Administration: Central, Provincial and Local

After 1857 the British rebuilt the machinery of government from the top down. At the centre, power was concentrated in London and in the Viceroy. In the provinces, a slow and half-hearted financial decentralisation gave limited room to act. At the bottom, local self-government was introduced, partly to share the financial burden, partly to soften nationalist criticism. Through it all, the central government stayed firmly supreme. The same logic shaped the other organs of the colonial state. The police and the army were built into efficient machines that served imperial control, not the people. The judiciary brought codified law and the rule of law, yet stayed slow, costly and weighted against ordinary Indians.

The Act for the Better Government of India, 1858 transferred power from the Company to the Crown.

• Real authority now rested with the Secretary of State for India in London, a member of the British Cabinet assisted by a council of 15. This concentration of power in London made the administration even more reactionary. It also increased the influence of British industrialists and merchants over Indian policy.
• In India the government was run by the Viceroy (the new title of the Governor-General), assisted by an executive council.
• The Indian Councils Act, 1861 added a member to the Viceroy's council and created legislative councils, but these were merely advisory, with no control over the budget or executive.

Financial decentralisation to the provinces came in slow, grudging steps. The aim was less autonomy and more raising revenue and cutting central expenditure:

• 1870: Mayo's Resolution began the process, handing the provinces fixed grants to run services like police, jails, education and roads. This was the start of local finance.
• 1877: Lytton transferred certain heads of expenditure (land revenue, excise, law and justice) to the provinces.
• 1882: Ripon divided all revenue into three groups: general (to the centre), provincial (to the provinces), and shared between the two.

Even so, the central government remained supreme and kept detailed control. Both the centre and the provinces were subordinate to the Secretary of State.

The British promoted municipalities and district boards to run local services: education, health, sanitation, water, and roads. These bodies were financed by local taxes. The motives behind this were mixed. Financial difficulties forced decentralisation. Rising nationalism put civic improvement on the agenda. And using local taxes for local welfare deflected criticism of British reluctance to tax the rich.

The key stages:

• Mayo's Resolution, 1870: opened the way to local finance and local bodies.
• Ripon's Resolution, 1882: the landmark. For it, Ripon is called the "father of local self-government" in India. It advocated local bodies as a tool of political education, with a majority of non-official members and non-official chairpersons, and minimal official interference.
• Royal Commission on Decentralisation, 1908: identified the lack of finance as the main weakness and urged real powers and income for village panchayats.
• The Resolution of 1918 reviewed the question after the 1917 declaration of responsible government.
• Under the 1919 Act (dyarchy), local self-government became a "transferred" subject under Indian ministers. But finance was "reserved", so ministers could do little for lack of funds.
• The 1935 Act gave further impetus once portfolio finance came under popular ministries.

In practice these bodies stayed weak. Elected members were often a minority. The franchise was narrow. And the government could supersede them at will. (The Constitution of free India later directed states to organise village panchayats under Article 40, strengthened by the 73rd and 74th Amendments.)

Before the British, law and order rested with local figures: the faujdar (who kept order), the amil (a revenue collector), and the kotwal (in cities). Zamindars were also expected to maintain order but often neglected it.

The modern police system grew in stages:

• 1774-75: Warren Hastings restored the institution of faujdars and set up faujdar thanas in the major towns.
• 1791: Cornwallis organised a regular police force. He revived the old system of thanas (circles) under a daroga (an Indian) and a Superintendent of Police (SP) at the head of a district. This relieved zamindars of police duties.
• 1808: Mayo appointed an SP for each division, helped by spies (goyendas) who often preyed on the people.
• Bentinck (1828-35) abolished the office of SP and put the collector/magistrate in charge of the police, overloading that official.
• Police Commission of 1860 led to the Indian Police Act of 1861, the foundation of the modern system. It set up a graded structure: an Inspector-General for a province, a Deputy Inspector-General for a range, and an SP for a district, with a village constabulary at the bottom. The British did not create an all-India police, but ranks were uniform across provinces.
• Fraser Commission, 1902-03 (under Curzon) recommended training schools, higher salaries, and a Criminal Intelligence Department (CID) at the centre and in the provinces.

The police curbed crimes like dacoity and thugee. But their main political role was to suppress the national movement. In doing so, they lost the sympathy of the people.

The army was "the backbone of British rule in India". Before 1857 it had two parts: the Queen's army (British troops on duty in India) and the Company's troops (European regiments plus Indian regiments led by British officers).

After the Revolt of 1857 the army was systematically reorganised to prevent another mutiny:

• European domination was ensured. The proportion of Europeans to Indians was fixed high, about one to two in the Bengal army. Key arms like artillery, tanks and armoured corps were kept a strict European monopoly.
• Indians were kept out of power. No Indian could hold an officer's rank; the highest an Indian could reach until 1914 was subedar. Indians entered the commissioned ranks only from 1918.
• The "martial races" doctrine. From the 1880s the British recruited heavily from groups that had stayed loyal in 1857: Sikhs, Gurkhas and Pathans. They branded these groups "martial races". Soldiers from regions that had revolted (Awadh, Bihar) were declared "non-martial".
• Divide and counterpoise. Regiments were deliberately mixed by caste, community and region so that "Sikh might fire into Hindu, Gurkha into either", to block any united feeling. Soldiers were also isolated from nationalist newspapers and ideas.

The result was a costly but politically reliable military machine built on the principle of divide and rule.

The British replaced India's older, patchy system of justice with a single common-law system based on written codes and recorded precedents. Before the British, the Hindus' disputes were largely decided by caste elders and village panchayats, and for Muslims by the qazi (the Muslim judge). Rulers were the fountainhead of justice, so it could be arbitrary. A common-law system began with the Mayor's Courts set up at Madras, Bombay and Calcutta in 1726.

The system was then rebuilt by a sequence of Governors-General.

• Warren Hastings (1772-85) set up a two-tier structure in the districts: District Diwani Adalats for civil disputes (under the collector) and District Fauzdari Adalats for criminal disputes, with appeals going to the Sadar Diwani Adalat and the Sadar Nizamat Adalat. Under the Regulating Act of 1773, a Supreme Court was established at Calcutta (1774), which often clashed with the other courts.
• Cornwallis (1786-93) brought a separation of powers. He took magisterial functions away from the collector, who now handled only revenue. He set up circuit courts with European judges and created a graded ladder of civil courts. The Cornwallis Code separated revenue and justice, brought European subjects under jurisdiction, and established the sovereignty of law. Even government officials were answerable to the courts.
• William Bentinck (1828-33) abolished the circuit courts, set up Sadar courts at Allahabad for the upper provinces, and replaced Persian with English (and vernacular languages) in the courts.

The next stage gave India uniform written law.

• 1833: a Law Commission under Macaulay was set up to codify Indian laws. It produced the Civil Procedure Code (1859), the Indian Penal Code (1860) and the Criminal Procedure Code (1861).
• 1860: Europeans could claim no special privileges in criminal cases, though only a European judge could try a European (a privilege resented by Indians).
• 1865: the Supreme Court and the Sadar Adalats were merged into High Courts at Calcutta, Bombay and Madras.
• 1935: the Government of India Act provided for a Federal Court (set up in 1937) to settle disputes between governments and hear limited appeals.

An honest balance-sheet. On the positive side, British justice established the rule of law, replaced arbitrary personal rule with codified law, and made even government servants answerable to the civil courts. On the negative side, the system became complex and expensive. The rich could manipulate it, litigation dragged on, and courts were overburdened. European judges were often unfamiliar with Indian customs.