Warren Hastings (December 6, 1732 - August 22, 1818) was the first governor-general of British India, from 1773 to 1785. Events 1060 - Béla I of Hungary is crowned king of Hungary 1240 - Mongol invasion of Rus: Kiev Year 1732 ( MDCCXXXII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Events 392 - Arbogast has Eugenius elected Western Roman Emperor. Year 1818 ( MDCCCXVIII) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian Calendar (or a Common For usage see British rule in India British Raj ( rāj, lit "reign" in Hindustani) primarily refers to the British Year 1773 ( MDCCLXXIII) was a Common year starting on Friday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Year 1785 ( MDCCLXXXV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common He was famously impeached in 1787 for corruption, and acquitted in 1795. Impeachment is the first of two stages in a specific process for a legislative body to forcibly remove a Government official Year 1787 ( MDCCLXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Year 1795 ( MDCCXCV) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a He was made a Privy Councillor in 1814. A privy council is a body that advises the Head of state of a nation on how to exercise their executive authority, typically but not always in the context of a Year 1814 ( MDCCCXIV) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common
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Life
Hastings was born at Churchill, Oxfordshire. Churchill is a small and picturesque Cotswold village in north-west Oxfordshire, England, about three miles south-west of Chipping Norton He attended Westminster School before joining the British East India Company in 1750 as a clerk. The Royal College of St Peter in Westminster, almost always known as Westminster School, is one of Britain 's leading boys' Independent schools with The Honourable East India Company ( HEIC) referred to most commonly as the East India Company, also historically and colloquially as John Company, or Year 1750 ( MDCCL) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a In 1757 he was made the British Resident (administrative in charge) of Murshidabad. Year 1757 ( MDCCLVII) was a Common year starting on Saturday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a WikipediaWikiProject Indian cities for details --> Murshidabad (মুর্শিদাবাদ is a city in Murshidabad district of West Bengal He was appointed to the Calcutta council in 1761, but was back in England in 1764. Year 1761 ( MDCCLXI) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Year 1764 ( MDCCLXIV) was a Leap year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a He returned to India in 1769 as a member of the Madras council and was made governor of Bengal in 1772. Year 1769 ( MDCCLXIX) was a Common year starting on Sunday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Etymology and ethnology The exact origin of the word Bangla or Bengal is unknown though it is believed to be derived from the Dravidian-speaking tribe Bang Year 1772 ( MDCCLXXII) was a Leap year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a In 1773, he was appointed the first Governor-General of India. The Governor-General of India (or from 1858 to 1947 the Viceroy and Governor-General of India) was the head of the British administration in India, and
After an eventful ten-year tenure in which he greatly extended and regularised the nascent Raj created by Clive of India, Hastings resigned in 1784. For usage see British rule in India British Raj ( rāj, lit "reign" in Hindustani) primarily refers to the British Clive of India redirects here For the film see Clive of India (film. Year 1784 ( MDCCLXXXIV) was a Leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year On his return to England he was charged with high crimes and misdemeanours by Edmund Burke, encouraged by Sir Philip Francis whom he had wounded in a duel in India. Edmund Burke ( 12 January, 1729 9 July, 1797) was an Irish statesman author orator Political theorist, and Sir Philip Francis ( 22 October 1740 &ndash 23 December 1818) English Politician and pamphleteer the probable author He was impeached in 1787 but the trial, which began in 1788, ended with his acquittal in 1795. Year 1787 ( MDCCLXXXVII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Year 1788 ( MDCCLXXXVIII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap Year 1795 ( MDCCXCV) was a Common year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Hastings spent most of his fortune on his defence, although towards the end of the trial the East India Company did provide financial support.
