To show British generosity to the rulers overall ‘an act of general and substantial grace5 was needed. The specific measure that Canning proposed was to give ‘an assurance to every Chief above the rank of Jagheerdar, who now governs his own territory,... that on
77 Ibid.
78 Canning to Wood, 13 June 1860, quoted in S. Gopal, British Policy in India, 1858-1905 (Cambridge, 1965), p. 8.
79 The Annual Register, 100 (1858), p. 250, quoted Copland, British Raj, p. 95.
80 Gol to SoS, No. 43A, 30 April 1860, PCI, 1792-1864, Vol. 85 quoted R. J. Moore, Sir Charles W ood’s Indian Policy, 1858-1866 (Manchester, 1966), p. 164.
failure of natural heirs his adoption o f a successor ... will be recognised5.82 No other innovation, he assured Wood, would capture the confidence of the princes so successfully and 4give a character of immovability to the policy which it initiates5.83 Both at home and from his Council Canning's proposal evoked a favourable response. Sir Henry Bartle Frere described the effects of the measure in glowing terms and told Canning that it would ‘do more for tranquillity and good government in India than years of legislation and successful campaigns5.84 No avid reformer, Frere felt few pangs of conscience at the thought of millions left under Indian rule, ‘Every real advantage to the people which can be expected from our rule can be secured through a Native ruler, with the aid of an English Political Agent of average ability, more surely, easily, and cheaply than by any form of direct administration with which I am acquainted5.85 Sir Charles Wood was less optimistic over the future of the states, but he recognised the value of attaching to Britain those ‘influential classes5 which would deprive ‘the active and
stimng elements5 m India of any possible leaders. In a dispatch of July 1860 he
authorised the issue of adoption sanads to all sovereign chiefs under British protection, ‘It is not by the extension of our Empire that its permanence is to be secured, but by the character of British rule in the territories already committed to our care, and by practically demonstrating that we are as willing to respect the rights of others as we are capable of maintaining our own5.87
The measure was well received by some sections of the Indian people for different reasons. As Metcalf points out, ‘the states were islands of self-government in a sea of
82 Ibid. 83 Ibid.
84 Minute from Frere to Canning, 19 June I860, enclosure Canning to Wood, 26 June 1860, Wood Collection, Vol. 4.
85 Ibid.
86 Wood to Canning, 26 July 1860, Wood Collection, Vol. 4. 87 SoS to Gol, No. 5 9 ,2 6 July 1860, PCI, 1792-1864, Vol. 440.
OQ
alien rule’. They provided an outlet for political ambition denied in British India and
an example of the ability of Indians to rule themselves.89 As early as August 1858 the
Hindoo Patriot had advocated recognition of the right of adoption and went on to
recommend that the princes be freed from the surveillance of British residents. India, the newspaper suggested, should be organised on a federal basis, with the various states and provinces left free to manage their own internal affairs.90 With considerably more vehemence the vernacular Bengali press deplored British interference in the princely states and one newspaper asserted in 1863 that despite adoption ‘there is no independence allowed to Native Rajahs’.91
However Bhupen Qanungo states that not only in government correspondence but also in public addresses to rulers at durbars, Canning justified any such ‘interference’ by stressing that the British Government had a duty to the people of the native states, as much as to the rulers and their families. The Government would always consider it a right of the paramount power to intervene in the affairs of the native states to ensure elementary good government according to the principles of British rule in the country.92 Indeed the recognition of adoption was by no means to prevent the British Government from interfering in princely affairs. Canning made it plain in April 1860 that, with annexation repudiated, intervention was a necessary deterrent to the opportunities now available for gross misrule. In explaining the adoption procedure to Wood, the Viceroy declared, ‘The proposed measure will not debar the Government of India from stepping in to set right such serious abuses in a native Government as may threaten any part of the
88 Metcalf, Aftermath o f Revolt, p. 225. 89 Ibid.
90 Hindoo Patriot, 26 August 1858, quoted Metcalf, Aftermath o f Revolt, p. 226. 91 Soma Prakesh, 21 September 1863, quoted Metcalf, Aftermath o f Revolt, p. 226.
92 B. Qanungo, ‘A Study o f British Relations with the Native States o f India, 1858-62’, Journal o f Asian Studies 26 (February 1967), p. 265.
country with anarchy or disturbance, nor from assuming temporary change of a Native State when there shall be sufficient reason to do s o \93
The issue of sanads of adoption has often been represented as indicative of a determination to put an end to Britain's career of annexation in India, however during the 1860s the tide of post-Mutiny reaction began to ebb. Lord Elgin, Viceroy from 1862 to 1863, was to some extent in agreement with his departmental heads, such as Sir Henry Durand, that Canning's assessment of imperial priorities had been warped by the trauma of 1857. Writing to Wood in September 1862, he wondered whether the direction which British policy had taken under Canning was ‘altogether correct’ and whether ‘that portion of it which was a policy of circumstance should not have been distinguished from that which was a policy of principle’.94 Elgin was sure that his predecessor had ‘never intended to let the chiefs get the bit into their mouths’ and that ‘his policy of deference to the authority of native chiefs was only a means to an end, that end being the establishment o f the British Raj in India’.95 The Viceroy concluded, ‘It may perhaps turn out that a time of peace is better fitted to one of revolution for die discovery of the true theory according to which our relations with native states ought to be conducted’.96