Reorganising the Raj After 1858: Army, Services, Princely States & Divide-and-Rule

Reorganising the Instruments of Power

🎯 Exam priority: Important. Tier 2 — recurs regularly in Prelims and Mains; cover fully.

Why this topic matters for UPSC. Army reorganisation, the Civil Services restructuring, relations with princely states and the divide-and-rule policy are tested under the 'Miscellaneous / British policy' umbrella.

• The post-1857 Europeanisation of the officer corps and the policy toward princely states recur.

• The policy of 'Divide and Rule' — communal, regional — is a strong Mains theme.

• Mains: how did British policies after 1857 shape the structure of colonial India?

The Revolt of 1857 gave the British a terrible fright, and once it was crushed they set about making sure it could never happen again. A companion article covers the constitutional changes — the Government of India Act of 1858, the transfer of power to the Crown, and the new Councils. This article covers the other half of the story: the deliberate reorganisation of the instruments of power — the army, the public services, the princely states and the everyday machinery of rule — so that every lever of force and patronage stayed firmly in British hands.

Reorganising the Instruments of Power

• After 1857 the rulers had learnt, in one historian's phrase, that "their bayonets were the only secure foundation of their rule". The whole post-Revolt settlement was therefore built around a single anxiety — how to prevent another revolt — and three instruments were redesigned to that end: the army (rebuilt to make a united mutiny impossible), the public services (kept British at the top), and the princely states (converted from victims of annexation into props of the Empire).

• Running through all three was a deeper change of spirit. The British attitude towards India "changed for the worse" after the Revolt: the half-hearted earlier impulse to modernise gave way to consciously reactionary policies, captured in the historian Percival Spear's line that "the Indian Government's honeymoon with progress was over". The guiding maxim of the new regime was the old one of divide and rule.

The Army: Rebuilt to Prevent Another Revolt

The first and most carefully redesigned instrument was the army — the ultimate sanction of British power, and the very body that had risen in 1857.

The Army: Rebuilt to Prevent Another Revolt

• The Indian army was carefully reorganised after 1858. A few changes followed automatically from the transfer of power: the East India Company's European forces were merged with the Crown's troops. But the army was reorganised "most of all to prevent the recurrence of another revolt", and several steps were taken to minimise the capacity of Indian soldiers to rise again.

• European domination was guaranteed. The proportion of Europeans to Indians was raised and fixed at one to two in the Bengal Army (and two to five in the Madras and Bombay armies). European troops were posted at key geographical and military positions, and the crucial branches — the artillery, and later in the 20th century tanks and armoured corps — were placed exclusively in European hands.

• The older policy of excluding Indians from the officer corps was strictly maintained. Till 1914 no Indian could rise higher than the rank of subedar. The Indian army thus remained a purely mercenary force, deliberately isolated from the rest of the population: newspapers, journals and nationalist publications were kept from reaching the soldiers.

'Balance and Counterpoise' & the Martial-Races Theory

Beyond raising the European ratio, the British re-engineered the Indian half of the army itself, so that the men could never again combine.

'Balance and Counterpoise' & the Martial-Races Theory

• The Indian section of the army was organised on the principle of "balance and counterpoise" — or, frankly, divide and rule — to stop the soldiers from ever uniting again in an anti-British uprising. Discrimination by caste, region and religion was built into recruitment, and a deliberate fiction was created that Indians were divided into "martial" and "non-martial" classes.

• Soldiers from Avadh, Bihar, Central India and South India — who had helped conquer India but had then taken part in the Revolt — were branded non-martial and were no longer recruited on a large scale. The Sikhs, Gurkhas and Pathans, who had helped suppress the Revolt, were declared martial and recruited in large numbers.

• Indian regiments were deliberately made a mixture of castes and groups placed so as to balance one another; communal, caste, tribal and regional loyalties were encouraged so that nationalism would not grow. Caste and communal companies were introduced in most regiments. Charles Wood, the Secretary of State, wrote to Viceroy Canning in 1861 that he never wished to see again "a great Army, very much the same in its feelings" and "confident in its strength" — he wanted the regiments so divided that one could readily be turned on another.

A Costly Machine: ~52% of Revenue by 1904

This security came at an enormous price — one paid, as always, out of Indian revenues.

A Costly Machine: ~52% of Revenue by 1904

• The Indian army became, in time, a very costly military machine. In 1904 it absorbed nearly 52 per cent of the Indian revenues. This was because it served more than one purpose: India, the most prized colonial possession of the age, had to be constantly defended from the competing imperialisms of Russia, France and Germany, which swelled the army's size.

