Governors and Viceroys
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Introduction
In the days before independence and full democracy in India the figures of the Provincial governor and the Viceroy in New Delhi still exerted a great deal of influence. Their personalities shaped politics and to some extent life in India. The way the social backgrounds, personalities and attitudes of the holders of these post changed does conversely say a lot about the changing nature of British rule in India and Calcutta.
Government House
Glenn Hensley, Photography Technician with US Army Airforce, Summer 1944
(source: Glenn S. Hensley: Government House, C011, Government House (today's Raj Bhavan.) Gate on side toward Dalhousie Square. seen at University of Chicago Hensley Photo Library at http://dsal.uchicago.edu/images/hensley as well as a series of E-Mail interviews with Glenn Hensley between 12th June 2001 and 28th August 2001)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced by permission of Glenn Hensley and under a Creative Commons license)
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Sir John Herbert
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The honours at government house.
The durbar was an entirely formal occasion; there were no social exchanges, no conversation, no fiesta. It was a glorified prize-giving day conducted according to strict rules. It was a dignified 'showing the flag' ceremony, a public (as far as the invitees were concerned) display of loyalty to the Raj—and the bestowal of honours and awards in return for that loyalty. All the arrangements for and the smooth running of a ceremonial durbar fell upon the shoulders of myself and H.E.'s Military Secretary. We started a month or so in anticipation. The Honours and Titles to be awarded had been gazetted by the King Emperor. Fortunately, I had a small staff of Indian clerks who knew exactly where the wife of the managing director of Jardine and Skinners should be seated in relation to the sister of a Police Inspector, or the daughter of the Chief Secretary (Finance) and the wife of an Indian grandee. We seldom made mistakes and enjoyed ourselves immensely imagining the consequences of a mistake-on-purpose... Having sent out beautifully printed invitations in heavy gold lettering, and everyone having dusted down his dress uniform, creased his morning trousers, and the women aired their finery after months of monsoon dampness— the great day arrives. No troublesome fears about bad weather, for Calcutta's cold weather months are perfect, day by day ... The durbar hall was a large and ornate auditorium, shaped somewhat like that of a theatre, but level except for the raised platform (two or three feet) at the far end. Up the centre, towards the platform, was a gangway about ten or twelve feet wide. On the platform, on an ornate throne, sat His Excellency [The Governor of Bengal], flanked on either side by his military ADCs, and behind them two or three rows of senior officials with wives, sisters, daughters and what-have-you in strict order of precedence. Those destined to receive honours, which included OBEs, Raj Bahadurs, and Khan Bahadurs, as well as more modest decorations, were seated in the main body of the hall, along with less important guests ... My job was to lead the nervous recipient in a sort of dignified goose-step up the red carpet to within a few feet of the throne, bow to H.E. in unison, and then, after the ribbon was safely around the neck, to about-turn and retire with the same slow dignity. At least, that was the theory of it. In practice, the march was almost a tottering and hesitant shamble with swords getting tangled between legs and head-gear slipping askew. After all, these honoured recipients, white or brown, were mostly men of some age, weighed down with fat and unable to see the ground immediately in front of them because of their paunches ... So we weaved from side to side in our progress, like elderly passengers taking their exercise on board a rolling ship. We made our way forward, making some pretence of a slow march, my partner pottering along with small nervous steps and a clanking sword. Inevitably, the long foreseen crisis came with the perilous mounting of the two steps onto the regal platform. I held onto the old man's arm firmly, muttering words of encouragement out of the comer of my mouth, but I knew this time we were for it. "With a final effort and a final gasp he tripped on the top step and plunged madly forward. Two ADCs quietly and efficiently took the impact without need to draw their swords. But to H.E. goes first prize for presence of mind— as the head came towards him he adroitly slipped the ribbon and medal over the butting head and used his hands to pat the shoulders of the good man. In a more relaxed gathering of civilised people, the hall would have resounded with laughter and applause, perhaps with shouts of 'encore!' But no!, The British and their loyalists with stern composure and stiff upper lips looked straight ahead. Only a young woman somewhere tittered for an embarrassed moment. Meanwhile we, the two star performers, shambled our way back in sweat and misery.
