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An Imperial Dilemma: The Reluctant Indianization of the Indian Political Service

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2008

W. Murray Hogben
W. Murray Hogben
Affiliation:
Collège Militaire Royal de Saint-Jean, Saint-Jean, Québec
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Extract

One of the most difficult sets of questions for any imperial power or ruling group is if, when, and how to open the ranks of the imperial services to the imperialized. For a considerable period of time there may be logical enough reasons, related to imperial security and distrust of the conquered, for avoiding these questions altogether. However, sooner or later it becomes neccessary to win the collaboration of the losers, and then certain ‘liberalizing’, or just realistic tendencies begin to prevail. These are often inspired more by ‘home’ influences than by ‘out-post’ sentiment which tends to be more suspicious of its recent victims. Nevertheless, somewhere along the line a sometimes embarrassing precedent is made, and the integration or localization of the imperial civil and military services, and even of the executive, is undertaken. Usually the start is at the lowest levels, the clerks and soldiers, but later the upper or officer class also begins to lose its initial imperial or racial solidarity.

Type
Articles
Information
Modern Asian Studies , Volume 15 , Issue 4 , October 1981 , pp. 751 - 769
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1981

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References

I must gratefully acknowledge my debt to the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada for their research grant of the summer of 1976 for this topic, and for their previous doctoral thesis grants. Also, I must thank the Staff of the India Office Library for their help, and especially Mr Martin Moir. It is from that Library that the bulk of these British documents come, and hence the Indian research side has necessarily been neglected. However, I will fall back on Robinson and Gallagher's subtitle's realistic emphasis in their Africa and the Victorians: The Official Mind of Imperialism. It was, after all, the British officials who were making the decisions, whatever the pressures, and for better or for worse.The sources used herein are all found in the India Office Library, London, England, unless noted otherwise as CUL—Cambridge University Library, for Papers of Lord Hardinge of Penshurst. Other abbreviations used are GOI—Government of India, FPD—Foreign and Political Department, and LAD—Legislative Assembly Debates. The India Office Library private papers in European languages abbreviation—MSS. Eur.—has been omitted, as for example in note 21—C 152/4.

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13 Telegram, Secretary of State to Viceroy, Foreign Dept., 7 06 1921; and Secretary, FPD, GOI, to Undersecretary, India Office, ‘Recruitment of Indians for the Political Department of the GOI’, 22 06 1921, ibid.

14 ‘Indians in the Indian Foreign Department’, Manchester Guardian, 6 09 1921, ibid.

15 LAD, Q. 171, N. M. Joshi, 15 09 1921; Q. 257, P. S. Sivaswamy Anjer, 19 09 1921; Q. 407, Munshi Iswar Saran, 20 09 1921; Q. 417, same; Q. 531, Nawab Khwaja Habibullah, 20 09 1921; and ‘Statement showing (a) the number of Indians appointed to posts under the Government of India and paid from Central Revenues on salaries of Rs. 500 or above and Rs. 1,000 and upwards during the régime of His Excellency the present Viceroy, (b) the appointments and Departments in which no Indian has yet been appointed on Rs. 1,000 and above and (c), the percentage of Indian element on salaries of Rs. 1,000 or above’, tabled by Hon. Mr. W. M. Hailey, LAD, 30 09 1921, ibid. The table seems contradictory, however, suggesting that respectively three and five appointments had been made below and above the Rs. 1,000 level.

16 LAD, Q. 639ff, Sarfaraz Hussain Khan, K. Ahmed, 8 03 1924, and replies, ibid.

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19 Letter by Menon, K. P. S. to author, 12 04 1971;Google ScholarMenon, , ‘My Life and Work in the I.C.S.’, in Panjabi, K. L. (ed.), The Civil Servant in India (Bombay, 1965),Google Scholar and Many Worlds (London, 1965), p. 34.Google Scholar

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21 Birkenhead, to Irwin, Lord, 12 05 1927, C 152/3.Google Scholar

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25 ‘Note on the future of the Political Department; analysis of opinions received from Senior Political Officers’, by C. C. Watson, Pol. Sec., 4 07 1930, ibid; and The Gazette of India, No. 32, Simla, 9 08 1930, L/P/18/1766.