• Secondly, Indian troops were not maintained for India's defence alone: they were used to extend and consolidate British power across Asia and Africa. Thirdly, the British section served as an army of occupation — the ultimate guarantee of the British hold on the country. The whole cost fell on Indian revenues and was a very heavy burden on them.

The Public Services: Reserved for the British

The second instrument of power was the bureaucracy — the body that turned policy into practice. Indians were shut out of it almost as firmly as out of the officer corps.

The Public Services: Reserved for the British

• All positions of power and responsibility were held by members of the Indian Civil Service (ICS), recruited through an annual open competitive examination held in London. Indians could sit it in theory — Satyendranath Tagore, brother of Rabindranath Tagore, became the first Indian to succeed, in 1863 — and one or two joined almost every year thereafter, but their number was negligible beside the English entrants.

• In practice the doors stayed barred by a stack of handicaps: the exam was held in far-away London, conducted in the alien English language, and based on Classical Greek and Latin learning that needed a long, costly course of study in England. Worse, the maximum age for entry was cut from twenty-three in 1859 to nineteen by 1878 — if a young Indian of twenty-three found it hard, the Indian of nineteen found it impossible.

• In the other departments too — Police, Public Works, Medicine, Posts and Telegraphs, Forests, Engineering, Customs and later Railways — the superior, highly paid posts were reserved for British citizens. This was no accident. Secretary of State Lord Kimberley laid down in 1893 that an "adequate number" of the Civil Service "shall always be Europeans", and Viceroy Lord Lansdowne stressed "the absolute necessity of keeping the government... in European hands". The services were Indianised only after 1918, and even then control was kept British, while Indianised officials still served Britain's imperial purposes.

The Princely States: From Annexation to Paramountcy

The third instrument was the most dramatic reversal of all — the princes, once prey to annexation, were now made into the very pillars of British rule.

The Princely States: From Annexation to Paramountcy

• The Revolt led the British to reverse their policy towards the Indian States. Before 1857 they had seized every chance to annex them; this policy was now abandoned. Most princes had stayed loyal and had actively helped crush the Revolt — Viceroy Canning called them "breakwaters in the storm". Their reward was an assurance that their right to adopt heirs would be respected and the integrity of their territories guaranteed against future annexation.

• The Revolt had convinced the British that the states could be useful allies against popular opposition. Canning wrote in 1860 (recalling Sir John Malcolm) that keeping up native states "without political power, but as royal instruments" was what would let the Empire last; the British historian P.E. Roberts agreed that to preserve them "as a bulwark of the Empire" had become a settled principle of policy.

• The other side of the bargain was complete subordination. As the price of survival, the princes were made to acknowledge Britain as the paramount power: Canning declared in 1862 that "the Crown of England stood forward, the unquestioned Ruler and Paramount Power in all India". In 1876 Queen Victoria assumed the title of Empress of India to emphasise British sovereignty over the whole subcontinent, and Lord Curzon later made plain that the princes ruled merely as agents of the British Crown.

• As the paramount power the British claimed the right to supervise the internal government of the states — interfering through the Residents, appointing and dismissing ministers, even removing rulers. The change is shown by Mysore (whose ruler Bentinck had deposed in 1831; the adopted heir was recognised after 1868 and the state fully restored to the young Maharaja in 1881) and by Baroda (whose ruler Malhar Rao Gaekwad, accused in 1874 of misrule and of trying to poison the Resident, was deposed but the state not annexed — another Gaekwad was put on the throne).

The Reactionary Turn & 'Divide and Rule'

Behind these three instruments lay a single, consciously reactionary spirit — and its master-key was the policy of divide and rule.

The Reactionary Turn & 'Divide and Rule'

• The British attitude changed for the worse after 1857. Earlier they had at least paid lip-service to "preparing" Indians for self-government; now the view was openly put that Indians were unfit to rule themselves and must be ruled by Britain indefinitely. The army and the Civil Service had already been redesigned to exclude Indians from real power; the same reactionary turn reached into every field.

• The central method was divide and rule. Having conquered India by exploiting its disunity, after 1858 the British went on setting prince against people, province against province, caste against caste, group against group, and — above all — Hindus against Muslims. The Hindu-Muslim unity shown during the Revolt had alarmed them, and they were determined to break it to weaken the rising nationalist movement.

• Immediately after 1857 they repressed Muslims, confiscating their lands and property on a large scale and favouring Hindus; after about 1870 the policy was reversed, and an effort was made to turn upper- and middle-class Muslims against the nationalist movement. The British cleverly used the lure of government service — on which the educated, lacking other openings, depended almost entirely — to split the educated classes along religious lines, promising official favours on a communal basis in return for loyalty.

