The Central Administration
THE virtual acquisition of the kingdom of Bengal by the East India Company raised important problems. Could a private corporation be allowed to rule over vast territories without any supervision of Parliament? Was a constitution designed for carrying on trade and commerce equally suitable for the administration of an oriental Empire? These were the questions that agitated politicians and statesmen in England. They were made party issues in Parliament and were also further complicated by the personal interests, which were bound up with them. It is beyond the scope of the present work to trace the history of this interesting problem and its effect upon the parliamentary history of England. Suffice it to say that after a great deal of discussion, frequently characterised by vehement denunciations and personal recriminations, Parliament appointed a Select Committee and a Secret Committee, and at last in 1773 passed the famous Regulating Act which introduced Parliamentary supervision over the Company and modified its constitution both in England and in India.
The Act restricted the power of vote in the Court of Proprietors by raising the qualification for the same from 5OO pounds to I,000 pounds. The twenty-four Directors, who had been hitherto elected each year, were henceforth to be elected for four years, one fourth of their number retiring each year.
The Act provided that ” the Directors should lay before the Treasury all correspondence from India dealing with the revenues; and before a Secretary of State everything dealing with civil or military administration”. Thus the first definite step was taken for providing Parliamentary control over the affairs of the Company. By a Supplementary Act, passed in 1781, all dispatches proposed to be sent to India were to be shown to a Secretary of State.
As regards the administration in India, the main provisions of the Act were as follows:
The Government of Bengal was vested in a Governor-General and a Council of four members. The votesWarren Hastings of the majority were to prevail, the President having a casting vote in case of equality of votes. The first Governor-General, Warren Hastings, and the Councillors, Clavering, Monson, Barwell and Philip Francis, were named in the Act and appointed for five years (the term was further extended by Supplementary Acts). Their successors were to be appointed by the Company. The Governor-General in Council could control the subordinate Presidencies of Bombay and Madras in matters relating to war and peace. Further, the Act authorised the Crown to establish, by royal charter, a Supreme Court of Justice consisting of a Chief Justice and three puisne judges.
The Regulating Act was in force from 1773 to 1784 and thus covered almost the entire administration of Warren Hastings as Governor-General. The effects of the Act may, therefore, be best studied in detail in the events of that period. In general, it may be remarked that the Act broke down almost as soon as it was put to a practical test. The subordination of the Governor-General to a majority of the Council introduced weakness and vacillation in the Central Government, which might have proved fatal to British rule in India. The supervision over subordinate Presidencies was an extremely difficult task, and its impracticable character was demonstrated by the events of the First Anglo-Maratha War. The establishment of the Supreme Court led to endless complications as its jurisdiction was not properly defined, and it naturally came into conflict with the existing courts of law. In England also the ministerial control over the actions of the Directors proved illusory in many notable instances. The whole position has been beautifully summed up in the following sentence:
“It had neither given the State a definite control over the Company, nor the directors a definite control over their servants, nor the Governor-General a definite control over his Council, nor the Calcutta Presidency a definite control over Madras and Bombay.”
Immediately after the inauguration of the new regime on 26th October, 1774, Warren Hastings was confronted with the opposition of the majority in his Council. The attitude of the new Councillors was far from friendly from the beginning, and they attacked the Governor-General’s policy on various points. Francis, who came to India with a preconceived notion that the administration was honeycombed with abuses and needed radical reforms, was the leading spirit of the opposition against the Governor-General. The virulent and persistent attacks of the Councillors made Hastings powerless in his Council for a few years till the death of Monson on 25th September, 1777, and severely affected his prestige, with the result that charges of briber y and defalcation were brought against him by his enemies.
This is strikingly illustrated by the case of Nanda Kumar, a Brahmana of high rank, who had held an important position in the Nawab’s Government. On 11th March, 1775, Nanda Kumar, whom Hastings had offended by depriving him of his house and by showing special favour to his foe, Mohan Prasad, the executor of an Indian banker, charged Hastings with taking presents, worth many lacs, among them Rs. 354,105 from Muny Begam, the widow of Mir Jafar, for placing her in control of the Nawab’s household. It is very difficult to say definitely whether the charges were true. Hastings unwisely refused to meet the charges and to be put on trial before his Council, with one as prosecutor whom he detested most and considered to be “the basest of mankind “. But the Councillors, full of suspicion and dislike for the Governor-General, concluded that the charges against him were true and that he should pay the money into the Company’s treasury. In 1776 the law officers of the Company in England declared that these charges, even on the ex parte case before them, were false.
Meanwhile, in the month of May, 1775, Mohan Prasad charged Nanda Kumar with forgery in connection with a will executed five years before. He was tried by the Supreme Court and a jury, found guilty, sentenced to death and hanged.
