Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-tj2md Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-24T09:25:30.040Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Vote and the Transfer of Power: A study of the Bengal General Election, 1912–1913.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 March 2011

J. H. Broomfield
Get access

Extract

Representative Government was an institution dear to the hearts of nineteenth-century Englishmen. It was their pride and, they affirmed, the source of their national strength that they lived under this form of constitution. They were eager that others, especially their colonies, should enjoy its benefits. There were few obstacles in the way of the establishment of representative institutions in the white colonies: the land was different but the people were the same. But in India neither the land nor the people resembled those of England. Nonetheless, the British determined to train an educated, Westernized elite which would make possible the establishment of representative institutions there.

Type
Articles
Information
The Journal of Asian Studies , Volume 21 , Issue 2 , February 1962 , pp. 163 - 181
Copyright
Copyright © Association for Asian Studies, Inc. 1962

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

1 E.g. see Coupland, Reginald: Report on the Constitutional Problem in India (1942–3), Pt. 1, Chapt. 2.Google Scholar

2 Morley to Lord Minto, April 2, 1909, John Buchan: Lord Minto. A Memoir (1924), p. 289.

3 The greater part of the analysis in this paper is based on biographical information on the individual candidates, collected from various sources.

4 Government of Bengal. Appointment Department proceedings. File 18L–3. B427–33. July 1914. (Subsequent references to proceedings of this department give only the file number and date.)

5 Indian Association, General Meeting proceedings, April 1911.

6 Ibid., Annual Report 1911, Appendix E, pp. 19–42; & Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1911, [Cd. 5979 ], Vol. 55, pp. 582–98.

7 July 19, 1912, p. 4.

8 Englishman, January 14, 1913, p. 4; Capital, January 16, 1913, p. 154; Indian World, January 15, 1913, p. 2; Indian Empire, January 14, 1913; Report on the Native Papers in Bengal, January 18, 1913, Vol. 2, 45. (In subsequent references, this Report is cited simply as Native Papers.)

9 January 22, 1913, p. 2. The Indian World was a Calcutta English weekly edited by a prominent member of the Indian Association, Prithwis Chandra Ray.

10 E.g. presidential address by a Bihari, Dweep Narain Sing, to the Bengal Provincial Conference at Berhampore, 1907, Bande Mataram, April 2, 1907, (H. P. Ghose collection, Calcutta).

11 Bengal District Administration Committee, 1913–14, Report, p. 13. This report; the Census of India, 1911, Vols. 1, 5 & 6; and Jack, J. C.: The Economic Life of a Bengal District (1916), were the source of this paragraph.Google Scholar

12 Edinburgh Review, Vol. 206, October 1907, pp. 290–1.Google Scholar

13 Morley to Minto, October 11, 1906, Morley, John Viscount: Recollections (collected works, 1921), Vol. 2, 153.Google Scholar

14 Minto to Morley, March 19, 1907, Lady Minto: India, Minto and Morley, 1905–1910 (1935), p. 109.

15 E.g. in the decade 1901–11 the population of Dacca rose by 21% and that of Chittagong by 30%. The increase for Greater Calcutta was only 11.9% and for Bengal as a whole only 6%. (Census of India, 1911, Vols. 5 & 6).

16 Lord Crewe to Lord Carmichael, January 15, 1912, Lady Mary Carmichael of Skirling: Lord Carmichael of Skirling. A Memoir (1929), p. 151.

17 Capital, November 28, 1912, p. 1255; Lord Hardinge of Penshurst: My Indian Years, 1910–1916 (1948), p. 67.

18 Mazumdar to Pramathanath Banerjca, Hon. Assistant Secretary, Indian Association, May 13, 1913, Indian Association MSS.

19 Anglo-Indian Association, Calcutta, Annual Report 1908, pp. 6–7.

20 File 18L–23. A120–8. August 1913. This is also the source for the subsequent two paragraphs.

21 Law to W. R. Gourlay, Private Secretary to Governor, May 24, 1912, ibid.

22 H. Dutt to same, May 11, 1912, ibid.

23 Minute by Gourlay, July 18, 1912, ibid.

24 “Local body” was not a term used in India but, for convenience, it is employed here to include municipalities and district and local boards, the members of which were grouped to form electorates for the Legislative Council.

25 The Council comprised, in addition, the three members of the Executive Council and three nominated Indian non-officials, and was presided over by the Governor. (Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1913 [Cd. 6714], Vol. 47, 199). Discussion in this paper is confined to the non-official members.

26 Indian World, January 15, 1913, p. 2.

27 Great Britain, Parliamentary Papers, 1907 [Cd. 3710], Vol. 58, 457.

28 Prodyar Coomar Tagore to British Indian Association, Oudh, January 18, 1909, enclosure, British Indian Association records, Lucknow.

