At this time Holkar and Sindhia were still unsubdued and Barlow left the Rajput chiefs at their mercy. There was a mutiny of the Madras Sepoys (soldiers) at Vellore in 1806 over the type of turban that could be worn and the banning of caste marks while in uniform. It was quickly subdued but was a shock to the empire.
Gilbert Elliot, Baron Minto of Minto (1751-1814) replaced Barlow in 1807. A Scottish politician and diplomat, Minto was successful in preventing too much violence in central India which remained restless. His orders were non-intervention. The Earl of Moira – later Marquess of Hastings – followed him. As Francis Rawdon-Hastings, he had served with the British forces in the American War of Independence and was a close friend of the Prince of Wales, later George IV (r. 1820-30). He completed the conquests of Wellesley in central India and his long term of office, from 1813 to 1823 included two major conflicts – a campaign against the Gurkhas of Nepal and the last war with the Marathas. As we have already seen, the conclusion of the Maratha War ended all open resistance to the British.
Lord Amherst (1773-1857) succeeded the Marquess of Hastings in 1823, remaining in office until 1828. A former ambassador to China, Amherst was fairly inexperienced and was heavily influenced by senior British military officers in Bengal. His five years as Governor-General are notable for the annexation of Assam that led to the First Burmese War and the taking of Bharatpur.
The war with Burma lasted two years and was fought over a territorial dispute that turned violent in September 1823. 15,000 British troops lost their lives and the war cost £13 million, leading to an economic crisis in British India. Amherst was lucky not to be recalled in shame at the war’s conclusion but he had influential friends such as George Canning and the Duke of Wellington. He was replaced in 1828 by an acting Governor-General, William Butterworth Bayley (1782-1860), before Lord William Bentinck (1774-1839), a former soldier and serving Member of Parliament, was given the job, holding it until 1833.
Bentinck’s immediate task was to restore the finances devastated by the Burmese War. He made reductions in annual costs of around one and a half million pounds, including cuts in soldiers’ wages which earned him the enmity of those serving in India. He also ensured that there was revenue from land that had not yet been assessed and placed duties on opium. He made English the language of the courts instead of Persian and promoted Western-style education for Indians so that more educated Indians would be available for work in the bureaucracy.
Controversially, Bentinck introduced legislation to curb the practice of sati, with the Bengali Sati Regulation of 1829. He also tried to restrict other Indian practices that were offensive to Western sensibilities with the help of the controversial social reformer, Raja Ram Mohan Roy (1772-1833). Known as the ‘Father of Modern India’, Roy was the founder, in 1828, of the Brahmo Subha movement that led to the influential socio-religious movement Brahmo Samaj.
An Administrative Body
In 1833, during Bentinck’s tenure, the charter was again renewed, until 1853, but with conditions. The Government of India Act 1833 was passed against the background of the Industrial Revolution and the rise of the economic ideology of ‘laissez-faire’. According to this economic theory, transactions between private parties should be free from government interference in the form of regulations, privileges, tariffs and subsidies. It greatly changed the operations of the East India Company. The Act took away the Company’s remaining trade monopolies and the Governor-General title – until then Governor-General of Bengal – was changed to Governor-General of India. The Governor-General’s Government now became the ‘Government of India’ and his council the ‘India Council’. The Governor-General and his executive council now assumed legislative powers for all of India under British control. Crucially, the British East India Company’s operation as a commercial entity was ended which transformed it into an administrative body. It lost its trade with China and other parts of the Far East.
