¹ Throughout this essay the area which was known during the period both as the North-West Provinces and Oudh and as the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh is referred to for convenience as the UP.

² For some of the problems with which government contended see, for example, the papers by Cohn, B. S. and Metcalf, T. R. in Frykenberg, R. E. (ed.), Land Control and Social Structure in Indian History (Madison, 1969)Google Scholar and Metcalf, T. R., The Aftermath of Revolt: India, 1857–1870 (Princeton, 1965).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

³ Mill, J. S., Principles of Political Economy (3rd edition, London, 1852), I, p. 394.Google Scholar

⁴ Oudh Administration Report 1858–59 quoted ibid., p. 137.

⁵ Speech by SirStrachey, John in the Legislative Council, 28 January 1870,Google Scholaribid., p. 160.

⁶ Chief Secretary to Government, North-Western Provinces and Oudh [henceforth NWP and O], to Secretary, Government of India Home Department, 7 October 1893, NWP and O, General Administration Department [henceforth GAD], November 1893, India Office Library [henceforth IOL].

⁷ One lieutenant-governor, no doubt recalling the intransigence of the Bahraich taluqdars in the Mutiny, warned against allowing the semi-feudatory chiefs ‘on our North-Eastern border’ to get too strong. Minute by MacDonnell, A. P., October 1901, p. 26. MacDonnell Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford.Google Scholar

⁸ An investigation in the UP in reaction to ‘The humble Memorial of the National Muhammadan Association’ of 1882 showed that out of 54,130 native officials holding appointments under the provincial government, 18,828 or 34.8 per cent were Muslims. Officiating [henceforth Offg.] Secretary to Government, NWP and O, to Secretary, Government of India Home Department, 16 April 1883; NWP and O, GAD, June 1883, IOL.

⁹ Muir, to Mayo, , 13 October 1870, Mayo Papers, Add. 7490 (56), Cambridge University Library.Google Scholar

¹⁰ Lyall, to Primrose, , Private Secretary to the Viceroy, February 1884, Lyall Papers (43), IOL.Google Scholar

¹¹ Ibid.

¹² Lyall was determined that Kishore, Newal should be honoured; he wrote to Dufferin detailing his wealth, his large publishing business, his ownership of the leading vernacular paper of the province, and his great influence in the UP and the native states. He concluded, ‘In short he is a man who might be useful both from his connexion with native journalism and book printing, and from the extensive means that he possesses of keeping himself and others informed of the state of feeling and opinion on any questions that concern the native community. He is by no means unwilling to find himself on good terms with the Government; and his intelligence and sagacity make it worth while to keep up communications with him.’ Lyall to Dufferin, 19 October 1887, Dufferin Papers (Reel 532), IOL. Nor was this view of Newal Kishore's importance restricted to Lyall. When, in 1892, the Director of Public Instruction launched an attempt to reduce Newal Kishore's government publishing contracts on the grounds of their high prices, the lieutenant-governor, Colvin, immediately vetoed the measure. Secretary to Government NWP and O to Director of Public Instruction NWP and O, 30 June 1892; NWP and O, GAD, July 1892, IOL.Google Scholar

¹³ Police, law and justice accounted for just under one-third of the UP government's ordinary provincial expenditure, a much greater sum than that spent on what might be termed the development departments: education, irrigation and public works. In 1878/79, for example, £1,151,039 was spent on police and security compared with £812,913 on development, Parliamentary Papers [henceforth PP] 1880, LII, pp. 202–3.Google Scholar So important was the police department that MacDonnell described its supervision as ‘the crux of Indian administration’ (McDonnell, to Curzon, , 31 August 1900, Curzon Papers (202), IOL), and, while the charges of other departments were being decentralized, the provincial government was willing to take on those of this department. Similar considerations applied to the army. Its dispositions were taken seriously. Whenever a new railway line was projected, its gauge and its route were decided on the basis of which areas would require the most rapid dispatch of troops. Whenever the high command threatened to reduce or move garrisons in the province, all officials from district magistrates to the lieutenant-governor complained bitterly. See, for example, Secretary to Government, NWP and O, to Secretary, Government of India Military Department, 25 June 1884, NWP and O, GAD, June 1884, IOL;Google Scholar and Lyall, to Chesney, , 1 February 1885. Lyall Papers (47), IOL. Outlining the basis of provincial security MacDonnell stressed that ‘The chief precaution is the maintenance of an adequate military force in the garrisons here’, MacDonnell to Elgin, 22 August 1897, Elgin Papers (71), IOL.Google Scholar

¹⁴ For example, the imports of Cawnpore, which rapidly became the major entrepôt commanding over 10 per cent of the province's trade, grew from over 600,000 maunds in 1847 to nearly 15,000,000 maunds sixty years later. District Gazetteers of the United Provinces, XIX, Cawnpore, 75.Google Scholar

¹⁵ Grain was the major export and the amount of exports in any one year depended largely on the success of the harvest thus, in 1892, the value of grain exports was Rs. 9,55,50,000, but, in 1895, it was as little as Rs. 1,69,00,000.

