THE PERIOD OF COLONIAL RULEThe second Regulating Act of 1784, therefore, gave autocratic powers
to the governor general in India; it did, however, also establish a London-
based Board of Control, whose president was the precursor of the later
Secretary of State for India. Three members of the Board of Control and
three directors of the company constituted the Committee of Secrecy,
whose decisions were binding on the governor general. The three directors
of the company who belonged to this committee were not permitted to
divulge its secrets, even to the other directors. This structure was well
suited to the political purpose it was designed to serve. The governor
general had more or less a free hand in India, his freedom being enhanced
by the fact that communication between Calcutta and London took more
than a year in those days. The Board of Control and the Committee of
Secrecy in London laid down the main lines of policy to be followed by the
governor general and acted as a mediator between the autocratic system
prevailing in India and the British political system. Matters of trade were
not discussed by the Board of Control. This arrangement was stable
enough to make for a smooth transition from the monopoly of trade to the
monopoly of territorial rule. Finally the trade monopoly was abolished
without causing a major disruption of the existing structure.
Although the Regulating Acts reflected a particular political
constellation, the arrangements which they embodied evinced a surprising
longevity. It was only the mutiny of 1857 which put an end to the political
mandate of the company. But by that time the British government was no
longer afraid of shouldering the responsibility of ruling a vast empire.
When Hastings became governor general in 1774 the company was
hardly equipped for the task of territorial rule. Just like Hastings himself,
most servants of the company had worked in the commercial line and had
no experience of revenue administration which now became the financial
mainstay of the company. Nevertheless, the bureaucratic structure of the
company—with its covenanted servants who could be freely transferred
and who followed a regulated career from junior to senior posts—did
provide the administrative infrastructure for a modern system of
government. Of course, inexperienced as they were, these British officers
had to rely totally on their Indian subordinates and could be easily
manipulated by them. At the same time the British officers of this period
were still much more interested in acquiring a thorough knowledge of
Indian languages and traditions; they were not yet the arrogant men of a
later day who felt that it was their duty to save India from barbaric
superstition and moral degradation. Hastings sponsored the beginnings of
Indology and welcomed the foundation of the Asiatick Society by Sir
William Jones, Justice of the Supreme Court in Calcutta. Jones deliberately
chose ‘Asiatick’ in preference to ‘Oriental’, because he wanted to study
India’s civilisation on its own terms rather than looking at it from the
Western viewpoint implied by the word ‘Oriental’. Such an attitude