After a year of an acting Governor-General, George Eden, Lord Auckland (1784-1849) took the reins. A former First Lord of the Admiralty, Auckland held office from 1836 to 1842. He became preoccupied with problems in Afghanistan in 1838 after he tried to install Shah Shuja on the throne of Kabul which resulted in the massacre of the British garrison there. In 1842, as the debacle in Afghanistan proceeded, he was replaced by Edward Law, Lord Ellenborough (1790-1871) who was given the job of restoring peace to Asia. Unfortunately, however, his entire term of office – from 1842 to 1844 – was taken up with war. There were sieges at Ghazni and Jalalabad while, in Madras, the sepoys were ripe for mutiny. His plan, as stated in a memo to The Queen on 15 March 1842, was to inflict a decisive blow on the Afghans before leaving them to govern themselves. He was initially reluctant to commit to more than withdrawals from Kandahar and Ghazni but two British armies under Generals Sir George Pollock (1786-1872) and Sir William Nott (1782-1845) decided to do so by way of Kabul. In September 1842 they blew up the city’s great bazaar as punishment for the massacre, freed British prisoners and marched triumphantly back to India.
Two further wars occurred during Ellenborough’s tenure. Sir Charles Napier (1782-1853) defeated the Muslim rulers of Sind, reportedly sending a dispatch announcing his victory that featured just one word – ‘peccavi’, Latin for ‘I have sinned’. The Battle of Miani in which 12,000 Baluchis were defeated by just 3,000 British troops is one of the greatest moments of the British experience in India. That same year, a succession dispute at Gwalior led to British victories against the Sindhia family in battles at Maharajpur and Panniar.
Lord Ellenborough was withdrawn in 1844, his style of administration disliked by the directors of the EIC. His replacement was a veteran soldier who had become an MP, Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Hardinge (1785-1856). He arrived in India as people began to think it would be just a matter of time before there was a trial of strength between the British and the only Hindu power that remained in India – the Sikhs.
Sikhism and the Sikh Empire
Sikhism is a monotheistic religion that emerged in the fifteenth century in the Punjab region, the term ‘Sikh’ deriving from the Sanskrit words for disciple or student and instruction. It was founded by Guru Nanak (1469-1539) who was born into a Hindu family in the village of Talwandi (now Nankana Sahib) which is located near Lahore. He had an enquiring mind and was fascinated by the Hindu religion as a child. At the age of 13, however, when it was time for him to be invested with the sacred thread according to the traditional Hindu custom, he refused to accept it from the Hindu priest, singing the following:
‘Let mercy be the cotton, contentment the thread, Continence the knot and truth the twist. O priest! If you have such a thread, do give it to me. It’ll not wear out, nor get soiled, nor burnt, nor lost. Says Nanak, blessed are those who go about wearing such a thread.’
Leaving home, he found work in Sultanpur and one day when he was 30 years old, is said to have gone to the river to bathe and meditate. He was gone for three days and on his return seemed to be ‘filled with the spirit of God’. He said: ‘There is no Hindu, there is no Muslim,’ and with this as his message, he began missionary work, making four journeys – called Udasis – in the four directions, covering many thousands of miles and preaching. He appointed a new Sikh guru before he died on 22 September, 1539, aged 70.
Sikh political history can be viewed as beginning with the martyrdom of the fifth leader, Guru Arjan Dev, in 1606, and Sikh religious practices were formalised in 1699 by Guru Gobind Singh, the tenth incumbent of the role. He was responsible for the introduction of the Sikh warrior community, the Khalsa, and for the Five Ks, the five articles of faith that Sikhs must wear at all times. These are Kesh (uncut hair), Kangha (a wooden comb for the hair), Kara (a metal bracelet), Kachera (a type of undergarment) and Kirpan (a dagger).
Several Sikh gurus lost their lives at Mughal hands for refusing to convert to Islam. They also opposed the religious persecution of minority religious communities by the Islamic administration, persecution that included the Sikhs. Subsequently, the Sikhs militarised to fight the Mughals, and the Sikh Confederacy was formed of the misls – sovereign aristocratic republics – during the eighteenth century. In 1799, the Maharajah Ranjit Singh (r. 1801-39) – popularly known as Sher-i-Punjab (Lion of the Punjab) – managed to unite the misls, take over some other small local kingdoms and found the Sikh Empire. He defeated numerous invasions from Afghanistan and established cordial relations with the British.
