Structure of Government & Policies of the British Empire in India- 2 | Additional Study Material for UPSC PDF Download

➢ The Drain of Wealth Policy

• The British exported to Britain part of India’s wealth and resources for which India got no adequate economic or material return. This ‘economic drain’ was peculiar to British rule. Even the worst of previous Indian governments had spent the revenue they extracted from the people inside the country. 
• Whether they spent it on irrigation canals and trunk roads, or on palaces, temples and mosques, or on wars and conquests, or even on personal luxury, it ultimately encouraged Indian trade and industry or gave employment to Indians. This was so because even foreign conquerors, like the Mughals, soon settled in India and made it their home. But the British remained perpetual foreigners. 
• Englishmen, working and trading in India, nearly always planned to go back to Britain, and the Indian government was controlled by a foreign company of merchants and the government of Britain. The British, consequently, spent a large part of the taxes and income they derived from the Indian people not in India but in Britain, their home country. 
• The drain of wealth from Bengal began in 1757 when the Company’s servants began to carry home immense fortunes extorted from Indian rulers, zamindars, merchants and the common people. They sent home nearly £6 million between 1758 and 1765. 
• This amount was more than four times the total land revenue collection of the Nawab of Bengal in 1765. This amount of drain did not include the trading profits of the Company which were often no less illegally derived. In 1765 the Company acquired the Diwani of Bengal and thus gained control over its revenues. The Company, even more than its servants, soon directly organised the drain. It began to purchase Indian goods out of the revenue of Bengal and to export them. These purchases were known as ‘Investments’. 
• Thus, through ‘Investments’, Bengal’s revenue was sent to England. For example, from 1765 to 1770, the Company sent out nearly £4 million worth of goods or about 33 per cent of the net revenue of Bengal. 
• By the end of the eighteenth century, the drain constituted nearly 9 per cent of India’s national income. The actual drain was even more, as a large part of the salaries and other incomes of English officials and the trading fortunes of English merchants also found their way into England. 
• The drain took the form of an excess of India’s exports over its imports, for which India got no return. While the exact amount of the annual drain has not been calculated so far and historians differ on its quantum, the fact of the drain, at least from 1757 to 1857, was widely accepted by British officials.

ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANIZATION
➢ Paramountcy
British rule in India started paramountacy in all fields of governance. Though prior rulers also made several organisations to run their Government but those were not as organized as were during British rule. British practices in the process of paramountacy have been described below:-
(i) Civil Service
The British Raj and the Indian colonial civil service were ‘symbiotically’ related to each other. If the principal pillar on which the whole of the superstructure of the Raj rested was the Indian civil service, then also true was the fact that it, on its part, provided the irresponsible civil servants on ‘playground’ and ‘rules’ of the game with adequate room for both ruthless repression as well as skillful adjustments.

(ii) Police

• The third pillar of the British imperialism in India (the first and second being the civil service and army respectively) was the police. It was through this instrument the Mai-Baap ‘myth’ of the British administrators was created which in a way helped the British Imperialism to build a ‘cultural hegemony’ over ever quarrelling masses of India, a mere geographical expression, they claimed and legitimized. Though ‘a system of circles or thanas headed by daroga with its sepoys was rather a modern concept, evolved once again by Cornwallis, but a two-tier police administration with the Nazim or Governor at the provincial headquarters and the faujdar with a contingent of military police in the district, a primitive police system was present even in Mughal period. 
• With the arrival of the British on the Indian political platform, the system of official and un-official police system, working for cross-purposes, needed a change for the obvious reasons. But the daroga system introduced by Cornwallis in 1792 did not remain limited to reducing the non-official apparatus to the ‘original intention’ of the instruction.  The private system was struck off. The Zamindars and farmers were altogether divested of their local responsibility and were asked to disband their militia.

(iii) Presidency Towns

• The earliest efforts in Municipal administration in India were made in the Presidency Towns of Madras, Calcutta and Bombay. In 1687, an order of Court of Directors directed the formation of a Corporation of Europeans and Indian members of the city of Madras but the Corporation did not survive. Under the Regulating Act of 1773, the Governor-General nominated the servants of the Company and other British inhabitants to be the Justices of Peace. 
• They were empowered to appoint scavengers for the cleaning and repairing of the streets of Calcutta, Madras and Bombay, for making assessment for those purposes and for the grant of licences for the sale of spirituous liquors. 
• The reason for this provision was the insanitary state of affairs in the Presidency Towns. Between 1817 and 1830, spas­modic attempts were made in Madras and Calcutta to undertake works paid out of the lottery funds and much was done with this money in laying out those towns. 
• On completion, the roads and drains were handed over to the Justices of Peace to be maintained by them out of their assessments. However, even for maintenance work, the funds never sufficed. In Bombay, a tax on carriages and carts was levied for the purpose of making roads. In 1840, an Act was passed for Calcutta and in 1841 for Madras.

➢ Social and Cultural policies 
Till 1813, the British followed a policy of non-interference in social, religious and cultural life of the country.
After 1813, measures were taken to transform Indian society and its cultural environs because of the emergence of new interests and ideas in Britain of the nineteenth century in the wake of significant changes in Europe during the 18th and the 19th centuries.  Some of these changes were: 

• Industrial Revolution which began in the 18th century and resulted in the growth of industrial capitalism. The rising industrial interests wanted to make India a big market for their goods and therefore required partial modernisation and transformation of Indian society. 
• Intellectual Revolution which gave rise to new attitudes of mind, manners, and morals. 
• French Revolution which with its message of liberty, equality and fraternity, unleashed the forces of democracy and nationalism.

ROLE OF CHRISTIAN MISSIONARIES
The missionaries regarded Christianity to be a superior religion and wanted to spread it in India through westernisation which, they believed, would destroy the faith of the natives in their own religion and culture. Towards this end, the Christian missionaries 

• Supported the Radicals whose scientific approach, they believed, would undermine the native culture and beliefs. 
• Supported the Imperialists since law and order and the British supremacy were essential for their propaganda. 
• Sought business and the capitalist support holding out the hope to them that the Christian converts would be better customers of their goods.

SOCIAL CHANGES AND REFORMS UNDER THE BRITISH

• The demand for social and religious reform that manifested itself in the early decades of the 19th century partly arose as a response to Western education and culture. India’s contact with the West made educated Indians realise that socio-religious reform was a prerequisite for the all-round development of the country.  Educated Indians like Raja Rammohan Roy worked systematically to eradicate social evils. A period of social reforms began in India during the time of Governor General Lord William Bentinck (1828-35) who was helped by Rammohan Roy. 
• In 1829, Sati or the practice of burning a widow with her dead husband was made illegal or punishable by law. Female infanticide was banned. However, even today, infanticide is practised in backward areas in India. 
• Slavery was declared illegal. With Iswar Chandra Vidyasagar’s assistance, the Widow Remarriage Act was passed by Lord Dalhousie in 1856. Vidyasagar also campaigned against child marriage and polygamy.The cruel custom of offering little children as sacrifice to please God, practised by certain tribes, was banned by Governor General Lord Hardinge.It is important to note that since the reform movement started in Bengal, its impact was first felt here. It took time to spread it all over India.