4 Discuss the features of the municipal administration under the British
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Its members exercised vast power and often participated in the making of policy. They developed certain traditions of independence, integrity and hard work, though these qualities obviously served British and not Indian interests. They came to believe that they had an almost divine right to rule India.
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From the beginning of the creation of the Central Provinces in 1861 it was the goal of the British administration to construct a governmental system providing for the improvement and development of the area. The Government of India Resolution establishing the Central Provinces noted that the previous forms of administration -- of the Saugor and Narbadda Territories under the control of the North-Western Provinces, and a separate Province of Nagpur -- did "not present that unity, completeness and efficiency which are requisite in order that justice may be done to the condition and prospects of Territories so largely capable of improvement." Therefore the Government intended to create a new provincial administration encompassing those two areas Which would provide the new province "with the greatest advantage t the management of the resources and to the development of the capabilities of the whole area." (1) Part II examines the activities of the British provincial government to develop the Central Provinces during the six decades from 1861 to 1921. Though the Government resolution creating the Central Provinces en-
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visioned the use of government institutions to promote development, wry few departments dealt with the improvement of the province. Rather they concentrated primarily on law, order, and taxation; only secondarily on providing rudimentary social services; and least of all on economic development. With the imposition of a provincial government most of the procedures of British rule which were designed to consolidate their position in India were brought to the Central Provinces. The wholesale importation of these procedures meant that there was little imaginative attempt to revise the form of provincial administration into what was needed to fit the particular character of middle India, or to meet the specific needs of its economic development.
Raghaven Iyer suggests that there were four dominant imperialistic themes or theories of Government that inspired the British administration and justified their ideas and policies- trusteeship, guardianship, utilitarianism, and evangelism. (2) All were animated by a mixture of paternalism and laissez-faire. On the one hand, British administrators sought to teach and lead Indians in ways to improve their condition in British terms; on the other hand they sought to provide institutions which would free Indians to develop in their own chosen ways. Administrators formed policy based on this mixture of enlightened Western despotism and non-interference. Prevailing attitudes of Victorian idealism and optimism often clouded over inherent contradictions of British policy.
One task of the new government was to form policies based on cu rent governmental theories. The effective implementation of these policies a was quite a separate and more difficult activity. The hierarchical
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structure of provincial government imported and superimposed on the Central Provinces tended to divide the policy-making from the implementation functions of administration at the district level. British administrators above the district level debated, decided and finalized provincial policy. British administrators at the district level and below attempted to implement these policies through Indian officials. The division of governmental functions at the district level involving higher and lower levels of administrators tended to create two separate worlds. Those British administrators at the higher levels usually based their policies on English theories with only occasional and superficial reference to empirical information about Indian society and with only rare consideration of Indian opinion. Under the supervision of lower-level British administrators, the Indian officials sought to implement that policy in the context of local Indian society.
The tendencies of the British to segregate policy from implementation and to disassociate British administrators from Indian officials, isolated the higher levels of administration and local society. British provincial administration lacked the ability to penetrate into the lives of a majority of the population in the Central Province and therefore had a minimal affect on them. The Indians whom the British administrators influenced most were those connected with the provincial administration either as part of administration or involved in its institutions. They mainly consisted of lower officials, educators and student., the urban population, and taxpayers, in particular those designated as landlords to pay the land revenue.
This Part II examines the Central Provinces administration and its
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