¹⁶ The figures for import and export increases are based on triennial averages calculated from the Annual Reports on the Rail-borne Traffic of the North-Western Provinces and Oudh for the years 1883–84, 1884–85, 1885–86, 1903–04, 1904–05, 1905–1906.Google Scholar

¹⁷ The pace of such changes was rapid. In the late 1830s, barely a stitch of foreign cloth was worn by the inhabitants of east UP but, by the early 1860s, even in some of the divisions of Azamgarh, the weavers' stronghold, more than 70 per cent of the population was clothed in English goods. Overall in Azamgarh district 36 per cent of the population was clothed in English goods but in neighbouring Ghazipur 52 per cent of the population wore English cottons, ‘Report of Colonel Baird Smith to the Indian Government … on the Commercial Condition of the North West Province of India’. Appendices V and VI, PP 1862, XL, p. 322.

¹⁸ Annual Reports on the Rail-borne Traffic of the North- Western Provinces and Oudh for the years 1895/6 and 1905/1906.

¹⁹ Taking 1873 as the base year the average retail price index for food-grains in India was 97.8 in 1861–65, 166.4 in 1896–1900 and 285.8 for 1916–20. Calculated from Summary Table III, Index Numbers of Indian Prices 1861–1931 (Department of Commercial Intelligence and Statistics, India), (Delhi, 1933).Google Scholar

²⁰ For the movement of banias into landholding and variations in different parts of the province in this period see Robinson, F. C. R., ‘The Politics of U.P. Muslims, 1906–1922’ (unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. thesis, 1970), pp. 26–35 and Table V.Google Scholar

²¹ For instance in 1872/3 commercial interests paid 52.9 per cent of the total income tax realized and landed interests only 40 per cent. In fact, as government pointed out, commercial interests most probably paid much more as many commercial men who had invested in property were entered under land’. North-Western Provinces: Report on the Administration of Income Tax for the year 1872–73 (Allahabad, 1873), p. 13.Google Scholar

²² Cawnpore Gazette (Cawnpore), 1 June 1892,Google ScholarUnited Provinces Native Newspaper Reports, 1892.Google Scholar

²³ For an elaboration of this argument see Bayly, C. A., ‘The Development of Political Organization in the Allahabad Locality, 1880–1925’ (D.Phil. thesis, Oxford, 1970), pp. 89–99.Google Scholar

²⁴ How a man might climb is well demonstrated by the career of Paunchkouree Khan in a contemporary exposé of mofussil abuses. Khan, Paunchkouree, The Revelations of an Orderly (Benares, 1848).Google Scholar

²⁵ Frykenberg has shown how, between 1788 and 1848, in the Guntur district of Madras, Indian district officers, notably Maratha Brahmins under the leadership of the sheristadar, captured real control of district administration. Guntur may have been a special case but government's actions lead one to suspect that similar forces were at work in the UP as well. Frykenberg, R. E., Guntur District 1788–1848 (Oxford, 1965).Google Scholar

²⁶ Circular issued by the Board of Revenue with reference to district establishments. NWP and O, GAD, April 1882, IOL.

²⁷ NWP Police Administration Report, 1869–70, p. 53BGoogle Scholarquoted in Bayly, , op. cit., p. 97.Google Scholar

²⁸ MacDonnell, to Elgin, , 22 August 1897 (Confidential), Elgin Papers (71), IOL.Google Scholar

²⁹ White, E., Offg. Director of Public Instruction, NWP and O, to Chief Secretary, Government of NWP and O, 9 January 1885; NWP and O, General and Educational Department, January 1885, IOL.Google Scholar

³⁰ The Nagri Resolution of the UP government issued 18 April 1900. NWP and O, GAD, October 1900, IOL.

