Forests
The forests of India have always proved a valuable source of revenue. But the development of a science of forestry, especially in Germany and France, showed the great influence which forests on a large scale exercise over climate, and laid down the lines on which a forest should be maintained and developed to yield the maximum benefit to the country. The appointment, in 1864, of a German expert as Inspector-General of Forests in India ushered in the new scientific method in the management of Indian forests. An Act was passed in 1865 for the protection and efficient management of the Government forests, and, it was followed by several other Acts, in later years. In 1878 a training school was established at DehraDun. The Forest Department controlled an area of 500,000 square miles, and India enjoyed the benefit of a scientific system of forestry.
Irrigation
In an agricultural country like India, irrigation has always formed an important branch of administration. Remarkable irrigation projects were undertaken by both Hindu and Muslim rulers, and the early British rulers also followed in their footsteps. But, a new policy was inaugurated by Lord Lawrence in 1866. He financed by public loans extensive irrigation schemes. The results of this new policy were the Sirhind Canal (1882), the Lower Ganges Canal (1878) and Agra Canal 1874). The first had a total length of 3,700 miles, including the feeder canals.
The “Colony canals” of the Punjab formed a class by themselves. They were intended to reclaim vast areas of waste land which belonged to the Government. The Lower Chenab Canal constructed between 1890 and 1899, had a total length of 2,700 miles, and irrigates an area of more than two million acres between the Chenab and Ravi Rivers. This region, originally lying waste with no population, supported 800,000 in 1901. The canal yielded an annual revenue, amounting to 40 per cent of the capital outlay.
Irrigation formed an important branch of every provincial administration, and various projects, both large and small, were being initiated with a view to irrigating the cultivated area and extending cultivation over waste lands.
Military Administration
Up to the Revolt, and even for a long time after that, the Presidencies of Bengal, Bombay, and Madras maintained separate armies under separate Commanders. Although the Commander-in-Chief of the Bengal army became nominally the head of the military forces of India, the Governments of Bombay and Madras managed their own forces, and mainly recruited them locally. By an Act which was passed in 1893 and came into operation in 1895, the whole Army in India was placed under the single control of the Commander-in-Chief, and divided into four territorial units–those of Bengal, Madras, Bombay and the Punjab each under a Lieutenant- General. In 1904 Lord Kitchener made a new organisation on different principles. The Indian military forces were organised into three army commands and nine divisions. The advantages of this system lay in the fact that it coordinated the organisation in time of peace with what would be necessary in time of war. In other words, the same generals would be in charge of the same units of the army both in peace and war.
Each Presidency army originally consisted of three elements, viz. (1) Indian troops, mostly locally recruited, (2) European units belonging to the Company and (3) Royal regiments. After 1858 the last two had of course to be amalgamated, but this provoked great discontent amongst the Company’s troops and about 10,000 men claimed their discharge. This is known as the ‘White Mutiny “. The discontent was, however allayed by the offer of a bounty and other concessions. As a result of the Revolt of 1857-59, several changes were introduced in the organisation of the army. First, the proportion of European troops was raised and that of Indian troops was reduced. In 1863 there were 65,000 European troops as against 140,000 Indians, and practically the same ratio was maintained till the outbreak of the First World War. The artillery was exclusively controlled by European troops.
Secondly, there was a great change in the composition of Indian troops, especially those of Northern India. Formerly, these Sepoys were recruited from the same region and belonged almost exclusively to the higher castes. The Revolt showed the defects of this system. Henceforth recruitment was made on a mixed basis so that every company included men of all races, castes and creeds, and could not easily unite and rise into mutiny.
A third change made itself felt only very gradually. It was the introduction of larger elements of fighting races like the Gurkhas, Pathans, and Sikhs. In course of time they replaced to a large extent the Hindustani forces of the Bengal army and the locally recruited Sepoys in Bombay and Madras. The most drastic changes were in the Madras army, which was gradually filled by Sikhs, Gurkhas and other Northerners, and ultimately the recruitment of Telugus ceased altogether.
From 1861 an army officer was appointed as a Military Member of the Governor- General’s Executive Council, through whom the Government supervised the administration of the Indian army. The position was rendered very anomalous by the fact that the Commander-in-Chief was also an extraordinary member of the Executive Council of the Governor- General. Although he was necessarily superior in rank to the Military Member, any proposal presented by him had to be submitted to the latter for review and criticism. There might have been some justification for this curious anomaly when each Presidency maintained a separate army, but when all the Indian forces were brought under the single control of the Commander-in-Chief in 1895, the anomaly called for redress. Lord Kitchener took up this question in 1904 and proposed to remove the anomaly by making the Commander-in-Chief the sole adviser of the Government on military matters. Lord Curzon, the Viceroy, strongly opposed this system, as he feared that it would remove to a large extent the ultimate control of the civil over the military authorities, and thereby affect the fundamental principles of the constitution. The Secretary of State, however, agreed with Lord Kitchener, and his decision was conveyed in such terms that Lord Curzon tendered his resignation in 1905. After 1907 the Commander-in-Chief became the only responsible authority, under the Government of India, for military administration.
Civil Administration
A very important change, with far-reaching consequences, took place in civil administration in 1905. Until then Bengal, Bihar and Orissa had formed one province ruled by a Lieutenant-Governor. Lord Curzon thought that this territory, comprising 189,000 square miles, was too large a unit for efficient administration and decided to rearrange the provincial boundaries. It was ultimately decided to separate the divisions of Dacca, Chittagong and Rajshahi from the province. These were joined to Assam, which was then under a Chief Commissioner, and a new province was constituted, called East Bengal and Assam, with Dacca as its capital. The proposal was carried into effect in 1905 in spite of strong protests from the public, and this Partition of Bengal caused a tremendous political agitation which stirred national feeling in India to its very depths, as will be described in a later chapter.
