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The Government of India and Annie Besant

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

Peter Robb
Peter Robb
Affiliation:
School of Oriental and African Studies, London
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Extract

The British government in India had two replies to Indian political activity. One was repression; the other was conciliation. There were also two faces to British rule: one of a permanent autocracy, and the other of an agency preparing Indians for future self-government under British suzerainty. It would be possible to argue that repression was the weapon of autocracy, and conciliation a necessary corollary to the approval of future self-government. The later history of the British period would then be seen as a struggle between two opposed goals, two different paternalisms.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 10 , Issue 1 , February 1976 , pp. 107 - 130
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1976

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References

Research for this article was made possible by grants from the Commonwealth Scholarship Commission and the School of Oriental and African Studies, London, An earlier verison was read at the Institute of Commonwealth Studies, London, and parts were included in a different form in a London Ph.D. thesis written under the supervision of Professor K. A. Ballhatchet. The following abbreviations are used in footnotes:

C.P. Chelmsford Papers (with volume number), MSS. Eur. E.264. India Office Library and Records, London [I.O.L.].

H.Poll. Home Department Political Proceedings (with number of proceeding and date). Where this citation includes ‘A.’, ‘B.’, ‘K.W.’ (Keep With) or ‘Dep.’ (Deposit), the record was consulted at the National Archives, New Delhi. Otherwise reference was made at the India Office Library and Records, London, where such proceedings are ‘A.’ series.

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40 Viceroy to Secretary of State, 11 and 18 June 1917, C.P.8.Google Scholar

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52 Viceroy to Secretary of State, 9 and 17 September, 9 and 24 October, and (Home Dept.) 12 August, and Chelmsford, to Pentland, , 14 September 1917, C.P.8; Chelmsford to Montagu, 22 September 1917, C.P.3.Google Scholar

53 Chelmsford, to Chamberlain, , 6 July and 6 October 1916, C.P.2.Google Scholar

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55 Chelmsford, to Montagu, , 8 August 1917, C.P.3.Google Scholar

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57 Viceroy to Secretary of State, 5 and 17 September, and Chelmsford, to Pentland, , 14 September 1917, C.P.8.Google Scholar

58 Meston, to Chelmsford, , 20 June 1917, C.P.18.Google Scholar

59 See the views of Ronaldshay, , Sinha, and the editor of the Nayak newspaperGoogle Scholar, Poll, H..634, November 1917; Ronaldshay to Montagu, 24 July 1919, Montagu Papers, 29; Viceroy to Secretary of State, 18 August 1917, C.P.8.Google Scholar

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62 Chelmsford, to Montagu, , 22 September 1917, C.P.3.Google Scholar

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69 Holderness, to Chamberlain, , 3 November 1917, Austen Chamberlain Papers, University of Birmingham Library, AC12/109;Google Scholar Ronaldshay to Chamberlain, (?) September, ibid., AC12/206; Chamberlain to Chelmsford, 14 October, ibid., AC18/3/19, and 28 November, AC18/3/4; Chelmsford to Chamberlain, 14 December 1917, ibid., AC18/3/5. See also Sethbridge to Chamberlain, 22 June 1918, ibid., AC21/5/16.

70 Poll, H..Dep.2, November 1917.Google Scholar

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75 Chelmsford, to Chamberlain, , 17 May 1918, C.P.15.Google Scholar

76 Chelmsford, to Montagu, 5 October 1917, C.P.3.Google Scholar

77 See, for example, Besant to Private Secretary, Viceroy, 27 and 27 September, and Maffey to Besant, 2, 9, 10 and 21 October 1917, C.P.19 (about the Ali brothers); Poll, H..Dep.55, July 1918 (Chelmsford noting ‘Leave it alone’ when asked about proscribing the pamphlet, ‘An Abominable Plot’); H. Poll. Dep.48, May 1918. C.R. Cleveland of the C.I.D. remained hostile to Besant; see Cleveland to Maffey, 18 October 1917 (supported by Willingdon to Chelmsford, 28 October), C.P.19, and H. Poll.B.184, February 1918.Google Scholar

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79 Poll, H..A.341–354, K.W., February 1921 (notes, June 1920).Google Scholar

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82 Chelmsford, to Carmichael, , 24 March 1917, C.P.18.Google Scholar

83 I have discussed this in my ‘The Government of India under Lord Chelmsford 1916–1921’, unpublished Ph.D. thesis (London, 1971), pp. 89–94 and 168–205.Google Scholar

84 See ibid., pp. 126–39 & 150–5.

85 See above, notes 61 and 62.