³¹ Lyall, to SirMaine, Henry, 19 December 1886, Lyall Papers (48), IOL.Google Scholar

³² For instance, when, in 1880, the Board of Revenue was asked to put forward a specimen tahsildari exam, it first objected strongly to exams as a means of selection, Mackintosh, J. S., Secretary to the Board of Revenue, NWP and O, to Secretary, Government of NWP and O, 27 January 1880; NWP and O, GAD, March 1880, IOL. Then, when its objections were rejected, it recommended that 50 per cent should be allowed to the viva voce part of the exam (50 per cent was needed to qualify), i.e. that it should retain discretion. NWP and O, GAD, June 1880, IOL.Google Scholar

³³ Hardy, R. G., Offg. Commissioner of Rohilkhand to Chief Secretary to Goverment, NWP and O, 14 September 1895; NWP and O, GAD, July 1896, IOL.Google Scholar

³⁴ A member of the educational department wrote in 1885, ‘The rigid application of such a rule [compulsory educational qualification for government posts] would do more than anything else to incite the people of these Provinces to educate their boys.’ White, E., Offg. Director of Public Instruction, NWP and O, to Chief Secretary, Government of NWP and O, January 1885; NWP and O, General and Education Department, January 1885, IOL.Google Scholar

³⁵ In 1865, out of a police force of 25,990, 9,210 were Muslims and, in 1905 out of a force of 28,548, 11,416 were Muslims. The amalgamation of the North-Western Provinces with Oudh in 1877 made little difference to the Muslim proportion. NWP Police Administration Report, 1865, pp. 78–9 and U.P. Police Administration Report, 1905, p. 23A.Google Scholar

³⁶ Resolution of the NWP and O government of 3 February 1883 urging that qualifications for office should be strictly observed. NWP and O, General and Education Department, January 1885, IOL.

³⁷ Colvin, Auckland, Finance Member, Government of India to Dufferin, 23 February 1885, Dufferin Papers (Reel 528), IOL.Google Scholar

³⁸ Fifty per cent represents the rise in expenditure on defence and foreign affairs (foreign affairs taking no more than per cent of the total) between the average of the two years 1883/4, 1884/5 and 1895/6. Over the previous twenty-three years, costs under the same heads had risen by only 15 per cent, ‘Final Report of the Royal Commission on the Administration of the Expenditure of India’, PP, 1900, XXIX, pp. 598–99.Google Scholar

³⁹ Muir, to Mayo, , 24 January 1871, Mayo Papers, Add. 7490 (56), Cambridge University Library.Google Scholar

⁴⁰ Colvin, Auckland to Wallace, Mackenzie, Private Secretary to the Viceroy, 22 December 1885, Dufferin Papers (Reel 529), IOL.Google Scholar

⁴¹ Report on the Administration of the N.-W. Provinces for the year 1868–69 (Allahabad, 1870), p. 50.Google Scholar

⁴² Muir, to Mayo, , 24 January 1871, Mayo Papers, Add. 7490 (56), Cambridge University Library.Google Scholar

⁴³ So it was unremarkable that the Commissioner of Meerut should observe that ‘The Income Tax last year as you saw caused a good deal of disaffection and this showed itself most amongst the Mahomedan Population—and in the Md towns…’. Court, M., Commissioner of Meerut, to Muir, 5 June 1870, Mayo Papers, Add. 7490 (2). Cambridge University Library.Google Scholar

⁴⁴ For a detailed discussion of these developments see Robinson, F. C. R., ‘The local origins of Muslim separatism in the United Provinces 1883–1916’ in Gallagher, J. A., Seal, A. and Johnson, G. (eds.), Local Roots of Indian Politics (CUP, forthcoming).Google Scholar

⁴⁵ White, J., District Magistrate of Benares, to Chief Secretary, Government of NWP and O, 17 April 1891; NWP and O, GAD, September 1891, IOL.Google Scholar

⁴⁶ Cadell, A., Offg. Commissioner Agra Division, to Chief Secretary, Government of NWP and O, NWP and O, GAD, June 1890, IOL.Google Scholar

⁴⁷ See Robinson, F. C. R., ‘The local origins of Muslim separatism in the United Provinces 1883–1916’, in Gallagher, , Seal, and Johnson, (eds.), Local Roots of Indian Politics (CUP, forthcoming).Google Scholar

⁴⁸ Ikram, S. M., Modern Muslim India and the Birth of Pakistan (2nd edition, Lahore, 1965), p. 139.Google Scholar

⁴⁹ See, for instance, SirSyed's, speech on a local self-government Bill in the Legislative Council on 12 January 1883. Proceedings of the Indian Legislative Council, 1883, vol. 22, pp. 19–20.Google Scholar

⁵⁰ Crosthwaite, , lieutenant-governor of the NWP and O, to Lansdowne, 13 September 1893, Lansdowne Papers (25), IOL.Google Scholar

⁵¹ Although the Memorial claimed to represent the interests of the Muslims of all India, its content was derived from the experience and directed towards the interests of UP Muslims while it owed its composition to two prominent UP Muslims, Mohsin-ul-Mulk and Syed Hosein Bilgrami.

