P O Litics and Change in the Madras Presidency, L88a~L89^* a Regional

Politics and change in the Madras Presidency, l88A~l89^* A regional study of Indian Nationalism. Thesis for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy presented to The U niversity of London by Ramanathan Suntharalingam Ju ly 1966 School of Oriental and African Studies ProQuest Number: 11015594 All rights reserved INFORMATION TO ALL USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a com plete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. uest ProQuest 11015594 Published by ProQuest LLC(2018). Copyright of the Dissertation is held by the Author. All rights reserved. This work is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States C ode Microform Edition © ProQuest LLC. ProQuest LLC. 789 East Eisenhower Parkway P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106- 1346 2 A bstract The purpose of this thesis is to.describe the process of political change in South India during the decade following the establishment of the Madras Mahajana Sabha in May l88*f. Although the inchoate manifestations of early political consciousness could be traced to the l830*s when the Hindus protested against the proselytizing operations of the Christian missionaries and their official allies, a protest which during the early 1fifties crystallized to give birth to the Madras Native Association, it was not until the formation of the Madras Mahajana Sabha that political activity in South India found its organized and self- su stain in g momentum." The th e s is attem pts to reco n stru c t the events that led to the establishment of the Madras Mahajana Sabha against % the background of political convulsions caused partly by the unpopular rule of Grant Duff and partly by Anglo-Indian opposition to Riponrs policies. The ferment that these events produced also precipitated the foundation of the Congress in 1885, though no attempt is made here at any exhaustive discussion of the origins of this body. However, the impact of the Congress on Madras politics is examined in some detail, especially in the light of attempts by the local Congress leaders to unify within the aegis of this organization the various communal and factional groups in the Presidency. The framework of political unity erected at the Madras 3 Congress of 1887, as the closing chapters attempt to show, largely collapsed under the weight of successive crises that overtook the Congress during the early 1nineties. If communal suspicions and separatist tendencies led to the withdrawal of the Eurasians, Muslims and Panchamas, controversies arising from the Cross B ill and the Age of Consent B ill estranged the conservative Hindus and divided the inner circle of the Congress leadership in Madras. The thesis ends by assessing briefly the impact of these divisive factors on the n a tio n a lis t movement in South In d ia. CONTENTS ABSTRACT ABBREVIATIONS CHAPTER I The Impact of Western Education CHAPTER I I The E arly P o litic a l A ctiv ity CHAPTER I I I The Madras Mahajana Sabha and the Early Conferences CHAPTER IV Madras and the Emergence of the Congress CHAPTER V The Agitation for Constitutional Reform CHAPTER VI Reform and Revivalism in Madras 5 Page EPILOGUE 354 BIBLIOGRAPHY 37 ^ Hap I: Districts of Madras Presidency, 1886 391 Hap II: Municipal towns of Madras Presidency, 1886 392 ABBREVIATIONS Add. MSS. Additional Manuscripts in the British Museum Eur. MSS. European Manuscripts in the India Office Library IHP India Home Proceedings JPP Judicial and Public Papers MJP Madras Judicial Proceedings MLP Madras Legislative Proceedings MPP Madras Public Proceedings MRP Madras Revenue Proceedings PPHC Parliamentary Papers House of Commons PPHL Parliam entary Papers House o f Lords 7 Chapter I The Impact of Western Education Contemporary observers witnessing the Indian political awakening during the closing decades of the nineteenth century tended to trace its origins to the new elements that British rule had introduced in the sub continent* It was generally believed that western education was the most important, if not the decisive, factor in stirring political conscious ness in India* 'Among other important factors1, said Eardley Horton in 1888, 'the educational policy which the British Government had been steadily pursuing in this country has, to a very appreciable extent at all events, not only changed the order of things that existed under former dynasties, but have created a body of men who have been imbued with ambit ions and aspirations which that very education had been instrumental in providing as a natural consequence.' ^ The advent of a we stem-educated, modernizing intellectual elite in India was significant as much for its immediate dominance of certain grades