26 LAD, Q, 547, 17 02 1931, Mr B. Das; Q. 548; and Q. 884, 9 03 1931, ShaikhSadiq Hasan; Q. 901, 9 03 1931, Sardar Sant Singh; Q. 902, 9 03 1931, Sardar Sant Singh, L/P&/S13/583.

27 House of Commons Debates, 26 05 1930, Vol. 239; and Parliamentary Notice: Question by Lt. Cmdr. Kenworthy, with PY/218/1931, L/P&S/13/583.Google Scholar

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29 Conf. Letter, No. F 125-E/33, Political Secretary, GOI, to H.M. Undersecretary of State, 31 08 1933; Telegram, Secretary of State to GOI, 19 10 1933; and GOI, FPD, to Secretary of State, 24 10 1933, ibid.

30 LAD, Q. 322, 2 03 1934, S. G.Jog, and Sir H. A. F. Metcalfe's reply; Q. 120, 12 04 1934, Hon'ble Sardar Shri Jaganath Maharaj Pandit, and Glancy's reply, ibid.

31 LAD, Q. 398, 6 08 1934, Bhai Parma Nand, and Metcalfe's reply, ibid.

32 Council of State, Q. 56, 13 08 1934, Hon'ble Prakash Narain Sapru; and LAD, Q. 814, 22 08 1934, Lala Rameshawar Prasad Bagla,Google Scholaribid. Q. 884, 22 08 1934, S. C. Mitra and S. G. Jog, and Metcalfe's reply; Q. 887, 28 08 1934, Mitra and Jog, and Metcalfe's reply; and Q. 36, 5 02 1935, Sardar Sant Singh; and 5 02 1935, Ahmad Ebrahim Haroon Jaffer, and Metcalf's reply, ibid.

33 LAD, Q. 146, 12 02 1935, Singh, Ram Narayan, Satyamurti, S., and Ayyangar, M. A., and Metcalfe's reply; and Note by Patrick to Smith, F. W. H., Walton, , Glancy, , and Wakely, , 27 03 1935,Google Scholaribid.

34 LAD, Q. 914, 21 03 1935, Satyamurti, S., and Metcalfe's reply; Q. 1469, 4 04 1935, Satyamurti, S., and reply; Q. 1503, 4 04 1935, Sham Lal, and Q. 1504, Lal, Sham and Chettiar, T. S. A., and replies; and Q. 1505, 4 04 1935, Lal, Sham, Satyamurti, S., Chettiar, T. S. A. and Saksena, Mohan Lal, and reply,Google Scholaribid.

35 Notes by Patrick and Smith, 7 05 1936, in ref. to above question; and House of Commons Debates, Q. 1, for 3 04 1939, Mr H. Day, and reply to Mr Munro, Lord of the Treasury, and Q. 1, for 26 06 1939, ibid.

36 ‘Memorandum’ by Lt. Col. Sir Hassan Suhrwardy, O.B.E., to Sir Findlater Stewart, G.C.B., India Office, 4 04 1940; and Note by Suhrwardy, , attached, 4 04 1940, L/P&S/13/1966.Google Scholar

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39 Linlithgow to Amery, 24 09 1940, F 125/9; Conf. letter, Political Secretary to Crown Representative to Undersecretary of State, 14 10 1940, L/L&S/13/1766; and Official letter, Amery to Linlithgow, 17 04, F 125/14.Google Scholar

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46 ‘Statement Showing Recruitments of the Indian Political Service in the Immediate Post-War Years’, table enclosed with above, reference 45, and Cypher telegram, Secretary of State to Crown Representative, No. 7318, 3 04 1945, ibid.

47 Amery to SirColville, John, Acting Viceroy, 3 05 1945; and Wavell to LordPethick-Lawrence, 5 11 1945, L/PO/473.Google Scholar

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50 Coen, Creagh, The Indian Political Service, p. 4. The 07 1947 Supplement to the Graded List of the Indian Political Service, lists the last incumbents in office and as none are on the Residents' list, all are listed on the time-scale, with or without numbers depending on whether they were holding cadre positions. Total strength was supposed to be about 180, so Indianization had reached barely 10 percent of this figureGoogle Scholar

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