Nature and Effect of the Revolt
For more reasons than one, the Revolt marks a turning-point in the history of India. In a sense it demonstrated that the hold of the Company on India was still rather weak, and its lessons continued to influence British administration in India for several generations. “I wish,” remarked the late Lord Cromer, “the young generation of the English would read, mark, learn and inwardly digest the history of the Indian Mutiny; it abounds in lessons and warnings.” It directly produced three important changes in the system of administration and the policy of the Government.
Firstly, the control of the Indian Government was finally assumed by the Crown, in spite of protests from the Company. An Act for the Better Government of India was passed on the 2nd August, 1858, which provided that “India shall be governed by, and in the name of, the Sovereign through one of the principal Secretaries of State, assisted by a council of fifteen members”. At the same time the Governor-General received the new title of Viceroy. This was, however, “rather a formal than a substantial change”, because the Crown had been steadily increasing its control over the affairs of the Company since the latter had become a territorial power in India, and the actual control had been exercised so long by the President of the Board of Control, who was a Minister of the Crown. The Directors had functioned as a mere advisory council.
The assumption of the government of India by the Sovereign of Great Britain was announced by Lord Canning at a darbar at Allahabad in a Proclamation issued on Ist November, 1858, in the name of the Queen. The Queen’s Proclamation, described as the Magna Charta of the Indian people, confirmed the treaties and engagements of the East India Company with the Indian princes; promised to respect the rights, dignity and honour of the native princes and to pay due regard to the ancient rights,
Secondly, the army, which took the initiative in the outbreak, was thoroughly reorganized; and, for the next fifty years, “the idea of division and counterpoise” dominated British military policy in India. The Presidency armies were kept entirely separate till 1893; the European element in them was strengthened, and placed in sole charge of some essential services; and the number of European soldiers was increased. The Commission on Indian Army Organisation of 1879 observed: “The lessons taught by the Mutiny have led to the maintenance of two great principles, of retaining in the country an irresistible force of British troops and keeping the artillery in the hands of Europeans.”
Thirdly, the British Government now took up a new attitude towards the Indian States. These States had henceforth to recognize the paramountcy of the British Crown and were to be considered as parts of a single charge.
One indirect effect of the Revolt is clearly seen in the birth and rise of extremism in Indian politics. The excesses of the movement engendered a feeling of hostility in the minds of some Indians as well as some Englishmen in India, which, being aggravated by the growing racial discrimination between the two, has been influencing political thought and administrative policy in India in modern times. Russell, the Times Correspondent in India, rightly observed in his Diary that
“the mutinies have produced too much hatred and ill-feeling between the two races to render any mere change of the rulers a remedy for the evils which affect India, of which those angry sentiments are the most serious exposition. . . . Many years must elapse ere the evil passions excited by these disturbances expire; perhaps confidence will never be restored; and, if so, our reign in India will be maintained at the cost of suffering which it is fearful to contemplate”.
