So How was the Transformation Brought About?

Continuing the blog of last week, the interesting question that arises is how did the British political and bureaucratic bosses bring about the much-needed reforms in their bureaucracy in India, transforming it in the process, from a corrupt Service to that of an incorruptible Service?  

The situation in India after the Battle of Plassey in 1757 and the Battle of Buxer in 1764, was very bleak for the East India Company. Though its staff were rich and returned to England as ‘nabobs,’ the Company itself was sinking into bankruptcy.

Clive was sent back to India, this time to bridle the corruption in the Company that he had set rolling. He returned in 1765 as the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Bengal. With equal vigor, Clive applied himself to the task of disciplining the Company servants and to clean up the corrupt practices. He became the ‘poacher (who had) turned the game keeper!’[1]

First thing Clive did was to make the acceptance of presents from the local people a crime punishable by law. Giving of presents to the persons of power and authority, says O’Malley, was an immemorial custom and an ‘immemorial curse’ in India.[2] All presents above the values of Rs.4000 were to be paid into the Company treasury and the staff were not to accept any present above the value of Rs.1000, that too only with the sanction of the Company Counsel.

Second, he banned private trade by the Company servants and under the threat of dismissal got the staff to sign agreements promising good conduct. Salaries were still miserably low, 65 Pounds a year. Free European merchants were deported. Company servants from interior trading stations were called back.

The staff realized Clive meant business and that if they did not fall in line they might be sent back to England. They relented. To increase their income, which the Directors of the Company throttled, Clive regulated monopolized trade of salt, betel and tobacco and shared the profit gained with the Company servants.

Never the less, clandestine private trade and acceptance of presents on the sly continued, but irregularities were reduced considerably. Many officials were compelled to retire early. Clive retired in 1767, and was himself charged and tried for corrupt practices in 1772.

Though indicted by the Committee which went into these charges, Clive was let off in recognition of the meritorious services rendered to the Company and the Country, by way of sowing the seeds for the future British Empire in India. For all that finally Clive committed suicide at the age of 49 and was even refused a marker on his burial place.[3]

It was Warren Hastings the next Governor of Bengal in 1772, who sincerely brought in improvements in the service, and had a reputation of clean hands. By this time a famine was raging in Bengal and a once rich province had been reduced to a poor one.

To supervise revenue collection, English officers called Supervisors were appointed at the district level by 1769, later called ‘Collectors,’ who stood between the ryots (farmers) and their oppressors.[4] They were called to display the ‘national principles of honor, faith, rectitude and humanity,’ characteristics of a noble English man.

Warren Hastings made a temporary settlement of land revenue for five years; He established a network of civil courts throughout his jurisdiction and an appellate court in Calcutta. In 1773, he abolished the free passes for the goods of the Company servants.

Duties of all goods were reduced to a uniform 2 ½ percent for all traders, Europeans and Indian alike, ending the unfair competition enjoyed by the Company servants, thus freeing the trade from abuses.

He insisted officers to set apart a fixed time to hear complaints from the people and installed complaint box in the office of the Collector. He made it compulsory for the officers to read these aloud every day in the offices as their first duty.

When Hastings left the office in 1785, a distinct improvement had happened in the morale of the service, though corruption had not been eradicated completely. The era of ‘nabobs’ was finally over.

Even against Hastings impeachment proceedings were initiated by the English Parliament about a few high-handed decisions taken during his governorship. That did show the caliber of the politicians of that country, to call a spade a spade.

The credit of creating a civil service in the modern sense would go to Cornwallis during his tenure as Governor-General in 1787. He had massive integrity and came armed with power to improve matters in India. For the first time an Englishman of high rank and high character appeared in Bengal, enthused to improve matters.[5]

He prohibited gambling, dueling, partying, nautch girl dances and such immoral behaviors of the Company servants. He increased the salaries (Rs.1500 per month to Collectors!) and abolished strictly private trade and acceptance of presents. He separated civil and commercial posts and integrity was insisted upon.

Reforms by Wellesley who became the Governor-General in 1798 rounded off the efforts of Clive and Cornwallis and India started to attract qualified people from the better classes of British society. Abbas Dubois in 1822 from Pondicherry and Macaulay in 1833 praise the honesty and integrity of these officers of the Company.

Within 50-65 years, the leaders of the Company had managed to transform a once corrupt service into non-corrupt service.

The question remains, how come the Governor/Governor Generals of the Company implemented and enforced these reforms which transformed the Company officials? What was their motivation and how did England produce such leaders with integrity, and grit to enforce such moral reforms and achieve favorable results?

To this we will turn in the next blog.

---

[1] Spear, Percival, “The Nabobs: A Study of the Social Life of the English n Eighteenth Century India,” Calcutta: Rupa and Co, 1991, pp. 30-31

[2] O’Malley, “The Indian Civil Service: 1601-1930,” London: John Murray, 1931, p.13

[3] Malleson, “Rulers of India: Lord Clive,” Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1898, p.210

[4] Thus began the long tradition of the officers called Collectors, which exists even today in Indian districts.

[5] Kaye, “Lives of Indian Officers,” Vol.1, London: J.J. Keliher & Co., 1904, p.59.