The First Sikh War
Following the death of Ranjit Singh in 1839, the empire was beset by internal division and political mismanagement. His two sons died suspiciously, leaving two factions vying for power in the Punjab – the Sikh Sindhanwalias and the Hindu Dogras. Sher Singh (r. 1841-43), a Dogra, took the throne in January 1841 and senior Sindhanwalias fled for safety to British territory. The Army of the Punjab rapidly increased in numbers and claimed to be the embodiment of the Sikh nation. Sikhs made up the executive, military and civil authority within the state, leading British observers to describe the Punjab as a ‘dangerous military democracy’. British residents in the state told of Sikh soldiers running riot, killing anyone who spoke Persian, the language of officials and bureaucrats.
Although he spent fortunes on his lavish court, Maharajah Sher Singh was unable to pay his army, leading to unrest and in September 1843, his cousin, an army officer, murdered him. The Dogras took terrible revenge on those responsible and put Sher Singh’s young son Duleep Singh (r. 1843-49) on the throne with his mother, the Maharani Jind Kaur (1817-63), acting as regent.
Following the death of Ranjit Singh, the EIC had begun to increase its military presence in the areas next to the Punjab, establishing a military base at Ferozepur, just a few miles from the border. Suspicion of the British increased in the Punjab following their annexation of Sind, to the south of the Punjab. For the British, however, under the Governor-Generalships of Lord Ellenborough and Sir Henry Hardinge, the Sikh army represented a serious threat to their possessions along the border. Indian and Sikh historians counter this with an argument that the British military build-up along the frontier was nothing other than offensive in nature. Of course, not only was the Sikh kingdom the last remaining stronghold in India not under British control, it was also very wealthy, and such treasures as the fabulous Koh-i-Noor diamond were kept in its treasuries. However, if war had not broken out, it is unlikely that the British would have annexed the Punjab as they did not have the military manpower to hold on to the territory.
Tension built until diplomatic relations were severed and in late 1845 an EIC force, commanded by General Sir Hugh Gough (1779-1869), Commander-in-Chief of the Bengal Army, set out for Ferozepur to bolster the troops already there. Hardinge, the Governor-General, was with him. The Sikh army began crossing the River Sutlej on 11 December. Although they claimed they were on their own territory, the area was disputed and the British, regarding their advance as hostile, declared war. The Battle of Mudki on 18 December ended in an untidy British victory and a few days later, EIC troops won a hard-fought victory at Ferozeshah. Towards the end of January 1846, they won again at Aliwal. Finally, in the Battle of Sobraon on 10 February, the Sikh army was wiped out, British troops displaying little mercy.
In the Treaty of Lahore of March 1846, the Sikh kingdom was forced to cede to the British the valuable region of the Jullundar (now Jalandhar) Doab situated between the Beas and the Sutlej rivers and an indemnity of 15 million rupees was imposed. The Sikhs were unable to pay this sum and they were forced to hand over the areas of Kashmir, Hazarah and territories in the hill countries between the Beas and Indus rivers. Duleep Singh was permitted to remain as ruler of the Punjab with his mother as regent but the government of the Punjab requested that the British remain until the boy reached the age of 16. The Maharani was replaced by a British resident in Lahore who presided over a Council of Regency. In other words, the East India Company was now the government of the Punjab.
Modernising British India
In 1848, Hardinge was replaced by the Earl of Dalhousie (1812-60). To many, he was a far-sighted Governor-General who consolidated East India Company rule in the subcontinent, established the foundations of its later administration and, by so doing, helped to create stability for his successors. His critics, however, view him as pursuing reckless policies that did untold financial damage to the East India Company and also endangered its military hold on India. They believe he created a situation that made the Indian Rebellion of 1857 an inevitability and ultimately set the EIC on a path that would lead to it becoming a colonial administration that bled money. The high-minded and authoritarian Dalhousie has also been denigrated for his overbearing attitude, his mission to centralise all activity and for his policy of annexation.