⁵² The Muslim address ‘To his Excellency the Right Honourable the Earl of Minto …’ clause 5, Harcourt Butler Papers (57), IOL.

⁵³ Clauses 8 and 13, ibid.

⁵⁴ MacDonnell, to Viceroy, , 16 July 1897 (Confidential), Elgin Papers (71), IOL.Google Scholar

⁵⁵ MacDonnell, to Viceroy, , 22 August 1897 (Confidential), Elgin Papers (71), IOL.Google Scholar

⁵⁶ Lyall, to Dufferin, , 12 September 1886, Dufferin Papers (Reel 530), IOL.Google Scholar

⁵⁷ Minute, signed MacDonnell, A. P., October 1901, p. 5, MacDonnell Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford.Google Scholar

⁵⁸ Ibid.

⁵⁹ Crosthwaite, to Lansdowne, , 13 September 1893, Lansdowne Papers (25), IOL.Google Scholar

⁶⁰ MacDonnell, to Elgin, , 9 May 1897, Elgin Papers (68), IOL.Google Scholar

⁶¹ MacDonnell, to Elgin, , 19 March 1898, Elgin Papers (72), IOL.Google Scholar

⁶² Douglass, Captain W. B., Offg. Private Secretary to the Lieutenant-Governor of the UP, to Theodore Morison, Principal of Aligarh, no date, enclosed in MacDonnell to Curzon, 19 October 1900, Curzon Papers (202), IOL.Google Scholar

⁶³ Lyall, to Dufferin, , 12 July 1885, Lyall Papers (46), IOL.Google Scholar

⁶⁴ Crosthwaite to SirFitzpatrick, D., lieutenant-governor of the Punjab, 3 October 1893, Lansdowne Papers (25), IOL.Google Scholar

⁶⁵ Note by Colvin, Auckland, 11 June 1889, Home Public A, August 1892, 237–52, National Archives of India [henceforth NAI].Google Scholar

⁶⁶ In the province's 1893 council there were six elected seats. The UP Chamber of Commerce seat and the Allahabad Senate seat up to 1904 were held by Englishmen. Three of the remaining four were held by the following men with large landed interests: Pandit Sri Ram, Seth Lacchman Das, Seth Raghubar Dayal, Raja of Awa, Nihal Chand, Raja of Kalakankar, Munshi Madho Lal and the Raja of Partabgarh, on the other hand the southern municipalities seat was held by Mittra, Charu Chandra, excise contractor (1893–95), Pandit Bishambhar Nath, lawyer (1895–02), and Pandit Madan Mohan Malaviya, lawyer (1902–1909).Google Scholar

⁶⁷ Government's nomination policy indicates both the careful balance that it maintained between Muslim and landlord or West UP and Oudh interests and the way in which it translated the strength it had fostered among its traditional allies into the new field of politics. So, in 1895, it nominated Sir Syed's son to represent the Aligarh Muslim interest and the son of the Maharaja of Benares to represent the eastern landlord interest. From 1900, government combined the landlord and Muslim interests by nominating two Muslim landlords after the following pattern: one would be a man such as the Nawab of Pahasu who as President of the Aligarh Trustees would represent the Aligarh Muslim interest (a man more intimately connected with the College could no longer be trusted) the other would be an Oudh taluqdar such as the Raja of Mahmudabad who would represent the eastern landlord interest.

⁶⁸ Minute, signed MacDonnell, A. P., October 1901, p. 34, MacDonnell Papers, Bodleian Library, Oxford.Google Scholar

⁶⁹ Harcourt Butler wrote to his Mother in 1903 that the text book committee was ‘under the influence of the ultra-Hindu section who are now writing primary textbooks in sanskritized Hindi which the people cannot understand’. Butler, Harcourt to MrsButler, George, 13 May 1903, Harcourt Butler Papers (6), IOL.Google Scholar

⁷⁰ The local government referred to the traditions of the University which ‘have grown out of the liberal policy, which under the guidance of Sir Alfred Lyall, shaped the original constitution of the University and have been consolidated by the relations since established between the Government and the University, and through the latter with the leaders of public opinion in these Provinces. The lieutenant-governor has already advised the Government of India that the satisfactory tone of public opinion in these Provinces is largely due to that policy, and he would view any interruption of public confidence in the University with real concern.’ Secretary, Government of UP, to Government of India, 6 November 1903, Home Education A December 1903, 87–95, NAT, quoted in Bayly, , op. cit., p. 271.Google Scholar