King Edward's realm: Story of the making of the Empire

by C. S. Dawe

(India).

1. We have already seen how Clive laid the foundations of British rule in India, how Warren Hastings tightened our hold on the country, and how the Marquess Wellesley reduced the native princes to a state of dependence, and made the British the real masters of India. To establish a firm and just rule, and to save India from anarchy and its people from oppression, were all that the early rulers of India could attempt. But with the appointment of Lord Bentinck as governor-general, in 1828, our rule began to have a higher aim, and that was to build British greatness upon Indian happiness.

2. Of his many services to India, two stand out conspicuously: one was the rooting out of the Thugs, who made the robbing and murdering of travellers a pious duty, thinking that such acts would win them the favour of the dread goddess Kali. An old French traveller speaks of them as "the cunningest robbers in the world, who use a certain slip, with a running noose, which they can cast so deftly about a man's neck, that they strangle him in a trice." No person whom they attacked ever escaped to tell the tale. They went in bands disguised as travellers or rich merchants, and always carried tools for digging the graves of their victims. After each successful attack, offerings were made in the temples of the goddess. Within six years nearly all the members of this strange profession were hanged or placed in safe custody for life.

3. A still greater service, perhaps, was the putting an end to the custom of suttee. When any Hindu died, his widow was expected, in some parts of India, to accompany him to the next world by throwing herself into his funeral pile, and perishing in the flames. So common was the practice that in a single year, in Bengal alone, seven hundred widows were burnt alive. To this day the country is, in certain districts, thickly dotted with little white pillars, each in memory of a suttee. Lord Bentinck made a proclamation declaring that henceforth all who took part in a suttee would be held guilty of murder.

4. When Bentinck's seven years of office were over, a statue was erected to his memory with this inscription:

To
William Cavendish Bentinck,
WHO INFUSED INTO ORIENTAL DESPOTISM THE SPIRIT
OF BRITISH FREEDOM;
WHO NEVER FORGOT THAT THE END OF GOVERNMENT IS
THE HAPPINESS OF THE GOVERNED.

5. We pass on to the next great landmark in the story of British rule in India. This was the governor-generalship of the Earl of Dalhousie, who ruled India between 1848 and 1856. Though he added to the empire more territory than any other British ruler in India, before or since, he did it all for the good of India as well as for the greatness of Britain. Believing that rulers exist only for the good of the governed, he made it his great aim to do away with abuses, to redress wrongs, to deal even-handed justice all round, and to promote the happiness of the people under his care.

6. It may seem strange that Dalhousie, whose great maxim was "the good of the governed" should have done so much to extend the British Empire in India. This was partly due to the fact that wars were forced on him, and partly to the fact that he believed that people were better off under British rule than any other. This consideration led him to take advantage of every opportunity to substitute British rule for that of a native prince. When, for instance, a native ruler died without offspring, instead of allowing his adopted son, as was the custom in India, to succeed him, Dalhousie annexed the territory thus left kingless.

7. Our governor-general also dethroned unworthy rulers, including the King of Oudh, whose realm was naturally the fairest province of all India. It may be remembered that in all the dependent states a British official resided at court to give his advice, and to watch over British interests. The British resident at Lucknow, the capital of Oudh, reported to Dalhousie that under its native ruler, Oudh knew neither law nor justice, that "great crimes stain almost every acre of land in his dominions." The strong, he said, everywhere preyed upon the weak, and what might be the garden of India was fast becoming a wilderness, whilst the king amused himself in the company of fiddlers, singers, buffoons, and dancing girls. After a solemn warning, and a reprieve of five years, the corrupt monarch was deposed and his kingdom added to our Indian Empire.

8. During Dalhousie's rule much was done to bring the different parts of this great empire into closer touch with each other. A cheap uniform postage was introduced, by which a letter could be sent from one end of India to the other for half an anna, about three farthings. A short railway was laid down as an experiment, and it proved highly successful. The new mode of travelling rose at once into favour with the natives of India. They soon saw the advantage of cheap travelling at the rate of twenty or thirty miles an hour in carriages drawn by the "English fire-horse."