India, its administration & progress / Sir John Strachey.

  • John Strachey
Date:
1903
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: India, its administration & progress / Sir John Strachey. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    501/552 page 471
    fallen in much later times, and which have rendered the interference of our Government inevitable. Baroda is the principal Native State of Western India. It covers 8100 square miles, and has a popula- tion of nearly 2,000,000. Its ruler, the Gaikw&r, claims precedence over all the Native chiefs of India. In 1863 Malhar Rao was imprisoned on a charge of having at- tempted the life of the Gaikwar, his brother; at the end of 1870, on his brother’s death, he was released, and he assumed the government of the State. Before long his proceedings had become so scandalous that the British Government was compelled to make a formal inquiry into his administration. It was shown that general discontent prevailed through his dominions; in one district there was open rebellion; public offices were sold to the highest bidder; payment of extortionate demands of revenue was compelled by torture; respect- able women were seized in open day in the streets of Baroda by the Gaikwar’s servants, and taken to the palace to be converted into household slaves or worse; the condition of the agricultural classes was desperate; and the whole administration was infamous. The Prime Minister was forcibly poisoned in prison, and it was hardly possible to doubt that this was done under the direct orders of the Gaikwar. It was proved that, for an act by which he had been personally offended, the Gaikwar had caused one of his servants, without any trial, to be tortured to death. In 1874 he was informed by the Government of India, Lord Northbrook being Viceroy at the time, that, if immediate and satisfactory reforms were not carried out in the administration of the State, his deposition would follow. He showed no inclination to alter his conduct. Soon afterwards an attempt was
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