A Division Of The Spoils (Raj Quartet 4) (82 page)

He turned more expectantly to the waspish
Ranpur Gazette
, and was not unrewarded. The editorial – a long one – was headed:
Pandora’s Box.
It read:

‘The pocket-kingdom of Mirat was, until 1937, except for a brief period in the early ’twenties, in direct relationship with the Crown through the agency of the Governor in Ranpur, which suited all parties and conformed with the geographical and political facts of life. Geographically and politically, Mirat has always existed and can only exist in future as part of the geographical and political territory by which it is surrounded.

‘That it exists at all as a separate political unit is due to the pure luck and chance of the fall of the dice of history. Long drawn-out though the battle for power was between the European merchants and the ruling Indian powers in the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, there came a point when the dominant European power, the British, made a settlement with what was left of the scattered remnants of Moghul India. That point was reached in 1857.

‘Dare one say that as a result of the Mutiny the Crown
feared it had gone far enough with its policies of expansion or that it simply decided that the status quo, then existing, would prove the most profitable, if maintained? Be that as it may, with two-thirds of the sub-continent now under the direct rule of Whitehall and the real power of the remnants of Princely India reduced virtually to impotence, a declaration was made of “no further territorial ambitions” (what a sinister ring that phrase has nowadays!) – and treaties were made with the rulers of the nearly 600 remaining states, widely scattered and varying in size from mere estates to provinces the size of Ireland, treaties which secured to the rulers and to their successors their princely rights, revenues, privileges and territories, assured them of autonomy in all but the major subjects of external affairs and national defence, treaties which undertook to protect the princes from each other, from attack both internal and external.

‘Separate though these treaties were – a series of private formal individual contracts between rulers and crown, they have nevertheless always been part of a larger unwritten treaty – or doctrine: the doctrine of the paramountcy of the British Crown over all the rulers; the paramountcy of the King-Emperor or Queen-Empress who, through the Crown Representative, could depose an unruly prince, withhold recognition from a prince’s heir, and generally take steps to ensure the peace, prosperity and well-being of a prince’s subjects.

‘But none of the doctrinal powers of “paramountcy” could abrogate the treaty made with a state. From time to time the Crown has taken over a state’s administration, but only in trust. The declaration of “no further territorial ambitions” has been, one may feel, upheld.

‘Unfortunately, the doctrine of paramountcy has run counter to the doctrine of eventual self-government for those provinces ruled directly by the British parliament, through the Government of India. Paramountcy has always been illogical in the long run, and this illogicality is best exemplified by the dual rôle assigned to the Viceroy. In his rôle as Governor-General it has been his duty to govern and guide and encourage the British-Indian provinces towards
democratic parliamentary self-rule. As Crown Representative, it has been his duty to uphold, secure, oversee and defend the autocratic rule of several hundred princes.

‘Many princes have therefore assumed, or pretended to assume, or felt entitled to assume, that the demission by the Governor-General of power into Indian hands in provinces directly ruled by the British, could not absolve the British from treaty obligations to uphold, secure and defend the integrity of the territories the princes have ruled, for better or worse, and which they believe they have every right to continue to rule, irrespective of who rules the rest of India.

‘It is fair to say that until quite recently they have been encouraged in this assumption by statements from Whitehall and New Delhi, and by the behaviour and attitude of senior members of the Political Department. Their chief fear was that “paramountcy” would be transferred by the Crown to the Crown’s successors in British India (in this case, the Congress Party, which for years has made it clear that the survival of autocratic states, some quite feudal in their administration, could not be tolerated). But they were reassured. Paramountcy was a doctrine. You could not transfer a doctrine.

‘But if you can’t transfer it what can you do with it? The answer is, nothing. It simply lapses when the paramount “power” disappears. But what about the treaties? Can treaties lapse unless both parties agree to the lapse? Indeed they can. They lapse when one party no longer has the power (or the presence) to perform its part of the bargain. By abdicating in British-India, the British Crown no longer has the power to protect and secure and uphold the territorial integrity of Princely India, without running the risk of going to war with the new Dominion. One prince is rumoured to be consulting his lawyers in Switzerland with a view to suing the British Government in London for non-performance of contract. Another is rumoured to have gone to Delhi armed with a revolver. Other princes, of course, see the lapsing of paramountcy and of treaty obligations as the opportunity to declare their complete independence.

‘What the British Crown has really done for the past hundred years is advance the territories it ruled directly to full
democratic and parliamentary self-government, and maintain the territories it did not rule directly, but was paramount over, in forms of autocratic government alien in nature to the form of government itself advocates and which the British people themselves enjoy at home and seem convinced is everyone’s birthright. You can hardly wonder that this left-hand/right-hand policy was entrusted to one man, the Viceroy, in order to create the illusion that there was a unity of purpose.

‘Our new Viceroy has been, as ever, quick to grasp the irreconcilable details and see the immense political vacuum that technically follows the removal of British power in British-India. The new States Department is his efficient answer to nature’s abhorrence of such a vacuum. You could say that Whitehall foresaw the situation in 1935. You could say that the princes themselves are largely to blame for refusing at that time to co-operate in the Federal Scheme for a united and self-governing India (but they were not the only people who were suspicious of the scheme and refused to co-operate). You could blame the princes for many things, including their haughty distrust of one another, or of anybody. You cannot in principle blame them for standing by their treaties, for acting out the Ruritanian farce currently playing up and down India (and Pakistan); a farce all too frequently encouraged by senior members of the Political Deparment who have served in India for years and have been brought up to take the treaties as serious and sacrosanct documents.

