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Imperial Facade: Some Constraints Upon and Contradictions in the British Position in India, 1919–35

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  12 February 2009

Judith M. Brown
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Extract

THE Raj still has a peculiar fascination for the British public, judging by the stream of popular books, radio and television programmes whose constant themes are the panoply of empire and the life-style of imperial rulers. Among English-speaking historians, however, approaches to Britain's Indian empire have changed markedly in the last twenty years. By the 1950s ‘Imperial history’ was a thing of the past. Gone was its admiring concentration on the men who ruled India and their measures as a way of understanding political change in the subcontinent. Attention shifted to indigenous initiatives and growth points. At first the emphasis was on India's western educated as organizers and spokesmen of a new kind of overtly nationalist politics. In the late 1960s the focus altered to whole localities within the subcontinent as it became clear that the western educated were not elites divorced from local, more traditional societies, but were still subject to its pressures, influenced by its perceptions and involved in its webs of patronage and alliance. In such an environment apparently nationalist politics were shot through with conflicts and contraditions: they were only one aspect of diverse manoeuvres for influence in society and the state structure. In the present decade the wheel has almost come full circle. Imperial overlords again receive attention: not now as architects and guardians, but as elements essential in the analysis of the changing style and content of Indian politics to the extent to which they created the framework of political life, defined its categories, means and ends.

Type
Research Article
Information
Transactions of the Royal Historical Society , Volume 26 , December 1976 , pp. 35 - 52
Copyright
Copyright © Royal Historical Society 1976

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References

1 Wavell. The Viceroy's Journal, ed. Moon, P. (London, 1973)Google Scholar.

2 For an analysis of British policy towards India's constitutional status, with particular emphasis on the role of British politics see Moore, R. J., The Crisis of Indian Unity 1917–1340 (Oxford, 1974)Google Scholar.

3 Sykes, F., From many Angles. An Autobiography (London, 1942), pp. 413 –14Google Scholar.

4 Montagu to Reading, 23 February 1922, India Office Library (IOL), Reading Papers, MS. EUR.E.238 (4).

5 Peel to Irwin, 14 February 1929, IOL, Halifax Papers, MS. EUR.C.152 (5).

6 Hoare to Willingdon, 25 February, 3, 17 and 31 March, 19 May 1933, IOL, Templewood Papers, MS. EUR.E.240 (3).

7 Viceroy to Secretary of State, telegram, 4 March 1924, IOL, MS. EUR.E.238 (13).

8 Olivier to Reading, 26 June 1924, Reading to Olivier, 17 July 1924, IOL, MS. EUR.E.238 (7).

9 Templewood, , Nine Troubled Tears (London, 1954), pp. 77–79Google Scholar; correspondence between Hoare and Willingdon on the composition of the Viceroy's council, December 1931–February 1932, IOL, MS. EUR.E.240 (I), (5).

10 Lytton to Irwin, 25 February 1927, IOL, MS. EUR.C.152 (21).

11 Report of the Indian Statutory Commission Volume 1—Survey (London, 1930), Cmd. 3568, pp. 263 –80Google Scholar.

12 For problems of recruitment see Reading to Peel, 20 July 1922, IOL, MS. EUR.E.238 (5); Report of the Royal Commission on the Superior Civil Services in India (London, 1924), Cmd. 2128Google Scholar; Potter, D. C., ‘Manpower Shortage and the End of Colonialism. The Case of the Indian Civil Service’, Modem Asian Studies, 7, I (1973), pp. 47–73CrossRefGoogle Scholar. An example of local action embarrassing superiors was the arrest of Vallabhbhai Patel in March 1930 by a Gujarat district magistrate without previous approval of Bombay government; Viceroy to Secretary of State, telegram, 10 March 1930, National Archives of India, Home Political Department (NAI, Home Poll.), 1930, File No. 247/II. For the strain on the administration see Sir Frederick Sykes, Governor of Bombay, to Irwin, 21 May 1930, IOL, Sykes Papers, MS. EUR.F.150 (2).

13 For an example of problems of control caused by injudicious recruiting and weak discipline in the Bombay Presidency police see Bombay Inspector-General of Police to Bombay Home Secretary, 29 May 1930, NAI, Home Poll., 1930, File No. 257/V and K.-W.; Irwin to Wedgwood Benn, 6 December 1930, IOL, MS. EUR.G.152 (6).

14 For an assessment of British strength in India see Viceroy to Secretary of State, telegrams, 7 January and 5 February 1922, IOL, MS. EUR.E.238 (11).

15 Sir Frederick Sykes, Governor of Bombay, to Irwin, 25 March 1931, IOL, MS. EUR.C.I52 (26); L. Naranji to M. R. Jayakar, 27 January 1932, National Archives of India, M. R. Jayakar Papers, File No. 456.

16 Birkenhead to Reading, 22 January and 5 March 1925, IOL, MS. EUR.E.238 (8).

17 Wedgwood Benn to Irwin, 20 March 1930, IOL, MS. EUR.C.152 (6); Sir Montagu Butler, Governor of Central Provinces, to Irwin, 8 April 1929, Sir Geoffrey de Montmorency, Governor of Punjab, to Irwin, 24 November 1929, IOL, MS. EUR.C.152 (23).