Micheal Carritt, ICS officer. Calcutta, 1930s.
(source: Micheal Carritt: A Mole in the Crown. New Delhi: Rupa 1986)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Micheal Carritt )
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Sir Richard Casey
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_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___
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Aussie in Bengal
In Bengal, racked with post-famine epidemics, the Raj replaced the late Provincial Governor Sir John Herbert with handsome, able Australian Richard Gardiner Casey. The appointment of a Governor of war cabinet rank is a step in Viceroy Lord Wavell's attempt to make the British Government more effective and efficient.
The Pyramid.
The governors of Bengal, like those of other Indian provinces, are links between the Indian people and the British Central Government at New Delhi. The eleven major Provinces, through the 1935 Government of India Act, were granted popularly elected legislatures; the governors are usually British (only two since 1920 have been Indians) and are appointed by the Crown. In time of emergency, a provincial governor may overrule his legislature, answer for his acts to the British Viceroy. And the Viceroy can in turn overrule the governor.
For many reasons—some having to do with the complacent, ruling Indian clique, some with the procrastination of the British overlords—these successive steps were long delayed in Bengal. When the famine made Raj intervention an inescapable necessity, Lord Wavell first took a compromise course, persuaded Bengal to invite the Army's help in food distribution, care of the needy. But the military and political security of Bengal demanded a more permanent solution. Minister Casey's skill and prestige may be it. It is at least a recognition that the ultimate responsibility for India still rests with the British Government.
Man and Job.
Richard Casey is confronted by huge problems: the diminished but still acute famine, inflation, rationing and price control for Bengal's 60,000,000 Indians, a bad farm year, the immediate necessity of making Bengal a sound military base in the midst of frightful want.
Casey has had tough jobs, been in tough spots before. He was the first Dominion statesman to join a United Kingdom War Cabinet, had earlier been Australia's first Minister to the U.S. In 1942, Winston Churchill's invitation to Casey to join the War Cabinet raised a storm. Bluff Prime Minister John Curtin of Australia roared that Churchill had no right to loot Australia of its ablest foreign representative. Casey waited in Washington until the storm blew over, then shipped to Cairo as Churchill's Minister of State in the Middle East.
In Cairo, Casey's task was to weld the politically fermenting Middle East into a solid base for Allied troops. He did not attempt to solve racial problems. He did handle huge problems of economics and supply, thus had something to do with the success of the Allied North African and Mediterranean campaigns.
(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Jan. 3, 1944)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)
Mrs Casey
Yes, Yes, India is changing. Past the throne of Warren Hastings, down apartments renovated by Curzon, trots a straightforward Australian dame, thanking you for coming, and knowing, she too, all about Jamini Roy, and Gopal Ghosh. Outside the chaprassis fling 'wide the magnificent iron gates to Morgan and worse— guests of Mrs Casey in dhotis and saris— and mutter to one another that there was a time when lat sahibs were lat sahibs.
EM Forster, writer. Calcutta, 1945
(source: EM Forster, PN Furbank (ed.): EM Forster – A Life. London Secker & Warburg, 1978)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with PN Furbank)
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Frederick John Burrows
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A thank you from
Government House
FJ Burrows,
Governor of Bengal, Calcutta
(source: personal scrapbook kept by Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart O.B.E., I.C.S. seen on 20-Dec-2005 / Reproduced by courtesy of Mrs. Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart)
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Lord Linlithgow
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Field Marshal Lord Wavell
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Wavell and the Golden Throne
At New Delhi last week, Viscount Wavell of Cyrenaica and Winchester took
office as India's 19th Viceroy. The ceremony was as simple as Lord Wavell's
brisk arrival by plane, as austere as the task he now faces.
Not till the viceregal flag broke out over the palace dome was the public
aware that Field Marshal Lord Wavell had mounted the golden throne. Within
jasper-columned Durbar Hall, he had taken the three great oaths: 1) the oath of
allegiance to King-Emperor George VI; 2) the oath as Governor-General of
British India; 3) the oath of Viceroy representing the Crown to the autonomous
Indian States. In that nine-minute ceremony, he had also attained a sumptuous
$10,000,000 palace; a job paying in salary and expenses about $280,000 a year;
the top appointive post in all the British Empire's glittering hierarchy;
direct power unrivaled by any king on earth, rivaled only by a few dictators;
and a set of administrative burdens in scale with his viceregal grandeur.
