INDIAN POLITY: 1) HISTORICAL BACKGROUND PART 1

 

INDIAN POLITY

HISTORICAL BACKGROUD

As suggested by M N Roy in 1934, a Constituent Assembly was formed in 1946.

THE COMPANY RULE (1773–1858)

 

Regulating Act of 1773

1.       (a) it was the first step taken by the British Government to control and regulate the affairs of the East India Company in India;

Features of the Act

1.     It designated the Governor of Bengal as the ‘Governor-General of Bengal’ and created an Executive Council of four members to assist him. The first such Governor-General was Lord Warren Hastings.

2.     It made the governors of Bombay and Madras presidencies subordinate to the governor general of Bengal.

3.     It provided for the establishment of a Supreme Court at Calcutta (1774) comprising one chief justice and three other judges.

4.     It prohibited the servants of the Company from engaging in any private trade or accepting presents or bribes from the ‘natives’.

5.     It strengthened the control of the British Government over the Company by requiring the Court of Directors (governing body of the Company) to report on its revenue, civil, and military affairs in India.

Ø  In a bid to rectify the defects of the Regulating Act of 1773, the British Parliament passed the Amending Act of 1781, also known as the Act of Settlement.

Ø   

Pitt’s India Act of 1784

1.               It allowed the Court of Directors to manage the commercial affairs but created a new body called Board of Control to manage the political affairs. Thus, it established a system of double government.

 

Thus, the act was significant for two reasons: first, the Company’s territories in India were for the first time called the ‘British possessions in India’; and second, the British Government was given the supreme control over Company’s affairs and its administration in India.

 

Charter Act of 1833

This Act was the final step towards centralization in British India.

1.       It made the Governor-General of Bengal as the Governor-General of India. Lord William Bentick was the first governor-general of India.

2.       It ended the activities of the East India Company as a commercial body, which became a purely administrative body. It provided that the company’s territories in India were held by it ‘in trust for His Majesty, His heirs and successors’

3.       The Charter Act of 1833 attempted to introduce a system of open competition for selection of civil servants. However, this provision was negated after opposition from the Court of Directors.

 

Charter Act of 1853

This was the last of the series of Charter Acts passed by the British Parliament between 1793 and 1853.

1.       It separated, for the first time, the legislative and executive functions of the Governor-General’s council. It provided for addition of six new members called legislative councilors to the council. In other words, it established a separate Governor-General’s legislative council which came to be known as the Indian (Central) Legislative Council. This legislative wing of the council functioned as a mini-Parliament, adopting the same procedures as the British Parliament. Thus, legislation, for the first time, was treated as a special function of the government, requiring special machinery and special process.

2.       It introduced an open competition system of selection and recruitment of civil servants. The Macaulay Committee (the Committee on the Indian Civil Service) was appointed in 1854.

3.       It introduced, for the first time, local representation in the Indian (Central) Legislative Council. Of the six new legislative members of the governor-general’s council, four members were appointed by the local (provincial) governments of Madras, Bombay, Bengal and Agra.