THE PERIOD OF COLONIAL RULEprospects of India were nevertheless rated more optimistically. Railway
investment was going ahead, India was turned into a typical colonial
economy, exporting raw material and importing finished goods. The
British empire in India was going to be an asset to the Crown.
Imperial structure and the regional impact
With the transfer of the responsibility for British rule in India to the Crown
this vast empire came under the direct influence of the Victorian monarchy.
Queen Victoria herself was highly interested in her Indian empire, she took
Hindi lessons and invited Indologist Max Mueller for lectures to the royal
court. She also took the title Empress of India, which she assumed in 1876,
very seriously. The glory of her well-established monarchy was also
reflected in the new title of ‘viceroy’ to be added to the old one of the
‘governor general’. But the old pattern established under the Regulating
Acts remained the same: the viceroy served a five-year term of office which
was rarely extended. His short period corresponded to the life-cycle of
Parliament. There was a tacit convention to keep India out of party politics
at home, but this did not mean that the appointment of the viceroy was
unaffected by party interests. There was always somebody who had to be
rewarded and who, for some reason or other, did not quite fit into the
cabinet.
At the height of British imperial power it did not really matter who was
sent to India as viceroy. Only if there was a major misadventure, such as
Lord Lytton’s Afghan war, could Indian affairs affect an election campaign
at home. Gladstone’s 1881 electoral victory, Lord Lytton’s subsequent
recall and the appointment of the great Liberal, Lord Ripon, was a rare
instance of decisive political intervention. The appointment raised high
hopes among the educated in India who believed in British liberalism. But
they soon found out that one liberal viceroy did not make a liberal empire.
In fact, the viceregal impact on the Government of India was usually
ephemeral. The term of office was much too short. Also, trapped between
the secretary of state at home and the powerful civil servants in India, the
viceroy could hardly do more than delay or veto policies which he did not
like. Moreover, he could acquire some political weight only if he had the
full support of his bureaucracy.
The secretary of state for India, as a cabinet minister backed by the
majority in Parliament, was politically much more powerful. Compared with
other cabinet ministers, however, he had the serious handicap that most of
his subordinates were far away in India and could be reached only via the
viceroy. Relations between the secretary of state and the viceroy were very
complex. The great distance separating them required an elaborate
correspondence, so everything concerning these relations is extremely well
documented and has accordingly attracted generations of historians who