18 Irwin to H. Marten, Acting Governor of Central Provinces, 29 September 1927, IOL, MS. EUR.G.152 (21).

19 Reading to Peel, 30 August, 13 September 1923, IOL, MS. EUR.E.238 (6); Reading to Birkenhead, 24 December 1925, IOL, MS. EUR.E.238 (8). For the Khilafat movement and the thrust it gave to non-cooperation see Brown, J. M., Gandhi's Rise to Power. Indian Politics 1915–1922 (Cambridge, 1972), chs. 6, 8 and 9Google Scholar.

20 Secretary of State to Viceroy, telegram, 3 August 1922, Viceroy to Secretary of State, telegram, 10 August 1922, IOL, MS. EUR.E.238 (16). Olivier complained to Reading, 31 July 1924, of the reaction of British public opinion, dominated by ‘Old India Hands’, on moderate Indian politicians’ willingness to believe that British promises were sincere; IOL, MS. EUR.E.238 (7).

21 Irwin to Sir Malcolm Hailey, Governor of United Provinces, 19 October 1928, IOL, MS. EUR.C.152 (22).

22 Viceroy to Secretary of State, 18 February 1922, telegram, IOL, MS. EUR.E.238 (11).

23 Willingdon to Hoare, 3 September 1934, IOL, MS. EUR.E.240 (7); Sir Malcolm Hailey, Governor of United Provinces, former Governor of Punjab, to Irwin, 10 September 1928, IOL, MS. EUR.C.152 (22); Sir William Marris, Governor of United Provinces, to Irwin, 1 June 1926, IOL, MS. EUR.C. 152 (20).

24 For the reasoning behind grants of honours see, for example, Memorandum on King's Birthday Honours, 1922, enclosed in Reading to Peel, 20 April 1922, IOL, MS. EUR.E.238 (5).

25 Sir Frederick Sykes, Governor of Bombay, to Irwin, 22 May 1929, IOL, MS. EUR.F.150 (1); Sir Geoffrey de Montmorency, Governor of Punjab, to Irwin, 7 April 1929, IOL, MS. EUR.G.152 (23).

26 For propaganda during civil disobedience see NAI, Home Poll., 1931, File Nos. 35/28 and 152; Punjab Chief Secretary to Bengal Chief Secretary, 17 May 1930, NAI, Home Poll., 1930, File No. 307; Report on the Administration of Bengal 1932–33 (Calcutta, 1934), pp. xxxi–xxxiiGoogle Scholar; Report on the Administration of Bengal 1933–34 (Calcutta, 1935), pp. xix–xxGoogle Scholar.

27 Reading to Olivier, 7 and 21 February 1924, IOL, MS. EUR.E.238 (7).

28 Reading to Montagu, 9 February 1922, IOL, MS. EUR.E.238 (4). For the problems of relying on the Moderates see also Montagu to Reading, 1 March 1922, ibid.; Viceroy to Secretary of State, telegram, 10 August 1922, IOL, MS. EUR.E. 238 (16); Reading to Peel, 20 September 1923, IOL, MS. EUR.E.238 (6).

29 Viceroy to Secretary of State, telegrams, 26 January 1924, IOL, MS. EUR.E.238 (18), 15 February and 23 May 1924, IOL, MS. EUR.E.238 (13).

30 Viceroy to Secretary of State, telegram, 27 March 1927, IOL, MS. EUR.C.152 (8).

31 Reading to Montagu, 5 January 1922, IOL, MS. EUR.E.238 (4).

32 Goschen to Irwin, 26 February 1929, IOL, MS. EUR.C.152 (23).

33 Sykes, From Many Angles, p. 335; Sir William Marris, ‘India: the Political Problem’, Cust Foundation Lecture, 16 May 1930, Manchester University Library.

34 Wilson to Irwin, 14 March 1928, IOL, MS. EUR.C.152 (22).

35 Irwin to Goschen, 11 July 1928, ibid. For details of pressures on Wilson see communications between him, Irwin and Birkenhead, IOL, MS. EUR.G.152 (4), (5), (9), (22), (23).

36 Wilson to Irwin, 15 August 1928, IOL, MS. EUR.C.152 (22).

37 For details of Government of India policy towards non-cooperation and civil disobedience see Low, D. A., ‘The Government of India and the First Non-Cooperation Movement–1920–22 ‘, Journal of Asian Studies, XXV, 2 (1966), pp. 341 –59Google Scholar; ‘“Civil Martial Law”: The Government of India and the Civil Disobedience Movements 1930–34’, Congress and the Raj, ed. D. A. Low (forthcoming).

38 Irwin to Sir Frederick Sykes, Governor of Bombay, 12 and 26 September 1930, IOL, MS. EUR.C.152 (25); Irwin to Wedgwood Benn, 3 November 1930, IOL, MS. EUR.C.152 (6).

39 Wedgwood Benn to Irwin, 27 February 1930 (also 15 and 22 May 1930). ibid.

40 Sykes, , From Many Angles, pp. 363 –4, 402–3Google Scholar; E. Villiers, of Calcutta European Association to Irwin, 20 August 1930, IOL, MS. EUR.G.152 (25); G.O.C., Eastern Command, to Chief of General Staff, 14 June 1930, NAI, Home Poll., 1930, File No. 174; Government of India to Secretary of State, 17 June 1930, NAI, Home Poll., 1930, File No. 257/111.

41 Hoare's letters to Willingdon in 1932–4 were full of the implications of their treatment of Gandhi for British support for the constitutional proposals currently before Parliament. See IOL, MS. EUR.E.240 (2), (3), (11), (12); also Hoare to Stanley (Acting Viceroy), 3 August 1934, IOL, MS. EUR.E.240 (4).