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District Officers in Decline: The Erosion of British Authority in the Bombay Countryside, 1919 to 1947

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Simon Epstein
Simon Epstein
Affiliation:
University of Newcastle upon Tyne
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Extract

The paradox of the authoritarian rule of the Indian Raj at the heart of Britain's liberal empire was one that ran continuously through the history of nineteenth- and twentieth-century imperialism. Both as the unpaid arsenal of Eastern expansion and defence, and as the essential stop-gap to Britain's multilateral pattern of trade, India was the necessary if incongruous adjunct of Liberal England, supporting the doctrines of progress at home on the basis of the autocratic control of its British-born hierophants over the numberless ‘contented masses’ of the Indian countryside. The resulting contrast between the increasingly self-governing white dominions, and the Indian maverick upholding in chains the very fabric of the empire, was also reflected in the political thinking of the motherland itself, by way of the stresses and contradictions which the conditions of the Raj's existence served to create within the liberal framework of the Victorian intellectual world. At the core of the Victorian liberal empire stood the strictly paternalistic government of the Raj in India; at the centre of the ‘benevolent despotism’ that British rule in the subcontinent adopted stood the steel frame of the Indian Civil Service, ‘much more of a government corporation than of a purely civil service’ and the creator as much as the executor of British policy there.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 16 , Issue 3 , July 1982 , pp. 493 - 518
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1982

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References

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77 Brabourne to Viceroy, 6.10.34, Ibid.

78 Secretary, Home Department, Special, Government of Bombay, 20.5.35, Home Department, Political, Government of India, Home Poll F3/8/35, N.A.I.; cf. Shillidy's reports on Gujarat and the Karnatak, 7.5.35 and 9.5.35, Ibid.

79 Secret Report, 5.1.36, Ibid., Home Poll 4.20.36, N.A.I.

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86 Lumley wrote significantly that given the ‘pull between our former pledge … and the smooth working of the new Constitution … the latter is my major responsibility’, Lumley to Linlithgow, 5.6.38, Ibid.

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99 Lumley to Linlithgow, 14.1.39, Mss Eur F 125/53 Ibid.

100 Lumley to Linlithgow, 16.9.38 and 16.12.38, Mss Eur F 125/52, Ibid.

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108 Lumley to Linlithgow, 10.9.40, Mss Eur F 123/54, Ibid.

109 Lumley to Linlithgow, 16.12.40, Ibid.; cf. inter alia ‘Strength of Congress 1939–41’, Home Department, Political, Government of India, Home Poll 4/7/41, N.A.I.

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111 There was an increase of some 30 per cent in the constabulary of rural Bombay from 1939 to 1942, Lumley to Linlithgow, Telegram 27.7.42, Mansergh, and Lumby, (eds), The Transfer of Power, Vol. II, p. 467.Google Scholar

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114 Bombay Provincial weekly letter, 17.10.42, Mss Eur F 125/56, Ibid.

115 Bombay Government Report October 1942(1) and December 1942(1), L/P&J/5/163, I.O.L.

116 Lumley to Linlithgow, 15.10.42, Mss Eur F 125/56 (Linlithgow Correspondence), I.O.L.; for police opinion in 1942 on the still far-reaching effects of the Congress Ministry's restoration of the confiscated lands, see Bombay Provincial weekly letter, 17.10.42, Ibid.

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120 Deputy Superintendent of Police, Kaira, ‘Kaira 1942–3’, Home Department, Special, Government of Bombay, H.S. 1100 (109) E of 1942–3, M.S.A.; ef. D.S.P. Dharwar, 17.10.42, Ibid., H.S. 1110(6) E of 1942, M.S.A.

121 Cf. for Bombay itself, the comments of the Collector of Thana, Mss Eur F 180/27 (I.C.S. Collection) I.O.L; for the situation elsewhere in India, cf. Woodruff, , The Men who Ruled India, p. 311.Google Scholar

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123 Lumley to Linlithgow, 15.10.42, Ibid., I.O.L.; Linlithgow to Amery 2.9.42 and 9.9.42, Mansergh, and Lumby, (eds), The Transfer of Power, Vol. II, pp. 879 and 928.Google Scholar

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125 Linlithgow to Amery, 14.9.43, Mansergh, N. and Lumby, E. W. R. (eds), The Transfer of Power 1942–7 Volume IV (London, 1973), p. 252Google Scholar (and cf. pp. 123 and 351).

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127 Home Department, Special, Government of Bombay, Report October 1944 (2), L/P&J/5/165, I.O.L. For attacks on the food policy, see especially Ibid., November 1944(1) and December 1944(1) and (2), L/P/5/165, I.O.L.

128 Colville to Wavell, Report 35, 4.1.45, L/P/5/165, I.O.L.

129 Colville to Wavell, Report 19, 5.4.44, Ibid.; cf. his later comment that ‘without an agreement [with Congress] it would be useless to attempt to form a Ministry. My experience with the Municipal elections in Gujarat has proved this.’ Colville to Wavell, Report 34, 18.12.44, Ibid.

130 Colville to Wavell, Report 31, 18.10.44, Ibid.; cf. especially Colville to Wavell, Report 29, 18.8.44, Ibid.

131 Governors throughout India were ‘very strongly of the opinion that the Services are now stretched to breaking point’ as early as November 1943, Wavell to Amery 23.11.43, Mansergh, and Lumby, (eds), The Transfer of Power, Vol. IV, p. 493.Google Scholar

132 Governor to Viceroy, Report 43, 21.5.45, L/P&J/5/165, I.O.L.

133 Home Department, Special, Government of Bombay, Report December 1945 (1), L/P&J/5/166, I.O.L.

134 Viceroy to Secretary of State, 27.2.46, Mansergh, and Moon, (eds), The Transfer of Power, Vol. VI, p. 1077.Google Scholar

135 By mid 1946, Wavell considered that ‘the only real protection for the Services is a gentleman's agreement with Congress’, Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 12.7.46, Mansergh, and Moon, (eds), The Transfer of Power, Vol. VIII, p. 46.Google Scholar For Bombay, cf. Governor to Viceroy, Report 54, 14.12.45, L/P&J/5/166, I.O.L.

