Indian Antiquary Vol 52

Author(s): Richard Carnac Temple, Stephen Meredyth Edwardes, Krishnaswami Aiyangar
Publisher: Swati Publications

Page 325

NOVEMBER, 1023)
IN THE CENTURY BEFORE THE MUTINY
309
the Bengal Nawab was superseded by Clive and his son appointed in his place. Clive was thus unquestionably master, but he did not push matters, accepting a formal grant of Bengal, Bihar and Orissa from the helpless Shah Alam, who had by this become for all practical purposes a pensioner of the Company at Allahabad, to pass later on into the protection of Sindia of Gwalior. In this way the British East India Company became one of the many sovereign powers in India, just as were the Nizam of Hyderabad, Haidar Ali of Mysore, the Nawab of Oudh, and the various Rajput princes and the members of the Maratha confederacy, the Mughal Emperor of Delhi being a mere, though sometimes convenient, shadow to all parties.
After Clive, Warren Hastings acted as an effective Governor from the very first, treated the Bengal Nawab as a titular prince, and began to protect Oudh with the Company's troops, especially against the Robilla Afghans established independently north of the Ganges over a Hindu population. The proceedings of Clive and Hastings had so far been mcrely the actions of the representatives of an English Chartered Company, and it was rightly felt in England that if they were to be supported by the British Crown they must be leg lised. Hence the Regulating Act of 1773, which erected a Governor-General of British India as it then was, created a Council, a High Court, and a system of Government under the general superintendence of the King's Ministers. The Company still remained but with limited powers, and the point for the present purpose is that thereafter it was the Crown and not the Company that was ultimately responsible for the action of the Governors-General. British rule was legally established in all parts held to be British territory.
It was not possible in the conditions of Hastings' time for the British to be left in place by the rival powers in India, and to understand the next proceedings of Hastings, it is necessary to explain that the Maratha Confederacy consisted of five dynasties ruling in Central India. These may be briefly called the Peshwas of Poona (the titular leaders), the Bhonsles of Nagpore, the Gaekwars of Baroda, the Holkars of Indore, and the Sindias of Gwalior. In the eighteenth century they made themselves felt from Bombay to Calcutta and from Lahore to Madras; practically over all India. The impotent occupants of the throne of Delhi were always powerless whenever the Maratha chicfs came their way, but they were used by the Marathas for legalising purposes, just as Clive and the British had used them. Taking sides in a disputed succession involved the British in war with the Marathas, in which the Nizam and Haidar Ali of Mysore joined against the English. It came to nothing, but in the course of it Sindia of Gwalior took the ever-helpless Shah Alam of Delhi under his protection on his quitting that of the British. Before Hastings left India, Pitt's India Act (1784) was passed and resulted in a Minister for India under the title of President of the Board of Control, taking all the real power in Indian affairs out of the hands of the Directors. India was afterwards de facto governed by the Crown and the Governors-Goneral always acted as its representatives.
The India Act forbade a policy of conquest and annexation, but in the conditions it was not possible to follow it out, and every Governor-General found himself, however reluctantly, involved in war and its consequences, in or out of India, for the sake of subsequent peace. First came the Mysore War of 1790 with Tipu Sahib, son of the redoubtable Haidar Ali, and the acquisition of much territory in Southern India with the approval of the British Government. After this, when Lord Wellesley's important influence came to be felt, Tipu Sahib, who had been intriguing with France (Napoleon), was overthrown, and there was & still further acquisition of territory. Incidentally the Nizam was definitely brought under British protection. Wellesley next put into practice the principle of subordinate alliance, i.e., British protection of Native States, beginning with the Peshwa of Poona. This produced a war with the Marathas, in the course of which Bhonsle was defeated at Argaon,