64

from such unneccessary pressure. But no such reduction took place, and the fact was particularly noticed in Sir H. Willcox's Minute, dated the 19th of November, 1851, in which he remarked that, although the pressure of the Contingent had been still more severely felt by the Nizam since 1849, no step had been taken to carry out the instructions of the Court," and that vacancies have occurred in the staff of the Contingent and they have been filled up by the Governor-General. "Almost every reduction that was made in the Contingent after 1853 was equally practicable under its constitution prior to that date. The bulk of the savings effected after 1853 was, first, by the abolition of separate military and ordnance establishments, and secondly, by a reduction in the number of the

European Staff and Regimental Officers. Colonel Davidson, who was Resident at Hyderabad after the assignment of the Berars, thus describes and reviews the former cost of the Contingent in his letter to the Government of India, No. 91 dated the 12th of October, 1860 :— I also discover by a reference to a Memorandum of the late Sir William MacNaughten of the 11th of January, 1834, from your office that in some years eleven lakhs, twelve lakhs and thirteen lakhs were charged annually to the Nizam as the pay alone of European Officers of a Contingent that now, when nearly as strong numerically, we find we can efficiently maintain at a cost of twenty-six lakhs per annum. The wonder clearly is that instead of owing only forty-three lakhs of Company's rupees at the end of fifty years of such a system our claim did not render the Nizam hopelessly insolvent." Had the saving been made, as it could have been made, without any sacrifice of efficiency, at an early period, by the British Government, who possessed as complete a control over the Force then as after 1853, it is clear that, instead of a sum of fifty lakhs of rupees standing against the Nizam in 1853, for which the cream of his territory was taken away, the aggregate payments actually made by him during so many years would have resulted in a balance of not less than some millions sterling standing at his credit.

66

25. It has been sometimes asserted that the British interference in the affairs of Hyderabad was withdrawn on the death of the Nizam Sikunder Jah and the accession of his son Nasir-ud-Dowlah, in 1829, and that the Nizam had full liberty of action after that year and exercised entire control over Chundoo Loll as Minister; but the statement is not borne out by the facts of the case. Nasir-ud-Dowlah, on his accession, made a specific request for the removal of the English Revenue Officers that the British Government had placed in charge of many of his districts during the closing years of his father's life, to which request Lord W. Bentinck replied by a letter to the Nizam, dated the 21st of August, 1829, but the letter did not contain any such statement as would have given the latter the clear option to remove the existing Minister. It said that the European Officers would be removed as requested, and added that the " appointment of Diwans and Peshkars (that is, presumably on a vacancy occurring)" and their removal " (i.e., the removal of those whom the Nizam had himself appointed) "would be in future in the power of the Nizam." Chandoo Loll having Chandoo Loll having "reigned " through the direct

support of the British Government for twenty years, such an intimation as the above was of a widely different nature from a distinct assurance that the Minister then in office might be removed at the Nizam's pleasure. As a matter of fact, no real withdrawal of interference took place in 1829 or thereafter. Indeed, in practice, things remained much the same after 1829 as before that date. On the 9th of September, 1830, the Honourable East India Company, replying through their Secretary to the India Board, pointing out that no substantial change had taken place in the interference with the Hyderabad Government, wrote as follows:-" And the Court are finally convinced that the supposed wishes of the British Government would have to the full as much effect on the Government of the Nizam at the present as it is acknowledged they would have had at the former time." And in the year 1838, the Court of Directors indicated their clear cognisance of the fact that the Nizam had never been allowed to take up his proper place and power in his own State. They wrote:-" All that is required is the permanent assurance of such an abstinence from interference in public affairs on the part of the Nizam himself as he already for the most part practises, an assurance which would cause the Minister to look for support exclusively to the Resident."

66

26. When General Fraser, the Resident, by his letter of the 26th of July, 1842, warned the Government of India that if the Nizam were allowed to feel really independent, "it is not improbable that besides other evils that may arise we shall experience one of great magnitude in a proposition on the part of His Highness for the disbandment of the Contingent to which he is known to be averse," the Governor-General, Lord Ellenborough, addressed to the Nizam himself a Fersian letter dated the 1st of October, 1842, in which he said : I am sorry to learn that the Minister of Hyderabad does not act according to the counsels of the Resident as he has done hitherto. Therefore, I desire that you will make this matter right... Finally, it is expedient that you direct the Minister to attend to the wishes of the Resident. It is a great pity if anything contrary to the former friendship and the concord between the two Governments should occur." That the Nizam was, at least up to 1849, not allowed to choose his own Minister is borne out by what Lord Dalhousie wrote in his letter, dated the 6th of June, 1851, to the Nizam. Lord Dalhousie wrote:-" Nearly three years have passed since Your Highness was informed that the British Government desired to exercise no interference in the selection Your Highness might wish to make of the person whom you might consider qualified to hold the office of Diwan.'