He retained his supporters, however, and on August 22, 1806, the Edinburgh East India Club and a number of gentlemen from India gave what was described as "an elegant entertainment" to "Warren Hastings, Esq. Events 392 - Arbogast has Eugenius elected Western Roman Emperor. Year 1806 ( MDCCCVI) was a Common year starting on Wednesday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common Edinburgh ( ˈɛdɪnb(ərə Dùn Èideann) is the Capital of Scotland and is its second largest city after Glasgow. , late Governor-General of India", who was then on a visit to Edinburgh. One of the 'sentiments' drunk on the occasion was "Prosperity to our settlements in India, and may the virtue and talents which preserved them be ever remembered with gratitude. "[1]
In 1788 he acquired the estate at Daylesford, Gloucestershire, including the site of the medieval seat of the Hastings family. Daylesford is a small village and Civil parish, situated off the A436 near Stow-on-the-Wold and five miles west of Chipping Norton In the following years, he remodelled the mansion to the designs of Samuel Pepys Cockerell, with magnificent classical and Indian decoration, and gardens landscaped by John Davenport. Samuel Pepys Cockerell (1754 - 1827 was an English Architect and an employee of the East India Company. John Davenport may refer to John Davenport (clergyman (1597–1670 Puritan minister and colonist in New Haven Colony John Davenport (Connecticut He also rebuilt the Norman church in 1816, where he was buried two years later.
Impact on Indian history
In many respects Warren Hastings epitomizes the strengths and shortcomings of the British conquest and dominion over India. Warren Hastings went about consolidating British power in a highly systematic manner. They realized very early into their rule after they gained control over the vast lands of the Gangetic plain with a handful of British officers, that they would have to rely on the Indic to administer these vast areas. In so doing, he makes a virtue out of necessity by realizing the importance of various forms of knowledge to the Colonial power, and in 1784 towards the end of his tenure as Governor general, he makes the following remarks about the importance of various forms of knowledge , including linguistic, legal and scientific for a colonial power and the case that such knowledge could be put to use for the benefit of his country Britain
“Every application of knowledge and especially such as is obtained in social communication with people, over whom we exercise dominion, founded on the right of conquest, is useful to the state … It attracts and conciliates distant affections, it lessens the weight of the chain by which the natives are held in subjection and it imprints on the hearts of our countrymen the sense of obligation and benevolence… Every instance which brings their real character will impress us with more generous sense of feeling for their natural rights, and teach us to estimate them by the measure of our own… But such instances can only be gained in their writings; and these will survive when British domination in India shall have long ceased to exist, and when the sources which once yielded of wealth and power are lost to remembrance” [2]
During Hastings' time in this post, a great deal of precedent was established pertaining to the methods which the British Empire would use in its administration of India. Hastings had a great respect for the ancient scripture of Hinduism and fatefully set the British position on governance as one of looking back to the earliest precedents possible. Hinduism is a religious tradition that originated in the Indian subcontinent. This allowed Brahmin advisors to mold the law, as no Englishman understood Sanskrit until Sir William Jones; it also accentuated the caste system and other religious frameworks which had, at least in recent centuries, been somewhat incompletely applied. Brahmin ( Brāhmaṇa, sa ब्राह्मणः is the class of educators scholars and preachers in Brahminical Hinduism. Sanskrit (sa संस्कृता वाक् saṃskṛtā vāk, for short sa संस्कृतम् saṃskṛtam) is a historical Sir William Jones ( September 28, 1746 &ndash April 27, 1794) was an English philologist and student of ancient India Castes are Hereditary systems of occupation, Endogamy, social culture, Social class, and Political power. Thus, British influence on the ever-changing social structure of India can in large part be characterized as, for better or for worse, a solidification of the privileges of the caste system through the influence of the exclusively high-caste scholars by whom the British were advised in the formation of their laws. These laws also accepted the binary division of the people of Bengal and, by extension, India in general as either Muslim or Hindu (to be governed by their own laws). The British might therefore be said to be responsible to some extent for causing division, as they were both cause and effect of the forces which would eventually polarize Hindu and Muslim nationalists into the partition of India and the creation of Pakistan. Pakistan () officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia, Southwest Asia, Middle East and
