Justice and Equity
After the East India Company quieted the Maratha Confederacy in 1805, Harsukh Rai looked forward to a new era of good government.
1802-1805
King George III 1760-1820
The menacingly spiked Delhi Gate of the Shaniwar Wada, official residence of the Peshwas (prime ministers) of the Maratha Confederacy, at Poona (Pune), in modern-day Maharashtra. There were trenchant critics of British policy in India right from the start. Some, such as Adam Smith, Robert Clive, Edmund Burke and John Bright, were full of suggestions for handling it better through greater freedom and independence; others, such as Major Thomas Evans Bell, made money on the speaker’s circuit in the USA offering (in Bright’s opinion) plenty of anti-colonial breast-beating but nothing that would make life any better for Indians: see The Righting of Wrongs.
Introduction
After the Second Maratha War (1803-1805), the East India Company had complete control over the Maratha Confederacy, an alliance of kingdoms in modern-day Maharashtra. Much has since been written in criticism of the English in India, but little of it cuts to the heart, or (as he might put it) mantles the English cheek with the blush of shame, quite like Harsukh Rai’s guileless optimism.
WHOEVER sought their protection was much honoured, respected, and treated with great kindness, and they fixed an allowance for his maintenance. Notwithstanding that the English are few in number, yet, by their prudent measures and superior wisdom and understanding, they have introduced such management into the countries conquered by them as never was known in the days of any ancient rulers, although they possessed much greater power and more numerous armies.
For the comfort of their subjects and tranquillity of all the people they have established courts in all their cities and towns,* so that, in fact, in apprehension of their equity and justice, the wolf and the lion live in the same den with the goat and the deer and the wagtail and sparrow sit in the same nest with the falcon and hawk.
* Harsukh’s praise was not all undeserved. Bishop Reginald Heber found that Colonel James Tod had worked wonders in Rajputana, and that the only people who were ungrateful to him were the British. See The Quiet Kingdom.