27. Even if the fact be passed over, that the Contingent from first to last was kept up at the Nizam's cost to do those identical duties which the British Government had by Treaty engaged to perform by the hands of the Subsidiary Force (for which they had already been paid by the assignment to them of the districts of Bellary and Cuddapah of the annual value of sixty-three lakhs), and even if the responsibility of the Hyderabad State for the support of the Contingent be admitted and the figures of the pecuniary transactions of the two Governments up to 1853 accepted as they stand,

the alleged balance of rupees forty-three lakhs against the Nizam, which formed the sole ground for the assignment of the Berars in 1853, only appeared by excluding from the account certain sets-off, viz., first, the Abkari or Excise claims, and secondly, the saving effected by the British Government in reducing the strength of the Subsidiary Force.

28. The first set-off claimed by the Nizam was principally for the surplus of Excise duties levied on his own subjects in the large native city of Secunderabad, which, because of its nearness to the camp of the Subsidiary Force, was, in 1803, placed under the jurisdiction of the British Resident, who ever since holds therein delegated authority from the Nizam. The native city of Secunderabad, in the days prior to 1853, contained a population of about 60,000 of the Nizam's subjects, who were not exempt from duty on articles for consumption, and the Excise Revenue in question, amounting to about one lakh of rupees yearly, came to be consequently all along levied in the Nizam's name by the British authorities, and formed as much a part of his revenues as similar taxes collected elsewhere within his Dominions. The Government of India, however, for forty-one years credited this Excise revenue to themselves. In support of this counter-claim may be quoted the authority of the Resident, Colonel Davidson, who, in his letter to the Government of India, dated the 12th of October, 1860, averred that the Nizam was in this matter" shown to be in debt to the British Government by not having his counter-claims admitted," and who further stated:" We carried the surplus of the Abkari revenues of Secunderabad and Jalna which at present amount to one lakh annually to our own credit from 1812 to 1853, say for forty-one years. The above would have given the Nizam a credit of forty-one lakhs, without interest, against the debt we claimed."

29. The second set-off is a far greater counter-claim arising `out of the saving effected by the British Government by keeping the Subsidiary Force for many years at less strength than that which, under the Treaty () of 1800, they had engaged and received consideration to furnish, viz., about 9,500 men. By the third Article of the Treaty, the British Government engaged to keep up" stationed in perpetuity in His Highness's territories" a Subsidiary Force to "consist of eight battalions of Sepoys (or 8,000 Firelocks) and two regiments of cavalry (or 1,000 horse) with their requisite complements of guns, European Artillerymen, Lascars and Pioneers fully equipped with warlike stores and ammunition." And the fifth Article of the Treaty described the Force to be kept up as "the said augmented Subsidiary Force consisting of 8,000 infantry, 1,000 cavalry and the usual proportion of artillery. In 1810, the infantry regiments of the Subsidiary Force were each reduced from 1,000 to 750 men, thus reducing the force by a number equal to about 2,000 infantry. And Major Moore, a Member of the Court of Directors, commenting on this in his Minute of the 7th of November, 1853, said:" The number of troops (the Subsidiary Force) kept up by us within the Hyderabad territory for the last thirty years has been more than onefourth less than the number for which we had contracted and received

(1) App. G.

payment in advance. By what right have we received payment for troops we did not furnish? If these facts are true, are we or are we not bound to account to the Nizam for what we have received from him for an equivalent we have not fulfilled?" He then proceeds to put the question: "Is it becoming on our part to endeavour by specious arguments to show that eight regiments of one thousand firelocks as specified in the original Treaty meant in spirit eight regiments of seven hundred and fifty?" This substantial reduction of the numerical strength of the Subsidiary Force would not have been indulged in had the Contingent not been created to do the duties which had been imposed by the Treaty (1) of 1800 on the Subsidiary Force, and the saving thus effected to the British Government was at the cost of the Nizam.