He was interested in improving both the moral and the material state of British India but his policies were unpopular with many sections of Indian society and he had been in the job only a couple of months when the Second Sikh War broke out. It resulted from growing resentment with the British presence in the Punjab and ended with the annexation of the Punjab as the North-West Frontier Province by the EIC. Dalhousie tried to dismantle local rule in the Punjab but those who ruled – described by one source as ‘audacious, eccentric, and often Evangelical pioneers’ had to be replaced by Dalhousie with what he believed to be a better administrative system. The region was divided into districts – run by District Officers – and divisions – managed by Commissioners.
One of the most controversial policies introduced by Dalhousie in India was the Doctrine of Lapse which was aimed at advancing his expansionist bent by annexing any non-British state where there was no proper male heir following the death of a ruler. Employing this policy, he annexed Satara, Jaipur and Sambalpur in 1849 and he again used it to annex Jhansi and Nagpur in 1853. These were all approved by the British government although his proposed annexation of Karauli was not allowed in 1849 and two states that he annexed in 1851 and 1852 respectively – Baghat and Udaipur – were later returned to native rule. Critics think these annexations placed an unnecessary burden on the finances of the EIC.
Meanwhile, he worked hard to develop a new infrastructure for British India. Bengal, ruled for a long time by a Governor-General, was placed under the control of a Lieutenant-Governor in 1854. Military boards were abolished and selection replaced seniority in higher commands, ensuring the right calibre of people got the top positions. A department of works was created in each Presidency and engineering colleges were opened. Dalhousie had the 445-miles long Ganges Canal constructed, opening in 1854. It was built principally to provide irrigation for famine-prevention but was also used for navigation. This had the unintended result of increasing the population and no plans were in place for immunisation of this larger population or for providing educational institutions to help them improve their lot. Thus were the poor kept poor and tied to the land where they were often exploited.
The first Indian railway opened to traffic in 1853 between Bombay and Thane but the introduction of rail transport was not really aimed at benefitting Indians. Rather, it was designed to provide a means of carrying large quantities of natural resources such as coal from mining and agricultural areas inland to the Indian coast from where they could be put on ships for transportation to Britain. The railway, of which by the turn of the century there would be about 25,000 miles, can be viewed as probably the only major investment that Britain made in India.
Dalhousie also championed steam communication with Britain by way of the Red Sea and a monthly steamer service around the Cape began in 1845. He introduced the electric telegraph and cheap postage, creating a post office network. He worked tirelessly, even up to his retirement when he was in poor health, annexing Oudh in February 1856 and retiring a month later.
The Indian Rebellion of 1857
By 1857, there were more than 300,000 sepoys – local soldiers, mostly Muslim and Hindu – in the East India Company’s army and there were around 50,000 British troops. Each of the three Presidencies had its own armies. The Madras and Bombay armies recruited locally and caste was unimportant. The Bengal army, on the other hand, sought its recruits from higher castes. This was partly because many of the sepoys from Bengal had fought against the EIC at Plassey and Buxar and, as a result, could not be trusted. This forced Warren Hastings to recruit from further west which took him to the areas of Bihar and Awadh and the higher castes, a practice that prevailed for the ensuing 75 years. The East India Company tried to accommodate the requirements of these men. They were allowed to dine separately and were not required to serve overseas. Hindu festivals were also acknowledged by the army.
As the EIC became bigger and more powerful, however, there were changes that angered the sepoys. They were expected to serve far from home, in places such as Burma, and were not given the extra pay for such service that had formerly been their right. In July 1856, Dalhousie introduced the General Service Enlistment Act. Until then the burden of serving in Burma and China had fallen unfairly on the two smaller Presidency armies. This new act required new recruits to accept a commitment to general service which meant serving abroad. Troops already in service, however, believed this to be just the thin end of the wedge, and that soon they too would have this requirement extended to them. Sons often followed fathers into the army and this new stipulation would fall upon them. Other factors in their disillusionment included the growing number of European officers in the armies. This made advancement through the ranks even slower for them.