In 1781 Hastings founded Madrasa 'Aliya, meaning the higher madrasa, in Calcutta showing his relations with the Muslim population. Year 1781 ( MDCCLXXXI) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common "Madrasa" and "Medrese" redirect here For the village in Azerbaijan see Mədrəsə. A Muslim (مسلم pronounced Muslim, not Muzlim) is an adherent of the Religion [3] In addition, in 1784 Hastings supported the foundation of the Bengal Asiatik Society (now Asiatic Society of Bengal by the Orientalist Scholar William Jones, which became a storehouse for information and data pertaining to India. Year 1784 ( MDCCLXXXIV) was a Leap year starting on Thursday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Leap year The Asiatic Society was founded by Sir William Jones ( 1746 - 1794) on January 15, 1784 in a meeting presided over by Sir Robert [4]
As Hastings had few Englishmen to carry out administrative work, and still fewer with the ability to converse in local tongues, he was forced to farm out revenue collection to locals with no ideological friendship for Company rule. Moreover, he was ideologically committed at the beginning of his rule to the administration being carried out by 'natives'. He believed that Europeans revenue collectors would "open the door to every kind of rapine and extortion" as there was "a fierceness in the European manners, especially among the lower sort, which is incompatible with the gentle temper of the Bengalee". [5]
British desire to assert themselves as the sole sovereign led to conflicts within this 'dual government' of Britons and Indians. The very high levels of revenue extraction and exportation of Bengali silver back to Britain had probably contributed to the famine of 1769-70, in which it has been estimated that a third of the population died; this led to the British characterising the collectors as tyrants and blaming them for the ruin of the province. The Bengal famine of 1770 (Bengali ৭৬-এর মন্বন্তর Chhiattōrer monnōntór; lit The Famine of '76) was a catastrophic Famine between
Some Englishmen continued to be seduced by the opportunities to acquire massive wealth in India and as a result became involved in corruption and bribery, and Hastings could do little or nothing to stop it. Indeed it was argued (unsuccessfully) at his impeachment trial that he participated in the exploitation of these newly conquered lands.
Eponyms
The city of Hastings, New Zealand and the Melbourne outer suburb of Hastings, Victoria, Australia were both named after him. Hastings is the administrative centre of the Hastings District in the Hawke's Bay Region of the North Island of New Zealand. Melbourne ( is the second most populous city in Australia, with a Metropolitan area population of approximately 3 Hastings is a town on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria, Australia.
Hastings is a Senior Wing House at St Paul's School, Darjeeling, India, where all the senior wing houses are named after colonial-age military figures. St Paul's School is one of the India 's oldest and most pre-eminent public schools known for its academic tradition and alumni India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country
As judged by history
- In his Essay on Warren Hastings, Lord Macaulay, while impressed by the scale of Hastings' achievement in India, found that “His principles were somewhat lax. His heart was somewhat hard. ”
The nationalists in the subcontinent consider Hastings as another English bandit, along with Clive, who started the colonial rule in the subcontinent through treachery and cunning. However, it should be pointed out that other bandits, English or otherwise, did not found colleges and madrasas, nor helped to collect and translate Sanskrit works into English.
References
- ^ Gilbert, W. M. , editor, Edinburgh in the Nineteenth Century, Edinburgh, 1901: 44
- ^ (Bernard S Cohn "Colonialism and its forms of knowledge: The British in India" Oxford University Press 1997
- ^ Rahman, Fazlur (1982). Islam & Modernity. United States: The University of Chicago Press, 73-74. ISBN 0-226-70284-7.
- ^ Keay, John (2000). John Keay (born 1941 is an English Journalist and Historian. He specialises in writing popular histories about India and the Far East India: A History. United States: Grove Press Books, distributed by Publishers Group West, 426. ISBN 0-8021-3797-0.
- ^ Monckton-Jones, M. E. (1918). Warren Hastings in Bengal, 156.
- Forrest, G. W. , CIE, (editor), Selections from The State Papers of the Governors-General of India - Warren Hastings (2 vols), Blackwell's, Oxford, 1910. Blackwell UK is a national chain of bookshops, online retail mail order and library services which has an annual turnover of £ 74 million
- Feiling, Keith, Warren Hastings (1954)
- Marshall, P. Sir Keith Grahame Feiling (1884 - 1977 was Chichele Professor of Modern History at the University of Oxford, 1946-1950 J. , The impeachment of Warren Hastings (1965)
- Thomas Babington Macaulay, "Warren Hastings" in Critical and Historical Essays [1]
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