30. For the reasons given above, it would thus appear that the pecuniary claim of forty-three lakhs (or thirty-three lakhs without interest), on which alone the Treaty (2) of 1853 was based and which formed the sole ground on which the assignment of the Berars was demanded and taken, had no sound foundation. The pecuniary claim is no doubt mentioned as a debt in that Treaty, but upon an examination of its incidents, it will be found that the Nizam had practically no alternative but to sign it. The Resident, Colonel Davidson, who was an eye-witness of the transactions of 1853, in his letter to the Government of India, dated the 12th of October, 1860, gave his testimony that this debt "was acknowledged by the Nizam by the Treaty (2) of 1853 under pressure and which he never considered he justly owed." Colonel Davidson, moreover, added that, in his own opinion, "had the pecuniary demands been impartially dealt with we had no just claim on the Nizam for the present debt."

31. Before proceeding to show that the Nizam did not voluntarily sign the Treaty (2) of 1853, by which the Province of Berar was alienated for the support of the Contingent, but did so only under compulsion of the severest kind, it will be useful to recall a case in 1821, similar to that of 1853, but on which a very different judgment was passed. In the year 1821, under the Governor-Generalship of Lord Hastings, the pay of the Contingent having fallen into arrears and debts having been contracted on account of it, a proposal was made by the Resident of the day that the Government of India should guarantee advances of eighty lakhs or a hundred lakhs of rupees in order to meet the embarassment thus caused, withholding as security for their repayment the Peshcush, an annual sum of seven lakhs of rupees, then payable to the Nizam by the British Government. The Peshcush being, however, not a sufficient security for such a large advance, the idea of an assignment of territory occurred to Lord Hastings, but only to be at once dismissed from his mind. In his Minute of the 3rd of May, 1821, is recorded the following passage :

"But we well know the administration of any of his provinces "would never be made over to us by the Nizam unless through "absolute compulsion-an act of oppression the contemplation "of which would not for a amoment be tolerated by any mem"ber of the Board."

32. The Treaty (1) of 1853 was signed under the threat of an immediate military occupation. The whole history of the negotiations, from the 12th of March to the 15th of May, 1853, as recorded in the Hyderabad Blue Book of 1854, shows conclusively that, up to the last, the Nizam absolutely refused voluntarily to cede or assign territory in order to provide for the Contingent on any terms whatsoever. First, permanent cession was urged, which the Nizam refused; then a second proposal was made that a permanent assignment should be effected while the sovereignty of the territory should remain nominally with the Nizam. This also the Nizam refused. For fifty days he was urged to comply, the offers before him being, respectively, permanent cession or permanent assignment of territory, but he would not yield. It was then that, on the 30th of April, the Resident, Colonel Low, found it necessary to make his third proposal, which was that the territory in question should be assigned to the British Government" merely for a time to maintain the Contingent as long as the Nizam should require that Force." Even to this modified proposal, under which the Nizam retained the clear right of disbanding the Contingent in future and recovering his territory, he could not be induced voluntarily to accede, though the Resident's language consisted of "objurgations and threats.” For fifteen days his determination not to accept even this modified offer remained unshaken. Then Major (afterwards Colonel) Davidson, the Assistant Resident, wrote to the Nizam's Minister on the 14th of May, 1853, and an extract from his letter, which is given hereunder, will disclose the coercive measures taken against the Nizam:"I believe the Resident requires your attendance this evening, to inform you his negotiations with the Nizam are at an end, and he applies to the Governor-General to move troops by to-day's post

.. Indeed I have a letter from my nephew at Poona, mentioning that the 78th Highlanders and 86th Regiment, H.M.'s Troops, have received orders to be in readiness to march on Hyderabad. Don't suppose military operations will be confined to the districts; and if you are a friend of His Highness, beg of him to save himself and his dignity by complying at once with what the Governor-General will most assuredly compel him to accede to." The obvious object of this letter was to inform the Nizam of the disaster that would follow his refusal of the demand; and on the 15th of May, the day after Colonel Davidson's letter, the Minister wrote to the Resident that the Nizam had at last consented to the Treaty.

33. It has been alleged that the Nizam was given the option to disband the Contingent if he pleased, but, in fact, he was allowed no such option. The alternatives offered him in 1853 were (1) to disband the Contingent and to assign lands, or (2) to retain that Force and to assign lands. Lord Dalhousie, in his Minute of the 30th of March, 1853, says :-"I am not without hope that, after every other effort may have failed, the prospect of the loss of the Contingent Force and the necessity of still making over districts temporarily into our hands may induce His Highness to consent to the engagement into which we have proposed to him to enter." The Resident, on the 12th of March and the 7th of May, 1853, had

(1) App. L.