History of India

HISTORY OF INDIA VOLUME - 8 View from the Top of the Tiger Gate in Palitana History of India Edited by A. V. Williams Jackson, Ph.D., LL.D., Professor of Indo-Iranian Languages in Columbia University V olum e 8 – From the C lose ofthe S ev en teen th C en tury tothe P resen tTim e By Sir Alfred Comyn Lyall, P.C., K.C.B., D.C.L. 1907 Reproduced by Sani H. Panhwar (2018) Introduction by the Editor A connected account of the principal events of Anglo-Indian history from the seventeenth century to the present time is given in this volume. The presentation, though concise, affords a broad view of the rise of British power in the East and makes clear the causes that led to England’ssupremacy. The first chapter reviews in a brief manner the main current of events in India’s development prior to the seventeenth century and forms a convenient supplement to the two preceding volumes, and the succeeding chapters trace the chief historical movements, era by era, down to the present time. The chronological sequence has been indicated throughout the work, but care has been taken not to overload the text with unnecessary dates. Lack of space compelled the author to forego treating several historic incidents, though important, because they have a less direct bearing upon the main theme – the expansion of British dominion in India. Considerations of space also forbade elaborating upon the details of certain well- known events, but room was gained in that way for the important chapter which brings the history down from the time of the Mutiny to the Durbar of King Edward, as well as for the concluding chapter on Britain’swider dominion in Asia. The illustrative matter has been drawn from varied sources, and I am grateful for permission to reproduce one or two somewhat rare pictures. The ready collaboration of the author and the courtesy of his publisher in helping to make this volume a complete outline of India’slater history down to the present time, is cordially appreciated. A. V. Williams Jackson A uthorP reface The principal object of this book has been to sketch in outline the Rise of the British Dominion in India, and to relate the circumstances that led to the gradual extension of our territorial possessions up to 1858, when the Crown superseded the East India Company in the direct government of the country. It has also been thought expedient to give, toward the end of the volume, a short dissertation upon the nature and operation of the system of protectorates, by which the independent native states within India have been preserved under the superior control of the imperial government, and the foreign states or outlying tracts adjacent to the British frontiers have been brought under our political influence. But since the main purpose of the work is to present a connected view of the historical events and transactions, in Europe and in Asia, that combined to promote the foundation and to expedite the spread of the Dominion, the later stages of its expansion have been traversed in this narrative more rapidly than the earlier stages, which have perhaps attracted less general attention, and are not so commonly understood. Moreover, several remarkable incidents (as, for example, the famous trial of Nuncomar) have been omitted or barely mentioned, because they seemed to have little bearing upon the larger political issues with which this book is concerned, and also because a detailed account of them can be found in any history of British India. In a supplementary chapter, now added, the course of Indian affairs, external and internal, from the date when the whole government was assumed by the Crown up to the present time, has been briefly surveyed. The character and important consequences of the foreign policy adopted by the British Government during this period has been explained; and some attempt has been made to review the constitutional changes and legislative measures that have been introduced in the last fifty years for the improvement of our interior administration and for the welfare of our fellow subjects in India. A. C. Lyall June, 1907 Introduction The narrative of the acquisition of British India forms no more than an episode in the annals of the English nation. It is therefore not unnatural that historians, being mainly intent upon European affairs, should usually be satisfied with treating the foundation of a great Oriental empire by an English trading company as a marvelous and almost incomprehensible stroke of national good fortune. To those, however, who carefully follow the course and connection of events that led up to this magnificent result, and who bear in mind that foreign commerce is the life-blood of a maritime people, and that, for two centuries at least, the whole policy of England has been mainly directed toward the increase of her sea-power and the enlargement of her foreign commerce – insomuch that, as Sir H. Parnell has said, almost all our wars during the eighteenth century were virtually waged on behalf of that commerce – the fact that India has been the great prize of continuous success in naval war and trading adventure will not appear astonishing, and certainly not inexplicable. The object of this short treatise is not only to give a concise account of the rise of British dominion in India, but also to explain it by tracing rapidly the causes and convergent influences that brought about so remarkable a conclusion. It is a matter of general remark that Anglo-Indian history, when related at length, is tedious and confusing. This is partly due to unfamiliarity with outlandish names and places, but chiefly to its essential character. The history, like the annals of almost all Oriental states, is mainly concerned, up to very recent times, with military operations, which in India seldom rise above the level of desultory fighting, and with that class of politics that consists largely of revolts, conspiracies, dynastic contests, and the ordinary incidents of a struggle for existence among rival despots. In Asia there is no scope for examining the growth of institutions or the development of civil polity or the forming of nations; the famous men are all either able tyrants (in the Greek sense) or successful men of war; the type of civilization is uniform and stationary; the spirit of nationality, where it exists, is in its most elementary stage; the people of the great kingdoms known to history are an immense mixed multitude, broken up into tribal or religious groups, and united under one leadership by force or accident. At the present moment every great country in Asia is governed by an alien race or foreign dynasty that has come in by conquest; there is no general identity of language or of religion between the rulers and the mass of their subjects; they accordingly accept changes of government with indifference; they have no inveterate antipathy to the domination of foreigners. The Indian people were, from the beginning, so far from objecting to the English dominion in India that they co-operated willingly in promoting it. Nevertheless, the existing relations between India and England constitute a political situation unprecedented in the world’shistory. The two countries are far distant from each other and in different continents; they present the strongest contrasts of race and religion. There is no previous example of the acquisition and successful government of such a dependency, so immense in extent and population, at such a distance from the central power. A state that is distinctly superior to its neighbors in the arts of war and government has often expanded into a great empire. In Europe the Romans once united under an extensive dominion and still wider ascendency a number of subject provinces, client kingdoms, protected allies, races, and tribes, by a system of conquest and an administrative organization that anticipated in many salient features our methods of governing India. But the Roman dominions were compact and well knit together by solid communications. The Romans were masters of the whole Mediterranean littoral, and their capital, whether at Rome or Constantinople, held a central and commanding position. Then at the present time we see Russia holding down Northern Europe with one foot, and Central Asia with the other. She is the first power that has succeeded so completely in throwing down the barriers which have hitherto divided the East from the West, as to found a colossal dominion in the heart of both continents. But with the Roman, Russian, and all other historical empires the mass of their territory has been accumulated by advancing step after step along the land from the central starting-point, making one foot-hold sure before another was taken, firmly placing one arch of the viaduct before another was thrown out, allowing no interruption of territorial coherence from the centre to the circumference. This was not so in the case of the Indian empire. During the time when the English were establishing their predominance in India, and long afterwards, England was separated from India by thousands of miles of sea; the Atlantic and Indian oceans lay between. The government of the English in India may thus be said to present a unique instance of the dominion over an immense alien people in a distant country having been acquired entirely by gradual expansion from a base on the sea. Of the political changes introduced during the last one hundred and fifty years by the overflow of Europe into Asia, the acquisition of all India and Burma by the English has hitherto been incomparably the greatest; although the steady advance of Russia, pushing forward her steel wedges into the central regions, is fraught with no less momentous import to the destinies of the continent.

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