29 Calcutta Gazette, Extraordinary, November 23, 1912.

30 Nayak, January 14, 1913, Native Papers, January 18, 1913, Vol. 1, 60; Hindoo Patriot, January 20, 1913, ibid., February 1, 1913, Vol. 2, 83–4.

31 Hindoo Patriot, ibid, p. 83.

32 January 22, 1913, pp. 2–3.

33 Census of India, 1911, Vol. 5, 257.Google Scholar

34 Bengalee, December 29, 1912, p. 4; File 18L–4. B444–62. October 1913.

35 E.g. the Muslims formed 52% of the total population of Bengal but only 30% of its urban population (Census of India, 1911, Vol. 5); only 10% of those qualified to vote as landholders were Muslims (Calcutta Gazette, Extraordinary, November 23, 1912).

36 See Smith, Wilfred Cantwell: Islam in Modern History (Mentor Books, 1959), pp. 58–9.Google Scholar

37 E.g. see SirFuller, Bampfylde: Some Personal Experiences (1930), pp. 140–1.Google Scholar

38 Crewe to Carmichael, January 15, 1912, op. cit., p. 152; Statesman, January 2, 1912, p. 7; ibid, January 23, 1912, p. 11.

39 E.g. consider their reaction to the decision to establish a new university at Dacca; Statesman, February 4, 1912, p. 10.

40 E.g. see Statesman, June 5, 1912, p. 7; & Native Papers, November 23, 1912, Vol. 1, 1370–1.

41 October 29, 1912, Native Papers, November 2, 1912, Vol. 2, 679.

42 Indian World, January 22, 1913, p. 2; Proceedings of the Bengal Legislative Council, April 2, 1913, Vol. 45, 536.Google Scholar

43 Indian World, January 15, 1913, pp. 2–3.

44 “The British wished for and tried to create an Ulster among the Mohammedans of India.” Lajpat Rai: Young India (1917), p. lxxv.

45 “The Nawab was very good to me,” was Huq's comment on his political debut. (Interview with the author, December 11, 1960.) He was subsequently Chief Minister of both Bengal and East Pakistan.

46 Mussulman, January 17, 1913, Native Papers, January 25, 1913, Vol. 2, 63–4. The Mussulman was a Calcutta English weekly of which Rasul was joint editor.

47 File 18L–42. B1650–55. June 1910.

48 File 18L–3. B427–33. July 1914.

49 Muhammadi, January 10, 1913, Native Papers, January 18, 1913, Vol. 1, 53–4.Google Scholar

50 The two groups fought another round in 1916 when Ariff and a Delhiwallah, Abdur Rahim, contested the Presidency and Burdwan divisions seat in the Imperial Legislative Council, but on that occasion Ariff was defeated. The candidates indulged in such blatant corruption that the Government of India was persuaded (at long last) of the need for an improvement in the electoral regulations. (Calcutta Gazette, May 9, 1917, Part IA, pp. 363–80.)

51 File 18L–10–1–29. A105–33. September 1913.

52 File 18L–61. A33–8. December 1913.

53 See Smith, Thomas Edward: Elections in Developing Countries (1960), p. xi.Google Scholar

54 Report of the Franchise Committee etc. (1919), p. 48.

55 Statesman, February 3, 1912, pp. 6–7; Capital, November 7, 1912, pp. 1067–8.

56 Ananda Bazar Patrika, November 7, 1912, Native Newspapers, November 16, 1912, Vol. 1, 1345.

57 Englishman, December 25, 1913, p. 4; see also ibid, March 6, 1913, p. 4.

58 Englishman, January 14, 1913, p. 4.

59 File 18L–56. B1891–1906. December 1913.

60 Englishman, February 28, 1913, p. 7; & March 5, 1913, p. 8.

61 Of the 26 Indian non-officials, 16 were university men of whom 5 had been educated in the United Kingdom. None of the European non-officials had attended university.

62 Of the 34 non-officials, 16 resided in Calcutta and another 3 had town-houses there. Dacca/Naryangung and Chittagong each supplied three members.

63 Census of India, 1911, Vol. 5.

64 There were 20,000 Anglo-Indians and 100,000 Indian Christians in Bengal. (Ibid.)

65 Special Marriage Amendment Bill introduced to the Imperial Legislative Council in 1911 by Bhupendranath Basu. It was opposed by orthodox Hindus and Muslims as it would have made possible inter-creed and inter-caste marriages, by providing for civil weddings. (Proceedings of the Legislative Council of the Governor-General of India, Vols. 49 & 50.)

66 The allusion is to the God Siva, who drank the poison raised by the churning of die ocean by gods and demons and thus saved the universe from its effects. The poison stuck in his throat, which became blue and he himself to be known as Nilkantha–the god with the blue throat.

67 December 3, 1912, Native Papers, December 7, 1912, Vol. 1, 1419.

68 June 14, 1913, ibid., June 21, 1913, Vol. 1, 570.