Queen Victoria: Proclamation concerning India

Context

The European powers gained their first toehold in India and the broader Indonesian archipelago in 1502, when the Portuguese established the first European trading post in India. Throughout the sixteenth century the Portuguese enjoyed a virtual monopoly in India, but that changed in the seventeenth century as the British, Dutch, and French established their own trading centers. Leading to the British colonization of India—and of the Indonesian archipelago—was the establishment of the British East India Company, a private enterprise that was chartered as a joint-stock company by the Crown on the last day of 1600. (A joint-stock company is similar to a corporation in that shares are issued to investors, but it has characteristics of a partnership in that the investors are personally liable for the acts of the company.) Two years later the Dutch formed the Dutch East India Company, and in 1664 the French established a similar enterprise.

Throughout the seventeenth century, rivalry between the English and Dutch was intense, both in India and in Europe, where the two nations fought a series of wars that are collectively called the Anglo-Dutch Wars. That state of hostility between England and Holland changed in 1688, when the so-called Glorious Revolution brought William of Orange, a Dutchman, to the throne of England, restoring peace between the two nations. England and Holland then struck a deal: England would have control over the textile trade in India, while Holland would control the spice trade in the Indonesian archipelago. In time, textiles proved to be more lucrative, and the British eclipsed the Dutch as a colonial power in India, controlling trading centers in Surat, Madras, Bombay, and Calcutta.

Beginning in 1526, the Indian Subcontinent had been ruled by the Muslim Mughal Empire, which imposed some measure of unity on India's various regions and city-states. Early in the eighteenth century the empire began to crumble, principally because of religious intolerance, agrarian revolts, and wars of succession among the emperors. The decline of the Mughal Empire, which remained an empire in name only until 1857, created a power vacuum that the British East India Company filled. In addition to trading in silk, cotton, indigo dye, tea, saltpeter, and opium, the company began to assume governmental and administrative functions in large parts of India and was the de facto ruling power in India, though that power was challenged by the French in a series of wars, called the Carnatic Wars, that began in 1746. (The name is a corruption of the name of the coastal region that was the site of the wars, Karnataka.) Accelerating the process of British ascendancy were two events. The first occurred in 1751, when British and Indian troops under the command of a young captain, Robert Clive, dealt the French East India Company's garrison a decisive defeat at the city of Arcot, some sixty miles west of Madras.

The second event was the Battle of Plassey, when forces again under the command of Robert Clive defeated the combined forces of the nabob (governor) of Bengal, Siraj-ud-Dawlah, and the French. This battle, which took place in 1757, was a proxy battle during the Seven Years' War (1756–1763), which was fought in Europe and North America between the British and the French (and their respective allies). The company was able to win the battle by bribing a number of Indian military leaders. Among them was Mir Ja&lsquofar, who was resentful because he had been stripped of his position as commander of the army. Although Siraj-ud-Dawlah enjoyed vastly superior numbers, when the time came to fight, troops led by the bribed commanders stood their ground and did not fight. Accordingly, Siraj-ud-Dawlah fled, but he was eventually caught and executed. Bengal, one of the largest and most lucrative regions in India, was now in the hands of the company. Mir Ja&lsquofar was appointed puppet nabob.

In the years that followed, the British East India Company expanded its control over some two-thirds of India, often by striking alliances with local rulers. Its pattern of government and administration would survive for another hundred years. Clive returned to England and was replaced by Warren Hastings, the first governor-general of India. Hastings returned to England in 1784, where impeachment proceedings were begun against him in Parliament. Although he was eventually acquitted, Hastings's administration was, in fact, marked by corruption, bribery, and excessive use of force, creating a series of scandals that prompted Parliament to take steps to rein in the East India Company. One step was the passage of the Regulating Act of 1773, which defined the responsibilities and powers of the company. The Regulating Act, however, did not accomplish its purpose, so in 1784 Parliament passed the India Act, usually called Pitt's India Act after Prime Minister William Pitt (the Younger). This legislation established a board of governors for the company consisting of members of the British cabinet and the privy council. The act essentially brought the civil, economic, administrative, and military activities of the company under governmental control. A final step in the process of gaining control over the company's activities occurred in 1813 with the passage of the Charter Act. This act ended the East India Company's trade monopoly in India, though the company, under the control of Parliament, remained as an administrative body (and retained its trade monopoly in China).

The events that led directly to the passage of the Government of India Act and the queen's proclamation began in 1857. Discontent with British rule had festered for years, but matters came to a head when the sepoys, or Indian soldiers serving under the British, revolted in what is variously called the Sepoy Mutiny, the Sepoy Rebellion, the Great Mutiny, and, among Indians, the First War of Indian Independence. The sepoys received low pay. Recruits were taken from lower castes rather than just from the traditional warrior caste. Sepoys were required to serve overseas, causing them to lose caste. In general, Indians were dissatisfied with the heavy-handedness of British rule. If a landowner died without a male heir, his property reverted to the British Crown. Various other traditional customs, such as suttee, the act of a widow immolating herself on her dead husband's grave, were proscribed. Particularly nettlesome was the elimination of local rulers and perceived efforts to westernize Indians and convert them to Christianity. Despite all these real grievances, it was a rumor that gave the revolt momentum. At the time, a soldier had to break a rifle cartridge with his teeth before loading it. The rumor was that British cartridges were treated with cow and pig fat; tasting the fat of these animals was a violation of Indian religious beliefs. Accordingly, the sepoys refused to use the cartridges. The British, for their part, denied the rumor and encouraged the sepoys to make their own cartridges using beeswax or vegetable oils rather than animal fat. The rumors, though, refused to go away, and on May 9, 1857, a sepoy cavalry troop openly refused to use its British-supplied cartridges.

Revolt erupted on May 10, 1857, near Bengal. In the weeks that followed, sepoy garrisons in several cities, notably Delhi and Kanpur, mutinied. In some instances, civilians joined in the revolt, but in other instances local rulers were not dissatisfied with British administration and refused to join the revolt. In time, British forces regrouped, gained control of the cities where the sepoys had revolted, and reasserted the authority of the East India Company. The last of the mutineers were put down on June 20, 1858. The conflict was bloody, and British forces felt justified in retaliating. Entire villages were wiped out, and mutineers were put to death; in many instances, they were executed by the traditional Mughal method of strapping them to the mouths of cannons and blowing them to bits.

Debate emerged about the question of how England should respond to the bloody conflict and its aftermath. Ultimately, Queen Victoria came down on the side of clemency. In a letter to Edward Stanley, Lord Derby, who drafted the proclamation, she requested that he

bear in mind that it is a female Sovereign who speaks to more than a hundred millions of Eastern people, on assuming the direct Government over them, and after a bloody war, giving them pledges, which her future reign is to redeem, and explaining the principles of her Government. Such a document should breathe feelings of generosity, benevolence, and religious toleration, and point out the privileges which the Indians will receive in being placed on an equality with the subjects of the Crown, and the prosperity following in the train of civilization. (qtd. in Anderson and Subedar, p. 193)

That spirit of benevolence, generosity, and toleration pervades the proclamation.