The Bellies. Heaviest of the burdens was the oldest one—the weight of
India's 390,000,000 Moslems and Hindus of many castes, divided amongst
themselves, in chronic ferment against the British Raj and all that the Viceroy
represents. Lord Wavell had followed monolithic Lord Linlithgow, the outgoing
and unregretted 18th Viceroy, into office at a time when the Raj was at its
lowest point yet in both Indian and British esteem. Many of India's
millions, ordinarily unstirred by and unaware of the political issues which
engross the articulate minority, felt in their bellies a failure of the Raj.
They were starving.
Famine gripped large areas of India (TIME, Oct.
18). Three days after his inauguration, Field Marshal Lord Wavell announced
that he would visit hunger-plagued Calcutta, where whole families were dying on
the streets. The Bengal Government was one of several provincial Governments which
had dallied at commandeering rice crops and stocks, and distributing them to
the hungry. Lord Wavell has the power to do so for all of India, and the
Central Government has already threatened to override dilatory provincial
authorities if necessary. But, even with the utmost vigor on his part, a
solution will be difficult.
Cure and Spot. Last month Lord Wavell announced in England a three-point
India policy. The points, in the order of importance and timing which he
assigned them, were: 1) the organization of India for the complete defeat of
Japan; 2) the raising of social standards throughout India; 3) the gradual
transfer of political power to Indian hands.
Lord Wavell's bluntness in putting Indian independence last on the list
showed no desire to placate anyone. It did show a realistic approach to the
fact that India is an important Allied military base as well as a shaky pillar
of Empire. But the same bluntness was bound to alienate many Indians before he
had mounted the throne. Indians could—and did—point out that a starving India
could be neither an efficient base nor a willing ally. With no real evidence as
yet, they were already branding him as another imperialist whipping master. And
many Britons at home, horrified at the failure of the Raj to control the
famine, were loud-voiced for the release of the Congress leaders jailed by
Linlithgow, the removal of Indian Secretary Leopold Amery.
The hero of Cyrenaica had been in some tough spots, had won triumphs and
survived reverses in Africa and Greece. On the golden throne of the Viceroy, he
was in the toughest spot in all the Empire.
The Imponderable Mr. Bose
In Singapore last week a "provisional
government of India" was set up by the Japanese. Its chief: Subhas Chandra
Bose, ex-President of the Indian National Congress. Its first intention to
declare war on Britain and the U.S.
Cherub-faced lady-killer Bose has long been a
friend to the Axis. In 1941, faced with prosecution by the British, he fled
India, later cropped up wining & dining with Axis leaders in Berlin and
Tokyo, plumped for Fascism. Broadcasting to discontented India over Axis
frequencies, Bose once said: "... In December 1941... but one cry arose
from the lips of the brave soldiers of Nippon: 'On to Singapore!' Comrades, let
your battle cry be 'On to Delhi!"
(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Nov. 1, 1943)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)
Divided views on the famine
For example, we were by no means in love with the war hero Churchill. Now that their correspondence is declassified we learn that our view on Churchill's stand on the Bengal famine was shared by Wavell, the Viceroy at the time, and also the future Viceroy, Mountbatten.
Nandita Sen, Schoolgirl, Calcutta. August 1945
(Source: Nandita's story at: http://timewitnesses.org/english/%7Enandita.html, Nandita Sen Hyderabad - January 2005, seen 18th November 2005)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Nandita Sen)
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Lord Louis Mountbatten
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V.I.P. visitors
Malcolm
Moncrieff Stuart, I.C.S. (Indian Civil Service) District Magistrate 24
Parganas, Calcutta
(source: personal scrapbook kept by Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart O.B.E., I.C.S. seen on 20-Dec-2005 / Reproduced by courtesy of Mrs. Malcolm Moncrieff Stuart)
_____Contemporary Records of or about 1940s Calcutta___
People Coming
& Going
Mahatma Gandhi set a
fashion for pilgrims. After tramping barefoot across miles of east Bengal, pushing his nonviolence campaign, he
tried the next lap in a jeep.