of the administrative establishment as for its potential impact on the arena of Indian politics* Samuel Smith, a British parliamentarian who visited India in 1B&5, asserted that the emergence of this educated elite had introduced 'a totally new element* in the discussion of Indian problems as compared with former times* The products of a generation of university education, and congregating in growing numbers in the provin cial capitals and the larger mofussil towns, it was 'this educated native tribunal' which began to scrutinize and judge British policy in India* 1* The Hindu* 2 A pril 1BBS* a *An intelligent native public opinion and a free native Press1, wrote Samuel Smith, *are now judging the governing class, and its policy is viewed from a very different standpoint from that which the official 1 Europeans and the British public are accustomed to take . 1 As Smith was recording his impressions, the Indian National Congress was formally inaugurated in Bombay. The politics of agitation and protest had found its constitutional channel. Indian protests against British policy, however, were neither a novelty nor a monopoly of any particular group. Since the British Raj was stabilized during the early decades of the nineteenth century, Indian protests assumed various manifestations, from the extensive insurrection of IB57-3 to the isolated and confused street clashes against the police. Such forms of protest, seeking redress by force of arms, represented no basic threat to the political or territorial integrity of the Raj. Technologically more advanced, m ilitarily better equipped and disciplined, the Raj displayed both the capacity and the determination to quell such protests. The Revolt of 1357-3, despite the initial reverses, stamped 2 the authority of the Raj more firmly over the sub-continent, dissolving in the process the coalition of the ruling aristocracy and the landed gentry and emasculating the old political and religious elites. Rioting and street disorders, whether prompted by religious fanaticism or opposit ion to tax levies, were repressed with an equal degree of severity. In 1. Samuel Smith, ’India Revisited1, Contemporary Review. XHX, June 1336, PP 797-3. 2. According to a recent writer, the British were able after the Revolt ’to dictate a settlement from a position of unquestioned mastery, and to enforce their w ill upon a subdued and chastened people.* Thomas R. Metcalf, The Aftermath of Revolt. India. 1357-1370. (Princeton, 1964) p ix . South India, where such forms of protest were relatively rare, the sword invariably re-established order while the courts of law administered punishment. Thus, by the careful deployment of their military might, and by mercilessly crushing any disturbance, the British rulers left no doubts in the Indian mind as to the utter futility of resorting to arms to challenge the Raj. To the western-educated elite in India, however, these modes of registering protest carried little appeal or conviction. Convinced of the overwhelming m ilitary might of the Raj, and painfully conscious of the deep divisions and dissensions within Indian society, the educated class was astute enough to recognize that an appeal to arms would only lead to disaster. ’Internal rebellion’, said a Muslim civilian in 1337, ’is for the present out of the question. The great variety of races and various conflicting interests in India are a sufficient safeguard against any attempt at combination in the near future. * ^ More important, how ever, in influencing the new elite’s thinking was its fascination with the western methods of political action. British parliamentary govern ment, with its system of checks and balances and with a popular legisla ture supervising and overriding the executive, strongly appealed to an educated class becoming progressively disenchanted with the despotic and ’bureaucratic* Raj. Hence, in making protests against the Raj and its policies, the Indian elite resorted to the well-worn techniques of const itutional agitation which were as strongly imitative of British political behaviour as they were sharply divergent from past Indian methods. 1. Proceedings of the Public Service Commission. V, Proceedings relating to the Madras Presidency (Including Coorg), Sec II. Evidence of Mir Shujaat Ali Khan, p 31 • 10 Insurrection and mob-violence gave way to political associations, public meetings, resolutions and memorials. This constituted a new departure in the history of Indian political activity, and the lSSC^s represented the era when politics in Madras assumed, for the first time, an organized and self-sustaining momentum. To grasp the complexities of this phase of political activity, as well as the forces that gave

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