‘This is a farce in which Muslim rulers of predominantly Hindu states which are hedged about on all sides by territory which from August 15 will be ruled by the Congress from Delhi, elect to join one of the two distant arms of Pakistan; or in which Hindu rulers of predominantly Muslim states in or contiguous to Pakistan declare allegiance to Congress India, or in which rulers of immense landlocked states declare their independence of everything and everybody. You cannot blame them because not only is the farce implicit in the treaties and the doctrines but these declarations and intentions do not in any single case contravene either the spirit or the letter of the law. They are simply devoid of any means of
reasonable implementation. From the princes’ point of view, the long years of British power and influence have left them in possession of preserved but unpossessable goods. Geographically and politically they cannot survive individually once the Crown abdicates and twentieth-century India (or Pakistan) takes over.

‘All this, and the terrible reports of the breakdown of civil authority in many areas of the Punjab, must make it seem that to achieve the objective of a political transformation scene in the long pantomime of the British-Indian Empire, the Viceroy, obeying the wishes of a well-meaning but ignorant British electorate, has found himself in the unenviable position of opening Pandora’s Box and letting out all the evils that have afflicted this country probably since time began but which have been imprisoned, under a lid shut and locked by the single rule of British Power and British Law; evils which have not died of asphyxiation, but multiplied.

‘Which brings us back to the small but not unimportant state of Mirat, which is not only geographically part of this province but traditionally and politically part of it.

‘Under the present ruler, His Highness Sir Ahmed Ali Guffur Kasim Bahadur, and his Chief Minister, Count Dmitri Bronowsky, Mirat has made notable strides forward. A predominantly Hindu state, the administration used to be the almost exclusive preserve of Muslims, a situation common enough where the ruling family is Muslim, but one that always causes dissatisfaction and unrest. For the past two or three decades, official posts, including senior official posts have been open to Hindus. There are Hindus on the Council of State and for many years now there has been a Hindu College of Higher Education.

‘The existence in the state capital of a large military cantonment and training area for troops of the British and the Indian armies has contributed (for nearly a hundred years) to Mirat’s prosperity and no doubt to its peace and security. For the past year or two, however, there has been a great deal of unrest. Both the main Indian political parties must be held partly responsible for this because neither has been slow to take political advantage of the problems posed for India as a
whole by the continuing existence of states whose rule, however benevolent, can hardly be called truly democratic.

‘The Nawab is now faced with the problem of what action to take now that his treaty with the Crown and the doctrine of the Crown’s paramountcy are lapsing. One may think it a pity that since 1937 his relationship with the Crown has been conducted through the Resident at the distant court of a much larger state, Gopalakand. Whatever advice Sir Robert Conway is giving the Maharajah of Gopalakand ought not, one may suggest, to be the same advice he should give to the Nawab of Mirat. But that is by the way. At this juncture, advice from the Political Department is largely irrelevant. The consideration that should be uppermost in the Nawab’s mind is the well-being of his subjects.

‘It is important to remember the tradition of intense loyalty and reverence felt by the subjects of a princely state for their ruler, the tradition of dependence on him to make wise decisions. The main Indian political parties may scoff at these traditions as outmoded and feudal, but they exist. And already we have reports of the first effects on the people of Mirat of rumours of indecision at the palace.

‘For instance, the rumour that the Nawab has not been co-operative with representatives of the States Department of the government of the new Indian dominion and may declare himself an independent Islamic state, affiliated to Pakistan, has led to the murder of Muslims in the city of Mirat and in the villages by extremist Hindus, and to burning and looting of Muslim shops. Retaliation, by Muslim extremists, has led to the murder of Hindus and the burning and looting of Hindu houses and shops. In all this, the position of such British troops as remain in the cantonment is, to say the least, delicate, and that of Indian troops equally delicate since they are in the main troops allocated to the new dominion of India and most of the Muslim elements of regiments that are to be divided have already left the area.

‘Nevertheless it is to the cantonment, which might itself turn out to be the scene of awkward confrontations, that Muslim refugees from the villages and from the city have gone, seeking temporary refuge. Some of these refugees are no doubt bona fide travellers
en route
to Pakistan. Most, one
suspects, are there temporarily, simply to protect their lives, having lost their property.

‘We cannot afford to have in this province of British India which in ten days time will become a province of the new Indian dominion, a pocket of such potential communal and political danger.

‘The Nawab could defuse the bomb in an instant, by taking the logical, the only practical step, which is to sign the instrument of accession to the new Dominion of India on the three subjects of external affairs, defence and communications and the standstill agreement which will allow him time to negotiate a settlement with India on all the complex and vitally important points arising from the lapse of paramountcy and the end of his treaty with the Crown.

‘If he signs, his subjects will then know where they stand. Since the majority is Hindu, one might say that the majority would approve such a step. The Muslim minority who until recently have lived in comparative harmony with the Hindus of Mirat would also accept his decision, as that of their ruler and co-religionist, but those of them who see a better future for themselves in Jinnah’s new Islamic state could then peacefully wind up their businesses and affairs and leave – just as peacefully.

‘One can sympathize with the Nawab. One should sympathize with any man whose traditional assurances and traditional courses of action are suddenly removed or closed to him. But it is
his
sympathies, not our own, which are under test and examination. One is fairly confident that the outcome will show them firmly placed with the present and future welfare of all his people.

‘So at least one must hope. Classical scholars will recall that Hope was the only thing that didn’t fly out of Pandora’s Box but remained obstinately at the bottom.’

*

‘Guy?’

It was Sarah. She had changed into a cotton frock.

‘Ahmed asks me to apologize. He’s got something urgent to
attend to. But Dmitri would like to have a few words and present you to
HH,
if you’re agreeable.’

‘Of course. Have you had your swim yet?’

‘I can’t this morning. I’ve got to go back to the guest house soon. But I can take you back to Nigel’s bungalow after you’ve met
HH.
I’m sorry if we seem to be messing you about again.’