Between 1853 and 1855 the telegraph system was constructed, which electrified Europeans and awakened the Asiatics from the torpor of ages. Madras and Bombay could talk with all the great cities of Northern India, and Rangoon was placed in telegraphic communication with Lahore and Peshawar. Unfortunately there was only one line of wires from Allahabad to Delhi, and when the wires were cut by the sepoy mutineers of 1857, communication was cut off. This incident, however, belongs to the régime of Lord Dalhousie's successor.
Ganges canal, 1854.
In 1854 the Ganges canal, the greatest work of irrigation ever accomplished, was completed by Sir Proby Cautley and opened by Lord Dalhousie. The British nation has never realised this grand undertaking of the old East India Company. It receives the water on the lower slope of the Himalayas, and runs along the Doab, or high lands between the Jumna and Ganges, throwing out distributaries at intervals. About eighty miles to the south-east of Delhi it separates into two branches, one flowing into the Ganges at Cawnpore, and the other flowing into the Jumna near Etawah. The whole length of the canal and branches for navigation is 614 miles; the length of the distributaries for irrigation is 3,111 miles.
Annexation policy.
§12. Lord Dalhousie was so convinced of the superiority of British administration, that he considered every opportunity should be taken for bringing the territories of feudatory princes under British rule. Hitherto it had been the policy of the East India Company to perpetuate the dynasties of its feudatories. If a feudatory prince was without a son, he was advised by the British Resident to adopt one. But Hindu princes shrink from the idea of adopting a son. It is often as difficult to persuade a Raja to adopt as it used to be to persuade Englishmen to make wills. He puts it off with some vague intention of marrying another wife, which he is permitted to do under Hindu law when the first wife is barren. Accordingly Hindu princes often die without leaving any son whatever, real or adopted. Under such circumstances the widow was permitted to adopt a boy, and the East India Company permitted this boy to succeed to the principality.
Question of adoption.
Adoption, however, is purely a religious ceremonial. It is the outcome of the religious belief of the Hindus that when a man dies his soul goes to a sort of purgatory until his sins are washed away; and that during this interval it is the duty of a son, real or adopted, to offer cakes and water to refresh the soul in question. The East India Company accepted the adoption as giving a claim to the principality, because it settled the succession when a natural heir was wanting. Lord Dalhousie decided that the adoption gave no claim to the principality, but only to the personal property of the deceased feudatory, because he was anxious to bring the territory under British administration.
Satara and Nagpore.
The Court of Directors refused to accept the views of Lord Dalhousie in the case of "protected allies," such as Sindia, Holkar, and the princes of Rajputana. But they accepted his views as regards "dependent principalities," such as Satara and Nagpore, which had been created, or artificially resuscitated, by the Marquis of Hastings, and in which the Hindu rulers had turned out very badly. Accordingly, Nagpore and Satara became British territory, and were brought under British administration.
Jhansi in Bundelkund.