136 Amery to Lascelles, 29.3.45, Mansergh, N. and Moon, P. (eds), The Transfer of Power 1942–7 Volume V (London, 1974), p. 784Google Scholar and cf. Ibid., pp. 131, 230–1, 736 and passim.

137 Amery to Wavell, 19.12.43, Mansergh, and Lumby, (eds), The Transfer of Power, Vol. IV, pp. 553–5Google Scholar, and especially footnote 5 pp. 554–5; the argument that lack of personnel played a central, rather than subsidiary, role in the decline of the I.C.S. (Potter, D. ‘Manpower Shortage and the End of Colonialism: the case of the I.C.S.’, Modern Asian Studies, 7 (1973), pp. 47–73)CrossRefGoogle Scholar, fails to give due weight to the all-important question of the impact of the changing political situation in India upon the Services (despite Potter's interesting evidence upon that very point). Cf. the contemporary remarks of Sir James Grigg, 19.3.45, Mansergh, and Moon, (eds), The Transfer of Power, Vol. V, pp. 781–2Google Scholar, and the recent comments of Low in Low, (ed.), Congress and the Raj, p. 39 footnote 88.Google Scholar

138 Wavell to Amery, 4.6.44, Mansergh, and Lumby, (eds), The Transfer of Power, Vol. IV, p. 100Google Scholar and cf. Ibid., pp. 614, 697 and passim.

139 ‘A Policy for India’, Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 8.9.46, Mansergh, and Moon, (eds), The Transfer of Power, Vol. VIII, pp. 455–6Google Scholar, and cf. Ibid. pp. 40, 200–2,442 and 486 for similar viewpoints from provincial governors. On the general importance of his appraisal, cf. Moon, P. (ed), Wavell: The Viceroy' s Journal (London, 1973), Introduction p. XI and p. XIII.Google Scholar

140 Woodruff, , The Men who Ruled India, p. 338.Google Scholar

141 Cf. e.g. Moon, (ed.), Wavell: The Viceroy's Journal, p. 402.Google Scholar

142 T. H. Beaglehole, ‘From Rulers to Servants’, passim: cf. e.g. Brennan, L., ‘From One Raj to Another: Congress Politics in Rohilkhand 1930–50’, in Low, (ed.), Congress and the Raj, especially pp. 480–2 and 489–94.Google Scholar

143 Cf. e.g. Seal, , ‘Imperialism and Nationalism in India’, pp. 21–4Google Scholar; Low, , ‘Introduction: The Climactic years 1917–42’, pp. 14–16.Google Scholar

144 Munshi, minute, 11.8.39, Mss Eur F 125/52 (Linlithgow Correspondence), I.O.L. interestingly enough, police work on the general level had suffered least of all in the Gujarat division of the presidency, where Congress was strongest in 1938–39, and where an accommodation between the nationalists and the police was hence most easily to be reached, Lumley to Linlithgow, Report 43, 1.7.39, Ibid.

145 Colville to Wavell Report 58, (especially paragraphs 7,8,14 and 23), 27.2.46, L/P&J/5/167, I.O.L.

146 Colville to Wavell Report 67, 4.8.46, Ibid.; Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 13.8.46 and 17.9.46, Mansergh, and Moon, (eds), The Transfer of Power, Vol. VIII, pp. 229 and 535Google Scholar

147 For Nehru's insistence that the Congress should take care not to ‘discredit any service as a whole, or to break up the morale of a service’, Nehru to Khan, 22.7.46, Ibid., p. 147; cf. Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence, 8.7.46, Ibid., p. 20.

148 Desai, , The Story of my Life, Vol. I, pp. 146–7Google Scholar; cf. Wavell's later comment that ‘the Bombay tradition seems to be that they [Congress Ministers] are given considerable latitude and have run a reasonably efficient show’, Mansergh, and Moon, (eds), The Transfer of Power, Vol. VIII, p. 767Google Scholar; for comparable working relationships elsewhere in India at the close of the thirties, cf. Low, , ‘Introduction: The Climactic Years 1917–47, p. 30Google Scholar; Woodruff, , The Men who Ruled India, pp. 272–80.Google Scholar

149 Pethick-Lawrence, 11.10.46, Mansergh, and Moon, (eds), The Transfer of Power, Vol. VIII, p. 698.Google Scholar Colville indeed considered ‘the general attitude of the Ministry towards officers … to be reasonably fair’ throughout its time—Colville to Wavell, Report 77, 4.2.47, L/P&J/5/168, I.O.L.

150 Colville to Wavell Report 76, 18.1.47, ibid.; by that date, moreover, in the I.C.S. an estimated 70 per cent of European officers, and in the Indian Police some 90 per cent, were reportedly ‘in a mood to go this year’, Ibid., and the quality of their work was definitely being undermined by ‘their personal anxieties and uncertainties,’ Colville to Mountbatten, 2.4.47, L/P&J/5/168, I.O.L.

151 Wavell to Pethick-Lawrence 22.10.46, Mansergh, and Moon, (eds), The Transfer of Power, Vol. VIII, p. 767.Google Scholar

152 Cf. e.g. the comments of Wavell, 8.8.46, Ibid., p. 208, and the sources cited footnote 139 above.