When Viscount
Mountbatten, India's new Viceroy, skidded and bounced his car off the road near Basingstoke, Hampshire, the
ex-Commandoman jumped out, stuck up his thumb, hitched to London in a passing bus, which got him
there for a date with the Prime Minister.
(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Mar. 10, 1947)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)
Milestones
Engaged. The Hon.
Patricia Edwina Victoria Mountbatten, 22, great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria goddaughter of the Duke of
Windsor,'eldest daughter of Viscount
Mountbatten, debonair Admiral of the Royal Navy, former Supreme Allied
Commander in Southeast Asia; and Norton
Cecil Michael Knatchbull, sixth Baron Brabourne, 21, son of the late cricket-playing Governor of Bombay
and Bengal; in London.
(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Aug. 12, 1946)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)
Milestones
Married. The Hon.
Patricia Edwina Victoria Mountbatten, 22, great-great-granddaughter of Queen Victoria, elder daughter of Viscount
Mountbatten, suave Admiral of the Royal Navy,
wartime Supreme Allied Commander in Southeast Asia; and John Ulick
Knatchbull, seventh Baron Brabourne,
21, son of the late Governor of Bombay and Bengal; by the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the presence of King George,
Queen Elizabeth, the Duchess of Kent,
attended by Bridesmaids Princess Elizabeth, Princess Margaret, Princess
Alexandra; in Romsey, Hampshire,
England.
(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Nov. 4, 1946)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)
"Very
Smooth"
At New Delhi's Palam
Airport this week 25-pounders blasted out a 31-gun salute. Into the blazing
heat stepped Viscount Mountbatten of Burma, cool and stiff in his starched,
white Rear Admiral's uniform. The
Rajputana Rifles band played God Save the King. Soon after, Mountbatten, his Lady and daughter Pamela
reached the wide gate of the massive Viceroy's House. The Mountbattens entered
a carriage drawn by plume-decked horses and, escorted by gold-turbaned,
scarlet-coated guards, were driven the few hundred feet to the crimson-carpeted steps of the Durbar Hall.
Behind them the gates
opened and hundreds of Indians and others swarmed in to see the show—perhaps
the last full dress panoply of the British Raj. Among the spectators were many delegates from the 32-nation
Inter-Asian Relations Conference ; many of them had wishful reasons of their
own for wanting to be in a final rite of British rule.
The Mountbattens mounted
the steps. At the top stood the Viceroy and Vicereine, Lord and Lady Wavell. Said Wavell: "Did you have
a good trip?" Said Mountbatten: "Very smooth." Next day, Wavell was piped and saluted out.
With no letdown in ceremony, Mountbatten took
the oath as Viceroy, sat for a moment on the red brocade and gold
throne.
Smooth "Dickie"
Mountbatten, who hoped to soothe India into unity for self-rule by June 1948, was greeted by grating news. The
governments of one princely state and two provinces, representing 70,000,000
(about one-fifth of India's population), served notice that they meant to set up as independent
states when British rule ended. They were prosperous Travancore, heavily Moslem
Sind and Moslem-run Bengal, scene of some of the worst Moslem v. Hindu
disorders in recent months. That was doubtless only the beginning of Mountbatten's troubles as (probably) the
last of 20 Viceroys.
(source: TIME Magazine, New York, Mar. 31, 1947)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Time Magazine)
_____Memories of 1940s Calcutta________________________
Divided views on the famine
For example, we were by no means in love with the war hero Churchill. Now that their correspondence is declassified we learn that our view on Churchill's stand on the Bengal famine was shared by Wavell, the Viceroy at the time, and also the future Viceroy, Mountbatten.
Nandita Sen, Schoolgirl, Calcutta. August 1945
(Source: Nandita's story at: http://timewitnesses.org/english/%7Enandita.html, Nandita Sen Hyderabad - January 2005, seen 18th November 2005)
(COPYRIGHT NOTICE: Reproduced under 'fair dealing' terms as part of a non commercial educational research project. The copyright remains with Nandita Sen)
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Home ● Sitemap ● Reference ● Last updated: 03-October-2009
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If there
are any technical problems, factual inaccuracies or things you have to add,
then please contact the group
under info@calcutta1940s.org