write a brief note on British administration in India
Answers
Answer:
The British first established trading posts in India, in order to purchase spices that were much in demand in Britain and Europe. They first came to trade and not to conquer. The Anglo-Indian trade was monopolized by the East India Company. ... This victory turned the Company into perhaps the strongest power in India.
The revolt of 1857 had shaken the foundations of British Empire and made them more conscious of the need to have an effective machinery for collection of information and for policing the Empire's territories. ... It led the enactment of the Police Act of 1861.
Explanation:
1. Civil Services:
The Civil Service was brought into existence by Lord Cornwallis. We know that the East India Company had from the beginning carried on its trade in the East through servants who were paid low wages but who were permitted to trade privately. Later, when the Company became a territorial power, the same servants assumed administrative functions.
They now became extremely corrupt. By oppressing local weavers and artisans, merchants and zamindars, by extorting bribes and ‘gifts’ from rajas and nawabs, by indulging in illegal private trade, they amassed untold wealth with which they retired to England. Clive and Warren Hastings made attempts to put an end to their corruption, but were only partially successful
Cornwallis, who came to India as Governor-General in 1786, was determined to purify the administration, but he realised that the Company’s servants would not give honest and efficient service so long as they were not given adequate salaries.
He, therefore, enforced the rules against private trade and acceptance of presents and bribes by officials with strictness. At the same time, he raised the salaries of the Company’s servants.
For example, the Collector of a district was to be paid Rs 1500 a month and one per cent commission on the revenue collection of his district. In fact, the Company’s Civil Service became the highest paid service in the world. Cornwallis also laid down that promotion in the Civil Service would be by seniority so that its members would remain independent of outside influence.
In 1800, Lord Wellesley established the College of Fort William at Calcutta for the education of young recruits to the Civil Service. The directors of the Company disapproved of his action and in 1806 replaced it by their own East Indian College at Hailey-bury in England.