Ward's Book of Days.
Pages of interesting anniversaries.
What happened on this day in history.
DECEMBER 6th
On this day in history in 1732, was born Warren Hastings.
Hastings was a colonial governor who dominated Indian affairs and who was sent home for trial for corruption but, after one of the longest trials in British history, was acquitted.
Hastings was born on 6th
December 1732, at Churchill, Oxfordshire, the son of an Anglican clergyman and
his lady wife, the daughter of a country squire. After some doubt as to his
paternity, the young Hastings was abandoned by his father and left in the care
of his uncle. He received an adequate education, as far as his uncle’s
meagre income would allow, at Westminster School, where he acquired the
literary experience that would later give him an attraction to Indian culture.
His schooling came to an abrupt end in 1749, when his uncle died leaving him
with no substantial inheritance.
At
the age of 18, Hastings was appointed to a writership, that is a clerk, to the
East India Company in Bengal. At that time trade between Britain and India was
the monopoly of the East India Company, a corporation which ran a series of
trading posts along the Indian coast. In 1756, the company’s trading posts
were attached by the local nawab, an Indian ruler, supported by the French.
The company responded by forming its own militia, which succeeded in defeating
the opposing forces and deposing the nawab. The company was now so dominant
that it could exercise political control over Eastern India, and
administrators like Hastings became involved in the running of state affairs.
Hastings
served as the company's representative at the Council of Bengal, from 1758 to
1761 and later on the company's Council, the board of directors.
Unfortunately, he found that his sympathies for the native peoples conflicted
with the company’s desire for immediate profits and he was obliged to
relinquish his post in 1765 and return home.
In
1769, finding himself short of money, Hastings took on a position as an
administrator in Madras. Two years later, he was appointed governor of Bengal,
where the situation has degenerated into chaos since he left.
Hastings
reorganised the administration, creating the precedents which would establish
British rule in India. His view of the role of the British in India was not of
a colonial power attempting to civilise or modernise the country, but rather
that the local population should continue with its own customs undisturbed. He
allowed the Brahmins, the priestly caste, to shape a legal framework which
respected ancient Indian customary law, but he remodelled the administration
of justice throughout Bengal to enforce this law. Most importantly, he
established an equitable system of taxation which placed responsibility for
the collection of taxation in the hands of trusted officials. Hastings
established the binary division of the Indian people into Muslim or Hindu,
each governed by their own laws. He consolidated the privileges of the caste
system through the influence of the exclusively high-caste scholars, who
effectively ran the legal system. It was this polarisation which would
eventually lead to the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan.
In
1773, Hasting was appointed as the first Governor General of India. He spread
the reforms introduced in Bengal, throughout India, but when it came to
collection of taxes, he found difficulty in finding sufficient officials of
integrity to perform the necessary administration. He unwisely delegated
collection duties to company officials, who paid more attention to their own
self interest than to the efficient gathering of revenues. In 1784, Hastings
was accused of corruption, and summoned home to be put on trial before
Parliament.
The
House of Commons found that there was a case to answer and passed the matter
to the Lords. The trial before the Lords began in 1788 and was vigorously
defended. The prosecution could not find any evidence that Hastings had
embezzled any the taxation revenues and, in 1795, after seven years of hearing
of evidence, Hastings was acquitted.
Hastings
retired to Daylesford, near his place of birth and led the life of a country
squire. He died on August 22nd 1818, aged 85, and is buried in the local
parish church. [St Peters Church, Daylesford, Oxfordshire, GL56 0YG]
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