• The same reaction showed in hostility to educated Indians (sneered at as "babus" once they began to organise a nationalist movement and founded the Indian National Congress in 1885) and in a new friendship with the most conservative classes — the princes, zamindars and landlords (the talukdars of Avadh had their lands restored), hailed as the "natural leaders" of the people and used as counterweights against the nationalist intelligentsia.

Why This Matters for UPSC

• Prelims: the army reorganisation (the 1:2 Bengal Army ratio, artillery kept European, no Indian above subedar till 1914, "balance and counterpoise", the martial / non-martial races theory, ~52% of revenue in 1904); the ICS (exam in London, Satyendranath Tagore the first Indian, 1863, age limit cut to 19 by 1878, Indianised after 1918); the princely states ("breakwaters in the storm", paramountcy, right of adoption, Empress of India 1876, the Residents, Mysore & Baroda); and divide and rule.

• Mains: how the post-1857 reorganisation of the army, services and princely states was designed to make the Raj revolt-proof; and how "divide and rule" — above all between Hindus and Muslims — became the master-policy of the consolidated Raj.

Further Reading

• Standard NCERT-level texts and reference books on modern Indian history (any UPSC reading list).

Test Yourself: Practice Questions & PYQs

Test how well you can explain the reorganisation of the Raj after 1858 — the army, the public services, the princely states and divide-and-rule. Decide your answer, then open Show answer.

Practice Questions

Q1. After 1858 the Indian army was reorganised most of all in order to:

• (a) cut military expenditure

• (b) fight the Russians in Central Asia

• (c) Indianise the officer corps

• (d) prevent the recurrence of another revolt

Q2. After 1858 the proportion of Europeans to Indians in the Bengal Army was raised and fixed at about:

• (a) one to two

• (b) one to four

• (c) one to one

• (d) two to three

Q3. Which branch of the army was kept exclusively in European hands after 1858?

• (a) the artillery

• (b) the cavalry

• (c) the engineers

• (d) the infantry

Q4. Until which year could no Indian rise higher than the rank of subedar in the army?

• (a) 1885

• (b) 1858

• (c) 1947

• (d) 1914

Q5. The 'martial races' theory was used after 1857 to:

• (a) promote Indians to officer rank

• (b) abolish caste in the army

• (c) raise an all-volunteer Indian army

• (d) recruit heavily from groups (Sikhs, Gurkhas, Pathans) who had helped suppress the Revolt while branding others 'non-martial'

Q6. By 1904 the Indian army absorbed roughly what share of India's revenues?

• (a) about 35 per cent

• (b) about 20 per cent

• (c) nearly 75 per cent

• (d) nearly 52 per cent

Q7. Who was the first Indian to succeed in the Indian Civil Service examination, and in which year?

• (a) R.C. Dutt, 1871

• (b) Satyendranath Tagore, 1863

• (c) Surendranath Banerjea, 1869

• (d) Rabindranath Tagore, 1885

Q8. The maximum age for entry into the ICS was lowered, making it still harder for Indians, from twenty-three in 1859 to:

• (a) twenty-one by 1870

• (b) eighteen by 1880

• (c) nineteen by 1878

• (d) twenty by 1885

Q9. Loyal Indian princes were described by Viceroy Canning, and the post-1857 states policy, as:

• (a) 'breakwaters in the storm' and a 'bulwark of the Empire'

• (b) equal sovereign allies

• (c) a relic to be abolished

• (d) dangerous rivals to be annexed

Q10. In 1876 Queen Victoria assumed the title of Empress of India in order to:

• (a) emphasise British sovereignty and paramountcy over the entire subcontinent

• (b) grant self-government to the princes

• (c) end the doctrine of lapse

• (d) create the Indian Civil Service

UPSC Previous Year Questions (PYQs)

The army, ICS, princely states and divide-and-rule are steady Prelims topics (the question below is a real UPSC PYQ, CSE 2018) and recur in Mains on the consolidation of the Raj.

Q1. Which among the following events happened earliest? (UPSC CSE 2018)

• (a) Swami Dayanand established Arya Samaj.

• (b) Bankim Chandra Chattopadhyay wrote Anandmath.

• (c) Satyendranath Tagore became the first Indian to succeed in the Indian Civil Service examination.

• (d) Dinabandhu Mitra wrote Neel Darpan.

Mains Practice Questions

Use these to frame full-length answers. You don't have to answer one exactly — they show the angles UPSC tests, so let them guide which points you cover.

• “After 1857 the British rebuilt the army to make another revolt impossible.” Examine the steps taken in the reorganisation of the Indian army.

• How were the public services, especially the ICS, kept a preserve of the British after 1858?

• Trace the change in British policy towards the princely states after 1857 — from annexation to paramountcy.

• “Divide and rule, above all between Hindus and Muslims, was the master-policy of the consolidated Raj.” Discuss.