Growth of Colonial Administrative Apparatus

The need for constitutional change arose after the East India Company became the political power in 1757. The British Government was no longer willing to allow the Company’s affairs to continue unsupervised. Pressure from merchants and manufacturers to end the monopoly of the Company mounted.

Public opinion was critical of corruption in the Government in Bengal. Free enterprise was a major demand. The British Parliament enacted a series of laws among which the Regulating Act of 1773 stood first, to curb the Company traders’ unrestrained commercial activities and to bring about some order in territories under the Company control.

Limiting the Company charter to periods of twenty years, subject to review upon renewal, this act gave the British government supervisory rights over the Bengal, Bombay, and Madras presidencies. The Regulating Act also created a unified administration for India, uniting the three presidencies under the authority of the Bengal’s governor, who was elevated to the new position of governor-general. Warren Hastings was the first incumbent governor-general (1773-1785).

The Pitt’s India Act of 1784 sometimes described as the "half-loaf system", as it sought to mediate between Parliament and the company directors, enhanced Parliament’s control by establishing the Board of Control, whose members were selected from the British cabinet. As governor-general from 1786 to 1793, Lord Cornwallis, professionalized, bureaucratized, and Europeanized the company’s administration. He also outlawed private trade by company employees, separated the commercial and administrative functions, and enhanced the salaries of company’s servants.

As revenue collection became the company’s most essential administrative function, Lord Cornwallis granted legal ownership of land to the zamindars in Bengal. In return, zamindars had to pay the government fixed revenue by a certain particular date. This arrangement was to last for ever; hence the title "permanent settlement” was given. This system was also known as the zamindari system. The immediate consequence was that as now zamindar became the owner of the land, the peasant was reduced to the status of the tenant on his own land. Moreover now land became a negotiable property and the state was excluded from agricultural expansion and development, which came under the purview of the zamindars.

In Madras and Bombay, however, the ryotwari (peasant) settlement system was set in motion, in which peasant cultivators had to pay annual taxes directly to the government.

The Charter Act of 1813 ended the monopoly of the Company over trade with India. The Company’s control over revenue, administration and appointments remained untouched. The Charter Act of 1833 abolished the Company’s monopoly of the China trade. The Act also deprived the presidencies of the power to make laws, concentrating legislative power with the Governor-General and his council.

With such expansion of the British territories and the increasing administrative responsibilities, a bureaucracy was also required to control British possessions. In 1785, Lord Cornwallis created a professional cadre of Company servants who had generous salaries, had no private trading or production interests in India, enjoyed the prospect of regular promotion and were entitled to pensions.

All high-level posts were reserved for the British, and Indians were excluded. Cornwallis appointed British judges, and established British officials as revenue collectors and magistrates in each district of Bengal. From 1806 the Company trained its young recruits in Haileybury College near London. Appointments were still organized on a system of patronage.

In 1829 the system was strengthened by establishing districts throughout British India small enough to be effectively controlled by an individual British official who henceforth exercised a completely autocratic power, acting as revenue collector, judge and chief of police.

After 1833 the Company selected amongst its nominated candidates by competitive examination. After 1853, selection was entirely on merit and the examination was thrown open to any British candidate. The Indian civil service (i) was very highly paid; (ii) it enjoyed political power which no bureaucrat could have had in England.