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Authors: Arthur Herman
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the end, he might have agreed with the reflection H. G. Wells published a few years later on the British in India.
“We are there like a man who has fallen off a ladder onto the back of an elephant,” Wells wrote. “[He] doesn’t know what to do or how to get down. Until something happens, there he remains.” 15 Randolph would slowly realize that his job was to see that nothing did happen and that the embarrassment and danger of dismounting were put off as long as possible. By the time he finally took office as secretary of state for India on June 11, 1885, Randolph was set on a course that would take him from would-be reformer to hard-line reactionary.
The India Office was in King Charles Street, in the heart of Whitehall. Built in 1867, with an exterior by Gilbert Scott and a magnificent three-story inner courtyard of neoclassical marble columns and tiled friezes, it oversaw the London end of what Winston Churchill would call “the magnificent organization of the government of India,” from the Indian Army to taxes and famine relief, all in close coordination with the viceroy. 16 It was also maintained at the expense of the Indian taxpayer, since every salary, every expense account, every official trip, and every retirement pension came from revenues paid by the subjects of the Raj.
Upstairs was the Council Chamber, paneled with mahogany and lined with gold leaf; its magnificent gilt marble fireplace depicted Britannia receiving the riches of the East. In this room sat by royal appointment the Council of India, made up of retired soldiers and civil servants who had served in the Raj and who approved whatever decisions the secretary of state wanted to make. Most were elderly. The first time the thirty-six-year-old Randolph sat down with them, he compared it to being “an Eton boy presiding at a meeting of the Masters.” 17 Randolph learned to treat the council with respect, but he intended to run the India Office as he and no one else saw fit.
This was relatively easy. India was different from other parts of the empire. As secretary he was responsible only to his prime minister, not to Parliament. Not a single parliamentary committee oversaw his work or his dealings with the viceroy in Calcutta. 18 This suited Randolph. From the start he reacted badly to any perceived interference, even from the queen. *12 In general, he was free to do as he liked, and under the influence of men like Lepel Griffin, “the hammer of the babus,” and General Frederick Roberts, his earlier doubts about the Raj were swept away, or at least swept under the rug. Under Randolph Churchill, the India Office position on India hardened and crystallized. The British would rule and the Indians would obey, and things were to stay that way—not just because the British were so good at ruling, but because Indians were so bad at everything else.
Roberts set the tone. He had actually been born in Cawnpore in 1832 and as a young ensign helped to put down the Mutiny. His memoirs, Forty-one Years in India, from Subaltern to Commander-in-Chief, conjured up the image of a primitive country where the vast bulk of the population is illiterate, ninety-nine out of one hundred persons have no sense of civic association, and “the various races and religious sects possess no bond of national union.” Under these conditions, Roberts said, forcing British-style constitutional reforms “on a community which is not prepared for them, does not want them, and cannot understand them” could only lead to chaos or even a replay of the Great Mutiny.
“The best government for India will be the intelligent and benevolent despotism which at present rules the country,” Roberts concluded. The best thing politicians in London could do was ignore “the utterances of self-appointed agitators who pose as the mouth-pieces of an oppressed population” and listen to the officials on the spot, who “have a deeper insight into, and a greater sympathy with, the
“We are there like a man who has fallen off a ladder onto the back of an elephant,” Wells wrote. “[He] doesn’t know what to do or how to get down. Until something happens, there he remains.” 15 Randolph would slowly realize that his job was to see that nothing did happen and that the embarrassment and danger of dismounting were put off as long as possible. By the time he finally took office as secretary of state for India on June 11, 1885, Randolph was set on a course that would take him from would-be reformer to hard-line reactionary.
The India Office was in King Charles Street, in the heart of Whitehall. Built in 1867, with an exterior by Gilbert Scott and a magnificent three-story inner courtyard of neoclassical marble columns and tiled friezes, it oversaw the London end of what Winston Churchill would call “the magnificent organization of the government of India,” from the Indian Army to taxes and famine relief, all in close coordination with the viceroy. 16 It was also maintained at the expense of the Indian taxpayer, since every salary, every expense account, every official trip, and every retirement pension came from revenues paid by the subjects of the Raj.
Upstairs was the Council Chamber, paneled with mahogany and lined with gold leaf; its magnificent gilt marble fireplace depicted Britannia receiving the riches of the East. In this room sat by royal appointment the Council of India, made up of retired soldiers and civil servants who had served in the Raj and who approved whatever decisions the secretary of state wanted to make. Most were elderly. The first time the thirty-six-year-old Randolph sat down with them, he compared it to being “an Eton boy presiding at a meeting of the Masters.” 17 Randolph learned to treat the council with respect, but he intended to run the India Office as he and no one else saw fit.
This was relatively easy. India was different from other parts of the empire. As secretary he was responsible only to his prime minister, not to Parliament. Not a single parliamentary committee oversaw his work or his dealings with the viceroy in Calcutta. 18 This suited Randolph. From the start he reacted badly to any perceived interference, even from the queen. *12 In general, he was free to do as he liked, and under the influence of men like Lepel Griffin, “the hammer of the babus,” and General Frederick Roberts, his earlier doubts about the Raj were swept away, or at least swept under the rug. Under Randolph Churchill, the India Office position on India hardened and crystallized. The British would rule and the Indians would obey, and things were to stay that way—not just because the British were so good at ruling, but because Indians were so bad at everything else.
Roberts set the tone. He had actually been born in Cawnpore in 1832 and as a young ensign helped to put down the Mutiny. His memoirs, Forty-one Years in India, from Subaltern to Commander-in-Chief, conjured up the image of a primitive country where the vast bulk of the population is illiterate, ninety-nine out of one hundred persons have no sense of civic association, and “the various races and religious sects possess no bond of national union.” Under these conditions, Roberts said, forcing British-style constitutional reforms “on a community which is not prepared for them, does not want them, and cannot understand them” could only lead to chaos or even a replay of the Great Mutiny.
“The best government for India will be the intelligent and benevolent despotism which at present rules the country,” Roberts concluded. The best thing politicians in London could do was ignore “the utterances of self-appointed agitators who pose as the mouth-pieces of an oppressed population” and listen to the officials on the spot, who “have a deeper insight into, and a greater sympathy with, the
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