The ammunition for the new Enfield P-53 rifle was another bone of contention. These used paper cartridges that were covered in grease. In order to prepare them for firing, a sepoy had to bite open the paper surrounding the cartridge to release the powder. Rumours began to spread that the grease used included tallow derived from beef, which was offensive to Hindus, and pork, which was offensive to Muslims. When the disquiet became evident to the British they stopped production and an order went out that no grease was to be used on the bullets, that the sepoys could grease them themselves using whatever they chose. There was a further amendment that allowed them to tear the paper instead of biting through it. Sepoys then claimed that the rumours must have been true and that the grease had been animal fat.
There was also unrest amongst the civilian population – nobles, rural landlords (taluqdars) and peasants alike. The nobles were aghast at the Doctrine of Lapse which overturned centuries of tradition in terms of inheritance. The taluqdars had suffered in the land reforms that had followed the annexation of Oudh, losing their lands to peasant farmers. They had also been victims of punitive land-revenue assessments that had driven them into the clutches of moneylenders or had caused them to lose their land. Cultural changes instituted by the EIC, such as the abolition of sati and the new law that allowed widows to re-marry, also created a suspicion amongst many Indians that the British were trying to interfere with their religious practices and beliefs.
On Sunday 10 May 1857, sepoys based at Meerut, 35 miles northeast of Delhi openly mutinied, storming through the cantonments and killing every European they encountered. With many civilians joining their ranks, they set out for Delhi Fort where they invited Bahadur Shah II (r. 1837-57), the Mughal emperor, to lead the rebellion. He reluctantly agreed, offering his public support for the uprising. The revolt spread across North India and was joined by many leaders of the various royal families.
The British were initially slow to react, but when they did move it was decisively and with large numbers of troops, even bringing in regiments from the Crimean War. Regiments en route for China were diverted to the subcontinent. They marched on Delhi, laying siege to the city from 1 July until 31 August when the British re-took the city. Their retribution was terrible. An anonymous letter about the British capture of Delhi was published in the Bombay Telegraph in September 1857:
‘All the city people found within the walls when our troops entered were bayoneted on the spot; and the number was considerable, as you may suppose, when I tell you that in some houses forty and fifty people were hiding. These were not mutineers, but residents of the city, who trusted to our well-known mild rule for pardon. I am glad to say they were disappointed.’
There were decisive actions at Kanpur where 120 British women and children were massacred by the sepoys and at Lucknow where there was a prolonged defence of the Residency – the British political office of the city – from June until November. There was also an important battle at Gwalior in which the Rani of Jhansi (1828-58) was killed. The rebellion was over shortly after this, although some guerrilla fighting continued until the first months of 1859.
Bahadur Shah was sent into exile at Rangoon (now Yangon) in Burma where he died in 1862. He was the last Mughal Emperor and his dynasty ended with his death.
The most important outcome of the Indian Rebellion of 1857, however, was the end of the EIC after two and a half centuries. The British government withdrew the Company’s right to rule India in November 1858 and Queen Victoria’s pronouncement of this was read out at every station in India.
‘When, by the blessing of Providence, internal tranquillity shall be restored, it is our earnest desire to stimulate the peaceful industry of India, to promote works of public utility and improvement, and to administer its government for the benefit of all our subjects resident therein. In their prosperity will be our strength, in their contentment our security, and in their gratitude our best reward.’
In future the British government would rule directly through its representative, the Governor-General. All treaties that the Company had made with native princes would be honoured; there would be no more annexations; there would be a general amnesty for all rebels apart from those who had been involved in the murder of Europeans; all religions would be tolerated and ancient Indian customs would be respected. A reorganisation of the army followed in which the number of Indian soldiers was reduced from 200,000 to 140,000 and the number of European soldiers was raised to 65,000. Regiments were constituted in such a way that soldiers from one region were not grouped together and recruitment moved from the United Provinces and Bihar to the Punjab and the hill regions, introducing many more Sikh and Gurkha recruits. The Governor-General, Charles Canning, became Viceroy, and read Victoria’s proclamation out from a platform at a grand durbar (Persian for a grand court occasion) in Allahabad. India became part of the British Empire and Queen Victoria assumed the title Empress of India in 1876.